Lamont seeks Labour’s top talents, elected or not

Johann Lamont, one of two MSPs standing for the top Labour job in Scotland, plans to ditch what she describes as the party’s “narrow tribal approach” to politics.

She has claimed anyone who backs the party’s aims, elected or not, will be considered for jobs in her top team.

Lamont’s aides insisted last night that the move was not an admission that the party’s newly depleted ranks of MSPs in Scotland did not have the necessary qualifications for leading roles in the party.

But other senior party sources have argued privately in recent months that such is the lack of well-known faces in the party’s Holyrood ranks, others should be brought into the fold.

Lamont, currently the deputy leader of the party’s Holyrood group, is a frontrunner to win the newly created post of Scottish Labour leader, along with fellow MSP Ken MacIntosh. Tom Harris, MP for Glasgow South, is also standing.

Last night, Lamont said: “We must reach across and beyond our party to bring together both those who hold Labour Party cards and those who just hold Labour values.”

She added: “I want us also to look to how we include our MPs and councillors, our party members and our supporters who are not party members, to build a shadow team ready and equipped to hold both of this country’s failing governments to account.”

Lamont said she would be looking for people with “experience and ability” from “within the party and beyond it”. As leader, she would pick them first and foremost on the basis of whether they could make a contribution, not “whether or where they are elected”.

She added: “Some of our recent past shows the disservice we do ourselves and the people we seek to serve when we take that kind of narrow tribal approach. I want us instead to build Team Labour.”

The approach was tried out by Gordon Brown when he hailed his plan for a “Government of all the talents”. Results were mixed, with some so-called “Goats” falling out over internal party politicking.