In the end, it wasn’t even close. Richard Leonard now takes ownership of the black spot handed to every leader of the Scottish Labour party. He defeated Anas Sarwar, the son of the former MP Mohammed of that ilk and the early presumed favourite in the race, by 12,469 votes to 9,516. Mr Leonard is the party’s sixth leader in a decade.
Sarwar began the contest with several disadvantages, the first of which being that he was relatively well-known. That was sufficient to win him the support of most of his Holyrood colleagues but a grave handicap in terms of a party membership craving something – anything – new. His background hardly helped either. Being a millionaire who sends his children to one of Glasgow’s more prestigious private schools was one thing; the discovery that the Sarwar family business – a lucrative cash and carry enterprise – did not pay its workers the so-called living wage, quite another.
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