Pat Lally
Pat Lally, is a former Leader of
Glasgow City Council and
Lord Provost of Glasgow.
Pat Lally was born and brought up in the
Gorbals, a poor district of
Glasgow. He left school at 13, and was
conscripted to the
RAF after the War. He joined the
Labour Party in
1950 and was elected as a
Glasgow Corporation councillor in
1966.
Lally was suspended from Labour's candidates list in
1977 in a housing allocation row, but returned to the
City Chambers in
1980.He was council leader of Glasgow Council in the early
1990s and became
Lord Provost of the new
City Council in
1996, serving until
1999.In
1997 he was suspended by the party in a "votes for trips" scandal along with
Alex Mosson. Both took the party to the
Court of Session and had the suspension revoked.
Lally retired from local government in 1999 after being credited as being the driving force behind 1988
Glasgow Garden Festival, Glasgow becoming
European City of Culture in 1990, the
City of Architecture (1991) and the building of the
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, which was dubbed 'Lally's Palais'.
Pat Lally is nicknamed '
Lazarus Lally', as a result of his numerous policical comebacks.
He quit the Labour Party in 2003, but later that year stood at the age of 77 against
Mike Watson in
Glasgow Cathcart to be an
MSP as a health campaign candidate, and stood again to be an MSP in the
October 2005 by-election, against ex-council leader
Charlie Gordon, as an independent for the same constituency.
