Congratulations President-elect Ros Scott from one of the 72%

Baroness Ros Scott has stormed to an astounding victory in the race to become Federal President of the Liberal Democrats and I'm delighted to have backed her from an early stage.
The full result, which is all over the Lib Dem blogosphere, is:
Chandila Fernando 1 799 - 6%
Lembit Opik MP 6 247 - 22%
Baroness Ros Scott 20 736 - 72%

I supported Ros because I firmly believed that she was the candidate who would be the voice of the ordinary member and activist, was not an elected Parliamentarian, has experience in both Local Government and Lords, and has the character to effectively fulfil the onerous duties of the post. Ros will soon be getting an invite to come and visit us in the Ochil Lib Dems on her next trip to Scotland.

It's a particularly nice feeling to be on the wining side for a change as I didn't give my first preference to the winner in either of the last two Federal leadership contests or the last two Scottish Leadership contests. I think the last time I cast a vote for the winning candidate in any of these types of ballots was when Charles Kennedy got himself elected as Federal Leader.

My 1st preference for Ros was cast positively and not a vote against either Lembit or Chandila, both of whom I believe have much to contribute to our party in the future.

Many congratulations once again Ros. I'm sure that you'll be a President to be proud of.

Scots Lib Dems inadvertantly censored this blog

As I'm sure you'll all be fed up hearing by now, I recently was in an election to become a Vice Convener of the Scottish Lib Dems.

The rules of engagement state that "no candidate nor any supporter may publish or circulate any material promoting his/her election. This prohibition includes the production of badges, posters, stickers, audio-visual or similar publicity material and any form of mechanical production (including photocopies or carbon copies) or any written material."

I rather suspected that before mentioning my Candidacy on here I should check with the Returning Officer. I duly did so and received a decision that a blog would fall into the rules above. Hence the reason that nowt has been blogged about the election before Friday's declaration.

I would strongly suggest to my fellow Scottish Lib Dems that we need to change these archaic rules before there are any other internal elections contested. It is not very Liberal to censor people, even when it's done accidentally.

Scottish Lib Dem Office Bearers 2008-2009

Further to my earlier post here are the full details of the Scottish Liberal Democrats Office Bearers who shall serve their term from the 1st January 2008 to 31st December 2009.

Leader: Nicol Stephen MSP (re-elected unopposed)

Deputy Leader: Michael Moore MP (re-elected unopposed)

President: Malcolm Bruce MP (re-elected unopposed)

Convener: Audrey Findlay (beat Helen Watt by 758 to 425)

Treasurer: Brian Logan (beat Patricia Carruthers (Catherine's Mum) by 633 to 533)

Vice Convener (Policy): Siobhan Mathers (elected unopposed)

Vice Convener (Campaigns & Candidates): Stephen Peters (elected unopposed)

Vice Convener (Conference): Iain Dale (beat Sheila Ritchie by 592 to 586)

I'm looking forward to serving my term of office and working with the other Office Bearers to improve the standing of the party in Scotland and to see our party become bigger, better and more radical.
many thanks to all who voted for me and sincere commiserations to Sheila Ritchie on losing by such a small margin. As I think Wellington said it was " a dammed close run thing".

I Won! (by 6 votes on the second recount)

Dale 592
Ritchie 586

As of the 1st of January 2008 I shall be an Office Bearer of the Scottish Liberal Democrats & shall discharge my duty with due diligence. Many thanks to all who voted for me and I promise to implement the manifesto on which I stood. More to follow..........