BBC News Friday, May 7, 1999 Socialists' foot in Holyrood door The regional lists brought victory for Scottish Socialist Party leader Tom= my Sheridan, who has campaigned against both Margaret Thatcher's Conservative= Party and Tony Blair's New Labour. The lists, which operated on a form of proportional representation, also g= ave seats to Conservative leader David McLetchie and the UK's first Green parliamentarian to win outside a by-election. With all the results declared, the Scottish National Party had won 28 of t= he 56 top-up seats; the Tories 18; the Lib-Dems five and Labour three. Tommy Sheridan's party, formed out of the Scottish Socialist Alliance in O= ctober last year, has about 1,200 paid-up members. "From our point of view it is very much the David and Goliath show and Dav= id won," he said. He spearheaded the campaign against the poll tax north of the border - rec= eiving masses of support from Glasgow's Pollok area, where he grew up and now represents in the Scottish Parliament. He was voted onto Glasgow City Council in 1992 in a show of solidarity fro= m the city's working class while serving a six-month prison sentence following a= poll tax protest. During his time behind bars, he stood under the Scottish Militant Labour b= anner and came second in Glasgow Pollok in the 1992 General Election. The Conservatives have returned 18 candidates from the regional lists, a m= ajor step forward from their previous total lack of representation at Westminst= er. Mr McLetchie had to wait for more than 17 hours after the count in Lothian began, before learning he had won a place at Holyrood. Lib-Dem peer Lord Steel, who is expected to become the parliament's first presiding officer (speaker), also made it in from the Lothians list. And the Scottish Greens' Robin Harper made electoral history by securing h= is place in the parliament. [AUDIO] http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/335000/audio/_337628_laura_scot.ram [AUDIO] http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/335000/audio/_337581_sheridan.ram |: Paul Canning [EMAIL PROTECTED] =AE http://www.rainbow.net.au/~canning >Stop Net Censorship! | http://www.efa.org.au/Campaigns/petition.html >QAnnounce http://announce.queer.org.au/ Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=3Dsubscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=3Dunsubscribe%20leftlink
