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Iain Gray - Place of Birth, Date of Birth, Age, Wiki, Facts, Net Worth, Birthday, Biography and Family
Iain Gray, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Family, Facts, Age, Net Worth, Biography and More in FamedBorn.com
About Iain Gray
- Iain Cumming Gray (born 7 June 1957) is a Scottish politician, currently a Labour Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the East Lothian constituency.
- He was the Leader of Scottish Labour in the Scottish Parliament from 13 September 2008 to 17 December 2011.
- Gray resigned following his party's defeat at the 2011 Scottish Parliament election however, due to his experience; was selected as interim leader following the resignation of Jim Murphy after Scottish Labour's landslide defeat at the 2015 general election; where they lost forty seats to the SNP and only retained a single seat. A former aid worker and teacher of Maths and Physics, Gray was first elected to the devolved Scottish Parliament in 1999 as the MSP for the Edinburgh Pentlands constituency, which he lost to the-then Scottish Conservative Party leader, David McLetchie in 2003.
- Gray was returned to Holyrood in 2007, as the MSP for East Lothian.
- Following Wendy Alexander's resignation as Leader of the Scottish Labour Party in 2008, Gray stood at the subsequent leadership election, and was elected with a 57.8% share of the vote in the second round. Initially, Gray oversaw some electoral successes for Scottish Labour, such as repelling SNP challenges at the Glenrothes (2008) and Glasgow North East (2009) by-elections, as well as seeing Scottish Labour retain all their 41 seats in the House of Commons at the 2010 general election; despite the election resulting in first UK hung parliament in 36 years, and the Labour Party being defeated after thirteen years in government.
- The 2011 Scottish Parliament elections proved disastrous for the party, which lost 20 seats as the SNP won an outright majority of seats.
- Gray himself was only re-elected as MSP for East Lothian with a narrow majority of 151 votes.
- Gray announced his resignation the day after the result, but remained in post as leader until his successor, Johann Lamont, took over in December 2011. In June 2015, Gray was appointed Acting Leader of Scottish Labour whilst a leadership and a deputy leadership election were being simultaneously held, on account of the Deputy Leader, Kezia Dugdale, resigning to run for Leader.
