Lib Dem MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton announces leadership bid

Alex Cole-Hamilton has confirmed he will be putting his name forward to succeed Willie Rennie as leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats.

The Edinburgh Western MSP said he believed Scotland needed "new hope" after everything it had been through.

And he said he believed the country had been held back by a "clash of nationalisms" between the SNP and Conservatives.

Mr Rennie announced earlier this month he would be stepping down as leader.

He has led the party for the past decade but said it now needed a "fresh face" to take it forward after it won just four seats in the Scottish Parliament election in May.

Mr Cole-Hamilton is widely expected to replace him, and is so far the only person to confirm that they will be standing for the role. Nominations for the contest close on 20 August.

He told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme that he had first gone into politics because he believed the Scottish Parliament was failing young people "at the sharpest end of society".

He added: "That was many, many years ago and it is dispiriting to see that Scotland is still no further forward. In fact, we've gone backwards on things like child poverty, hospital waiting times, on education and on drug deaths.

"In recent times we have been held back by a clash of nationalisms, by which I mean of course Scottish nationalism with the SNP but also British nationalism with Boris Johnson and the Brexiteers.

"People are crying out for an alternative to those extremes and I believe the Lib Dems can offer that."

Mr Cole-Hamilton said he would be the first Liberal Democrat leader anywhere in the UK that had no link to the party's coalition government with the Conservatives at Westminster.

He added: "I think that allows us to draw a line under that, because obviously that was an issue of trust for many people, and to move things forward.

"But I don't fear power - I think in fact Liberal Democrats would seek power because it's much harder to change things from fourth or fifth place."

He said seeking power would allow the party to bring its agenda to life and allow it to devolve power to communities, give greater equality to minorities and tackle climate change "without the baggage of nationalism".

Mr Cole-Hamilton also said his party could give people "much needed hope after years of constitutional battle, but also the suffering of the pandemic and the uncertainty that has caused people."

He said he would respect his party's "unambiguous manifesto commitment" to oppose another independence referendum, and was also committed to the UK re-joining the EU at some point in the future.

Mr Cole-Hamilton has been an MSP since 2016, and is currently the party's health spokesman at Holyrood.

He served on the committee that investigated the Scottish government's handling of sexual harassment complaints against Alex Salmond.

He apologised in February after being caught on camera mouthing swear words at government minister Maree Todd during a parliamentary committee.