Johann Lamont Quotes

We must listen and learn, show humility and seek again to talk for and to people's ambitions and concerns.

The Scottish Labour Party, while I have breath in my body, will listen to the views of trade unionists.

Our task is a great one, not just because of how far we have fallen. Our task is a great one because of the challenges facing the people we seek to serve.

We shall seek debate without division or rancour.

The next phase is to 2016, and yes, I want to be First Minister because I believe I have the life experience, and I've got a commitment to change.

What I will say will not always please you, but what I say will always be honest and true and how I genuinely see it.

If I have learned one thing in life, it is never to take any man's own estimate of himself. He could very well be mistaken.

Scotland cannot be the only 'something for nothing' country in the world.

We will renew our party, to rebuild our land - and we will do it by being a better Labour, real Labour, Scottish Labour.

Separation and devolution are two completely different concepts which cannot be mixed together. One is not a stop on the way to the other.

My working life has always been wrapped up in doing my job to the best of my abilities and doing the best for my family. It is not a contest between the two.

I want to change Scotland, but the only way we can change Scotland is by changing the Scottish Labour Party.

Schools are not exam factories for the rat race.

The Scottish Labour Party and its renewal are more important than me.

I spent ridiculous amounts of time as an activist and volunteer and was a teacher for 20 years.

The government don't want to talk about the consequences of the choices they make. They pretend there aren't any consequences.

In my mind, the CalMac ferry is linked with the joy of arrival, the sadness of departure, the loss of loved ones brought home by ferry to rest in island soil. It is friendships made and a working life begun.

We have a government that boasts about free education. Those of us who have scratched below the surface know it is costing us by denying opportunities for others to attend college or university.

Social injustice is what puts Scotland at its greatest disadvantage, and restoring the 50p tax rate will start to fight that.

Our politics is about people not flags.

There is a danger of Scottish politics being between two sets of dinosaurs ... the Nationalists who can't accept they were rejected by the people, and some colleagues at Westminster who think nothing has changed.

Progressive politics is not something to be bolted on to another cause.

It is not possible to spend on one thing and then not have consequences on something else.

The job of the Scottish Labour Party is to represent working people and represent Scotland.

I love hard political debate and I love beating somebody on a political point but what I'm more frustrated by is the politics where you play the man not the politics.

It's true across the U.K. that those who had least to do with causing the economic crisis are carrying the heaviest burden. That's unacceptable.

The Scottish Labour Party should work as equal partners with the U.K. party, just as Scotland is an equal partner in the United Kingdom. Scotland has chosen home rule - not London rule.

The instinct of the Labour Party is if there's a problem, change the leader, then sit back, fold your arms and wait to be disappointed because they're sure it's not going to deliver.

We do students a great disservice by implying that one set of students is more important than another.

The idea that an independent Scotland - having separated assets and liabilities from the rest of the U.K. - would expect the rest of the U.K. to be a lender of last resort, and of course be kind to them, doesn't make any sense.

Scotland has chosen to remain in partnership with our neighbours in the U.K. But Scotland is distinct, and colleagues must recognise that.

With the emergence of the Internet, it has become possible for creative and bold people with focus and determination to establish businesses in some of our remotest communities. But these will not work if they do not have reliable transport routes responding to the impatient modern customer.

We won't enshrine the Tories' policies in Scotland. We won't run away from the Tories but then let them run our economy. We will face up to the Tories, and we will beat them.

Those of us who were part of creating the Scottish parliament believe we must always test constitutional arrangements. The real test is where do the powers lie? Is it in the best interests of Scotland?

There is a circus around politics. But if you think it is a game, then you forget what the purpose of politics actually is.

My granny would come out and stay with us in the winter, and we would listen to the reports from the coastal stations and have a discussion in the middle of Glasgow about what the weather was like in Tiree.

The big issues, the things that scar Scotland - the least of them is whether we should have a border at Gretna Green or not.

My uncle was skipper on the old Claymore sailing out from Oban to the Inner Hebrides. My father worked for MacBraynes all his life, on freight boats and then on ferries crossing to Skye, Barra, Uist, the small isles and Iona.

I will not promise what I cannot deliver. And I will never hide the cost of what I propose.

I made a different decision to send my children to the local state school.

The Labour Party in 2011 was in an exceptionally bad place. We'd been hammered in an election. We didn't see the scale of it coming.

We need to find a way of having a conversation across the parties on how you fund local government.

I've got a very deep and abiding passion about education being far more than buildings and textbooks; it's what children bring into school with them.

I guess it feels to me that the political argument that has been lost in my lifetime is taxation. How do you engage in that debate when people don't trust politicians at all? It is almost impossible to start a conversation about taxation.

Maybe I was just born to argue with men.