Quotes from Johann Lamont

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

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

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.

Telling the truth, and confronting the challenge, is what politics is about.

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.

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

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.

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.

As a youngster, I travelled every year across the sea to Tiree. On occasion, we ventured to Skye on the Kyleakin-Kyle of Lochalsh ferry, where there is now a bridge.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

When universities are forced to recruit more and more from outwith Scotland just to balance the books, it is inevitable that doors are being slammed shut on some of our brightest talent.

The test is can you do something, rather than have a theoretical argument - can you make a difference?

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

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

I'd always step up to the mark to serve the people of the country.

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.