Former minister Deacon to quit

azzuri · Former minister Deacon to quit

Former minister Deacon to quit

Susan Deacon, the first Health Minister under devolution, is to stand down from the Scottish Parliament at next year's elections.

The Labour MSP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh yesterday told constituency party colleagues that they should start seeking a new candidate.

Her announcement comes as a shock to the Scottish political community, as the 42-year-old was seen as having a significant future within the group, and was a possible future contender for the party leadership.
As a back bencher, she has been a significant presence, drawing on her ministerial experience and as Labour's leading liberal voice on controversial issues such as sexual health policy.

In her statement, she said: "I now feel it is time for me to move on, to seek new challenges and to channel my energies in other ways."
It is understood she does not have work lined up after next May's election, but has long stressed that there should be more to politics than being elected.

While Ms Deacon refused to make further comment yesterday, it is thought she has also been frustrated by the restrictions on MSPs of all parties to debate issues openly.

Her statement was significant for making no mention of Scottish Labour.
It is thought Ms Deacon has been unhappy with the direction the party has been taking under Jack McConnell's leadership.

She has argued for Scottish public service reform to go further and faster and, being on the party's left, she has also been out of sympathy with the Blair leadership at Westminster.

The Edinburgh MSP has been careful not to criticise Mr McConnell in public, making what she has called "constructive criticisms" on policy.
Her most significant rebellion was ahead of the 2003 election, when she led a backbench protest at the moves towards war in Iraq.

Ms Deacon was the only Labour candidate in the 1999 elections to have been rejected from the party's approved list and then reinstated.

Donald Dewar appointed her Health Minister immediately after she was elected, and she remained in that post until November 2001.

At that point, Mr McConnell was appointing his first cabinet and, having been contemporaries as student Labour activists and devolution campaigners, he offered her the communities portfolio.

This was seen as a demotion and, citing her pregnancy with her second child, she turned down the offer and became a back bencher.

She lives in Musselburgh with her two children and her partner, John Boothman, a senior political producer with BBC Scotland.

Attention will turn to Labour's new candidate in a seat that was once safe, but could be vulnerable to a continuation of the anti-Labour swing across Edinburgh at last year's Westminster vote.

The SNP's Kenny MacAskill came second in 1999 and 2003, but LibDems last year moved into second place in the Westminster version of the Edinburgh East constituency.

The vacancy could be the way for Iain Gray, the former Enterprise Minister and Edinburgh Pentlands MSP, to make a return to Holyrood. It is believed that Labour's Scottish and Whitehall leadership are keen to have him return.

He has been the main link between Whitehall and St Andrew's House since 2003, when he became special adviser to Alistair Darling, now Trade and Industry Secretary.

MSPs who will not stand next year include Labour's Janis Hughes in Glasgow Rutherglen, Kate Maclean in Dundee West and Margaret MacMillan in Highlands and Islands.

Bruce McFee, an SNP MSP for West of Scotland and Phil Gallie, a Conservative MSP for South of Scotland are standing down, as are Jim Wallace in Orkney and LibDem Donald Gorrie in Central Scotland, plus George Reid, Presiding Officer and Ochil MSP.

see - http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/67830.html

SLG

See http://ourscotland.myfreeforum.org/ftopic2113.php