The results posted below show that Bill Butler and Cathy Jamieson did rather better with members and affiliates than the headline vote published in the media suggests.

In plain terms, the left candidates got just under half the popular vote.

Bill took 45.1% of ordinary members votes; and 48.4% of those in affiliates (unions and socialist societies). He only got 26% of the parliamentary section.

Cathy took 42.5% of members’ votes; and actually won the affiliates section with 51.5%. She got 32.4% in the parliamentary section. (Cathy figures are for second round run-off).

News from Scottish Labour 13 September 2008
Result of Leader and Deputy Leader of Labour in the Scottish Parliament

The sections of the electoral college are
Section 1 – MSPs, MPs and MEPs
Section 2 – Individual members of the Labour Party
Section 3 – Individual members of affiliated organisations

Deputy Leader
1st round 

Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

Total

Bill Butler

8.66%

15.02%

16.14%

39.82%

Johann Lamont

24.68%

18.31%

17.19%

60.18%

Johann Lamont elected 

Leader 1st round

Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

Total

lain Gray

17.89%

15.06%

13.05%

46.00%

Cathy Jamieson

8.94%

10.27%

14.09%

33.30%

Andy Kerr

6.50%

8.00%

6.19%

20.69%

Andy Kerr is therefore eliminated

Leader 2nd round

Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

Total

lain Gray

22.52%

19.10%

16.17%

57.79%

Cathy Jamieson

10.81%

14.23%

17.17%

42.21%

lain Gray elected 

SCOTTISH CAMPAIGN FOR  SOCIALISM
Press Release

Following the announcement today of the election  results for the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Scottish Group of Labour MSPs at  Holyrood, the Scottish Campaign for Socialism said that the vote of 47% for Bill  Butler in the individual party members and affiliates section in the Deputy Leader contest was a positive sign that the grassroots of the Labour Party recognised that the Party had to return to its traditional core values in order to win back voters in Scotland.

What was disappointing was the difference in  results in the parliamentary third of the electoral college which highlighted  that the Parliamentary part of the Party has not yet faced up to the problems  facing Scotland as well as the fact that in the election a parliamentarians vote  was worth 2000 times the value of an individual members vote. It was also  disappointing that some trade unions failed to support a candidate who was the  only one to campaign on the STULP workplace agenda.

The election campaign was positive in that all  leadership candidates moved to the left in support of a better pay offer for low  paid local government workers and a windfall tax on the profiteering energy  companies. It is time now for Scottish Labour to challenge the SNP on its agenda  of cosying up to big business. It is time for Labour to present progressive and  popular policies that will benefit all of the people of Scotland.

ENDS

September 13th 2008 16.50 hrs

Gordon McKay
Secretary, Scottish Campaign for  Socialism

According to http://www.iaingrayforscotland.net/home/biography, Iain Gray was “in Rwanda two months after the genocide and in the refuge camps of Eastern Zaire where the survivers fled in their hundreds of thousands. He has worked in the minefields of Cambodia and in Zimbabwean villages simply decimated by HIV/AIDs.”

In the first term he had a series of Ministerial posts. He lost his seat at the next election and went to work as a Special Adviser to Alisdair Darling. Doubtless that was helpful when it came to finding a path back into Holyrood in 2007, and there is of course a consensus that Iain Gray is Gordon Brown’s preferred candidate.

However noble and humanitarian the association may be in some cases, I’m still not sure that Iain is wise to highlight such a long association with disasters.