LABOUR'S deputy environment spokeswoman Elaine Murray has dropped out of the race for the deputy leadership of the party in Scotland because she failed to gain enough nominations.
The threshold for candidates was 10 backers from parliamentarians, including one from a parliament other than their own.
Dr Murray, the MSP for Dumfriesshire, has the biggest majority of any Labour MSP and increased it at three Holyrood elections.
She said she could have got enough backing but withdrew because it was clear the deputy leader would come from Westminster.
An MP and two MSPs will contest the leadership of the Scottish Labour Party – a new post which goes beyond Iain Gray’s current status as leader at Holyrood. They are Tom Harris, Johann Lamont and Ken Macintosh.
The deputy leadership will be fought by two Westminster MPs, Ian Davidson and Anas Sarwar, and MSP Lewis Macdonald, meaning there will only be one woman in contention for the two posts.
The official hustings period starts later this month with final result being announced on December 17.
Eastwood MSP Mr Macintosh was first to have his leadership campaign launch last week. On Thursday Glasgow South MP Mr Harris said he was best placed to take on Alex Salmond. Mr Lamont’s campaign launch will be in Stirling on Monday.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article