after the Sunday Herald quoted him making a controversial statement about a rape victim, and later welcomed his subsequent resignation. As Gray's deputy Lamont also represented Labour at First Minister's Questions in his absence. At a session of First Minister's Questions in October 2009, she raised the issue of the Scottish Futures Trust with Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, asking whether the public body planned to spend any money on improving school infrastructure before the 2011 election. Leader of the Scottish Labour Party Leadership election In the wake of Labour's second defeat at the Scottish Parliament election of May 2011, which saw the Scottish National Party (SNP) form its first majority government, Gray announced his intention to step down as leader of the Labour MSPs later that year. A review chaired by Jim Murphy and Sarah Boyack into the party's structure in Scotland subsequently concluded that the next leader should lead the entire Scottish Labour Party rather than just its MSPs, as previous leaders had. Lamont declared her candidacy for the leadership election in September 2011 and launched her campaign on 7 November at Stirling University. She told delegates that Labour needed to reengage with the electorate if it wanted to govern again: "We must listen and learn, show humility and seek again to talk for and to people's ambitions and concerns. Our real challenge is that we in Labour lost our way, lost our confidence and lost Scotland." Lamont's opponents in the leadership race were the MP Tom Harris, and her fellow MSP Ken Macintosh, both of whom had also expressed a need for Labour to change if it was to win the next election. Harris's campaign centred on the belief that Labour had to "[re-establish] itself as the party of aspiration", or it would risk becoming "an irrelevance". Macintosh felt the party had focused too heavily on its traditional support in the Central Belt while paying less attention to rural communities. He suggested increasing government help to tackle unemployment among young people, and wanted to nationalise rail and bus services. The result of the election was announced on 17 December 2011 and saw Lamont secure an overall majority with 51.77% of the vote in the first round. Her closest rival was Macintosh with 40.28%, while Harris was third with 7.95%. Lamont also won majorities in two groups of Labour's three-tier electoral college system, securing the support of parliamentarians