Allan Wilson (Scottish Politician)

Allan Wilson (born 5 August 1954) is a former Labour Member of the Scottish Parliament. He represented Cunninghame North, a seat which he held between the inaugural Scottish Parliament general election in 1999 until 2007.

He was educated at Spier's school near Beith, Ayrshire, and worked as a trades union official with NUPE and UNISON until his election to the Scottish Parliament. He was a member of the Executive of the Scottish Labour Party from 1992 until 1999 and election agent for Brian Wilson.

He was Labour lead on the Scottish Parliament's Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee and also a member of the European Committee prior to becoming Deputy Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport in October 2000 and then Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development in November 2001 in the Scottish Executive. In October 2004 he was appointed Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning.

He is married, has two sons, and lives in Kilbirnie. He was a member of the Scottish Parliamentary football team, current holders of the four nations' Parliamentary Trophy (Parliamentary Shield) and Chairman of Kilbirnie Community Football Club comprising 15 teams and for over thirty years a former player, coach and manager of various Ayrshire juvenile, amateur and junior teams in the Scottish Junior Football Association, Scottish Amateur Football Association and the Scottish Football Association.

In the 2007 Scottish Parliament Election he lost his seat Cunninghame North to the Scottish National Party's Kenny Gibson, by only 48 votes, making it the most marginal seat in the country. Wilson originally wished to challenge the result but the Scottish Labour Party, following advice from their solicitors, did not proceed with an election petition on his behalf. In the 2011 election, Wilson again stood against Gibson for the Cunninghame North seat, but this time lost more emphatically, with Gibson's majority increasing from 48 to 6,117.

Famous quotes containing the words allan and/or wilson:

    If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize, at one effort, the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment, the opportunity is his own—the road to immortal renown lies straight, open, and unencumbered before him. All that he has to do is to write and publish a very little book. Its title should be simple—a few plain words—”My Heart Laid Bare.” But—this little book must be true to its title.
    —Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)

    At last a vision has been vouchsafed to us of our life as a whole. We see the bad with the good.... With this vision we approach new affairs. Our duty is to cleanse, to reconsider, to restore, to correct the evil without impairing the good, to purify and humanize every process of our common life, without weakening or sentimentalizing it.
    —Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)