Iain Gray

Who is Iain Gray?

Iain Gray is a Scottish politician, currently a Labour Party Member of the Scottish Parliament for the East Lothian constituency. He was the leader of Scottish Labour in the Scottish Parliament from 13 September 2008 to 17 December 2011. He resigned following his party's defeat in the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections. It is expected that in the 2013 summer reshuffle Iain will replace Ken Macintosh as shadow cabinet secretary for finance.

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 Conservatives in 2003. He was returned to parliament in 2007, for the East Lothian constituency. Following Wendy Alexander's resignation as Scottish Labour leader in 2008, Gray stood in the subsequent leadership election and was successful.

Initially, Gray oversaw some electoral successes for Scottish Labour, such as repelling SNP challenges in the Glenrothes and Glasgow North East by-elections, as well as Scottish Labour maintaining all 41 constituencies it holds in the House of Commons at the 2010 General Election. However, the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections proved disastrous for the party, which lost 20 constituencies as the SNP won an outright majority of seats. Gray himself was re-elected in East Lothian with a very tight majority of 151 votes.