New leader for Glasgow City Council

Former Labour MSP Frank McAveety is to be the new leader at Glasgow City Council, it was reported today.

The former Scottish Executive minister defeated Malcolm Cunning, the local authority’s executive member for Social Care, by 24 votes to 19.

Cunning took to social media to congratulate McAveety, tweeting: “Congratulations to @FMcAveety on his election as @Glasgow_Labour Leader; he will have my fullest and unswerving support.”

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This is the second time McAveety will have taken on the top political job in Glasgow.

He served as leader from 1997 until 1999, before being elected to the then Scottish Executive where he held a variety of roles, including deputy minister for Local Government, deputy minister for Health and Community Care and Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport

He lost his Holyrood seat in 2011 to the SNP but was elected as councillor for the Shettleston ward the following year.

McAveety will take over from Gordon Matheson, who announced his intention to stand down as leader last month.

Matheson said at the time: “One of the judgements of politics is to know when to move on. The time is right for me to consolidate the successes I have enjoyed in Glasgow in recent years and progress to the next phase in my career.”

McAveety will officially become leader at tomorrow’s full council meeting.

SNP leader of the opposition Councillor Susan Aitken said: “It is a mark of Labour’s fall in Glasgow that they have elected as leader a politician rejected by the people of Shettleston in 2011. 

“We know, because he has been selected to stand again in that constituency, that leading the city is Frank’s second choice, at best.

“Glasgow deserves better than that.”