Who’s left standing in Scottish Labour?

Labour’s ban on standing for election both in a constituency and on the list has led to a real loss of talent amongst their MSPs, and it’ll be very tough for them to find a new leader who can become leader of the opposition with experience and charisma.

I haven’t found any survey of it anywhere, so I made my own, based on Wikipedia.

I presume a new leader will have to be no older than 55 (because they’ll have to try and become First Minister from 2016 to 2021), so they’ll have to have been born after 1956. They’ll also need to have been a MSP for at least four years. Finally, I suspect Labour will only accept a constituency MSP.

As far as I can tell, this cuts the list of potential new leaders down to the following (ruling out the current leader, Iain Gray):

• Johann Lamont, born 1957 (MSP since 1999).
• Patricia Ferguson, born 1958 (MSP since 1999).
• Michael McMahon, born 1961 (MSP since 1999).
• Ken Macintosh, born 1962 (MSP since 1999).
• Elaine Smith, born 1963 (MSP since 1999).
• James Kelly, born 1963 (MSP since 2007).
• Jackie Baillie, born 1964 (MSP since 1999).
• Paul Martin, born 1967 (MSP since 1999).

The following I have ruled out because of age:

• Richard Simpson, born 1942 (MSP since 2007).
• Helen Eadie, born 1947 (MSP since 1999).
• John Pentland, born 1948 (newly elected).
• Malcolm Chisholm, born 1949 (MSP since 1999).
• Duncan McNeil, born 1950 (MSP since 1999).
• Hugh Henry, born 1952 (MSP since 1999).
• Elaine Murray, born 1954 (MSP since 1999).

The following I have ruled out because they’re not constituency MSPs:

• David Stewart, born 1956 (MSP since 2007).
• Lewis MacDonald, born 1957 (MSP since 1999).
• Sarah Boyack, born 1961 (MSP since 1999).
• Rhoda Grant, born 1963 (MSP 1999-2003 and since 2007).
• Claire Brennan-Baker, born 1971 (MSP since 2007).
• John Park, born 1973 (MSP since 2007).
• Richard Baker, born 1974 (MSP since 2003).

Finally, here are the newly elected list MSPs, most of which are completely unknown and don’t have Wikipedia pages: Jenny Marra, Siobhan McMahon, Neil Bibby, Mark Griffin, Margaret McCulloch, Drew Smith, Anne McTaggart, Kezia Dugdale, Neil Findlay, Claudia Beamish, Graeme Pearson, Mary Fee, Margaret McDougall and Hanzala Malik.