Speculation is mounting that Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader Nicol Stephen is to stand down.

It is understood the Aberdeen south MSP and former Scottish deputy first minister is due to make a statement to the media shortly.

Mr Stephen and his party were ousted from power by the SNP last May, after serving in coalition rule with Labour.

The surprise announcement is expected to come comes less than a week after the Labour leader Wendy Alexander quit.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7486589.stm

What Labour does, the LibDems must do too !

And it's been confirmed

The unfortunate Mr Stephen could probably take no more of FMQ. The weekly dose of humiliation must have been tough to take after the cosy ride he had with his chum Jack.

Mmmm
sudden
strange time to choose
the reason pressure taking him away from family life.
I am having doubts.

What is behind this?

I think Levinax may have a point, he does take a beating every FMQs but surely he could have found a way through that.

I wonder if we have a wee scandal in the offing here. If he has done something wrong it could be he has decided it would be more honorable to resign before it breaks.

darkside wrote:
Speculation is mounting that Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader Nicol Stephen is to stand down.


Will anyone notice?

dws wrote:
darkside wrote:
Speculation is mounting that Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader Nicol Stephen is to stand down.


Will anyone notice?

Only if the seat's empty

And now one of the leadership contenders, Mike Rumbles, is saying that the Lib Dems should have their own internal poll over a Scottish referendum.

http://tinyurl.com/6g9xfk

I believe Labour and Lib Dems are reacting in the same way they did when they were aware Devolution would happen no matter what they did or said. Big panic we had better back this. If they hold that opinion over Independence they may not want to be left out of politics in Scotland. They probably have nightmares about their 1/2/3. MSPs taking flak from Alex Salmond in Holyrood in an Independent Parliament.

Robin T Cox wrote:
And now one of the leadership contenders, Mike Rumbles, is saying that the Lib Dems should have their own internal poll over a Scottish referendum.

http://tinyurl.com/6g9xfk

Interesting development that one Robin. Let's hope he means it. Wendy didn't. I think her own "bring it on" was nothing more than a bluff myself. I think Stephen has jumped before he was pushed. He has brought a lot of embarrassment on his Party and had become a joke. Not even a funny one. They were losing a lot of ground.

Looking at Mike Rumbles' statement yesterday, I suspect they want to run a campaign in parallel to Labour's. While it is pretty obvious that there will be no love lost in the Labour election, the Lib Dems will put on a show of complete unity and use this at the next election.

I reckon Nicol Stephens was going soon anyway due to his large family and they have seen the opportunity to score points during Labour's current crisis.

You watch, whatever disagreements there are in the Lib Dems will be kept strictly behind closed doors ad there will be an unbelieveably gentlemanly contest.

Martin wrote:

I reckon Nicol Stephens was going soon anyway due to his large family

It's a bit of a cliche, isn't it? It may be partly true certainly but I suspect it has more with him not cutting the mustard as effective opposition, cynical git that I am...