Glasgow North MP Ann McKechin has declared that she is to run in the Shadow Cabinet elections, Scrapbook can reveal.
A lot has changed since we last wrote about the aspirant Scottish contenders with the woman tipped as the next Shadow Scottish Secretary declining to run. Meanwhile the blogosphere’s favourite, Tom Harris, spent five minutes in the race for Chief Whip before backing Jim Fitzpatrick. Tom’s now thrown his hat into a tight Shadow Cabinet field with only 13 places for men.
With Jim Murphy and Douglas Alexander both as keen to avoid being stuck with the Scotland job as their Welsh counterparts are with the Wales job they’ll likely put considerable effort into ensuring another Scot is in the Shadow Cabinet, a task which is undeniably easier in the women’s section.
Having voted against the Iraq War Ann McKechin openly describes herself as ‘soft left’, and is one of Ed Miliband’s Scottish lieutenants along with Margaret Curran. With Scottish Labour more than doubling the number of women they send to Westminster they now have proportionately more female MPs than the rest of the Labour Party. It therefore seems only natural that they would want one of their own in the Shadow Cabinet.
Jim Murphy might just have dodged the bullet.
