Johann Lamont
Johann Lamont
Johann MacDougall Lamontis a Scottish politician, who was leader of the Scottish Labour Party from 2011 to 2014. She served as a junior minister in the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition Scottish Executive from 2004 until the coalition's defeat by the Scottish National Partyin 2007. She was subsequently elected deputy leader of the opposition Labour group of MSPs in 2008, and was elected to lead the Labour Party in December 2011. She announced her resignation in October 2014, and following a leadership...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth11 July 1957
I didn't particularly want to go to Westminster - not that there were many seats available or chances for women to get elected. In 1987, Labour sent down 50 MPs, and only one of them was a woman.
I don't agree with the Tories on most things.
I'd always step up to the mark to serve the people of the country.
My uncle was skipper on the old Claymore sailing out from Oban to the Inner Hebrides. My father worked for MacBraynes all his life, on freight boats and then on ferries crossing to Skye, Barra, Uist, the small isles and Iona.
Scotland has chosen to remain in partnership with our neighbours in the U.K. But Scotland is distinct, and colleagues must recognise that.
I firmly believe that Scotland's place is in the U.K., and I do not believe in powers for power's sake.
When universities are forced to recruit more and more from outwith Scotland just to balance the books, it is inevitable that doors are being slammed shut on some of our brightest talent.
My granny would come out and stay with us in the winter, and we would listen to the reports from the coastal stations and have a discussion in the middle of Glasgow about what the weather was like in Tiree.
It's true across the U.K. that those who had least to do with causing the economic crisis are carrying the heaviest burden. That's unacceptable.
The next phase is to 2016, and yes, I want to be First Minister because I believe I have the life experience, and I've got a commitment to change.
In my mind, the CalMac ferry is linked with the joy of arrival, the sadness of departure, the loss of loved ones brought home by ferry to rest in island soil. It is friendships made and a working life begun.
I remember going to see Billy Graham in a cinema in Glasgow, and he was down in London. I used to go and hear preachers, and then we always went to church and Sunday school. That mattered a lot to me.
If you don't accept there is a problem, then it is hard to debate things.
There is a danger of Scottish politics being between two sets of dinosaurs... the Nationalists who can't accept they were rejected by the people, and some colleagues at Westminster who think nothing has changed.