Member of The Scottish Parliament
The constituency was represented by John Home Robertson (Labour) from 1999 to 2007, at which point Mr Robertson stood down. He had previously been the MP at the UK Parliament for the East Lothian constituency, from 1983 to 1999. East Lothian has been represented by Iain Gray of the Scottish Labour Party, since the 2007 election. Gray was previously MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands from 1999 to 2003. Gray held the seat for Labour in 2007, with a majority reduced by two thirds to 2448, in the face of a strong challenge from the SNP's Andrew Sharp, who increased the nationalist vote by 90%, making the seat a marginal for the first time. At this point, East Lothian became a 'winnable' target seat for the 2011 election. Following Sharp's withdrawal due to serious illness, Gray held the seat in the 2011 Holyrood election, though his majority was reduced to 151 over the losing SNP candidate, former Council Leader David Berry.
| Member | Party | Took office | Left office | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iain Gray | Labour | 2007 | present | |
| John Home Robertson | Labour | 1999 | 2007 | |
Read more about this topic: East Lothian (Scottish Parliament Constituency)
Famous quotes containing the words member of the, member of, member, scottish and/or parliament:
“We live in a highly industrialized society and every member of the Black nation must be as academically and technologically developed as possible. To wage a revolution, we need competent teachers, doctors, nurses, electronics experts, chemists, biologists, physicists, political scientists, and so on and so forth. Black women sitting at home reading bedtime stories to their children are just not going to make it.”
—Frances Beale, African American feminist and civil rights activist. The Black Woman, ch. 14 (1970)
“I cannot be indifferent to the assassination of a member of my profession, We should be obliged to shut up business if we, the Kings, were to consider the assassination of Kings as of no consequence at all.”
—Edward VII (1841–1910)
“When committees gather, each member is necessarily an actor, uncontrollably acting out the part of himself, reading the lines that identify him, asserting his identity.... We are designed, coded, it seems, to place the highest priority on being individuals, and we must do this first, at whatever cost, even if it means disability for the group.”
—Lewis Thomas (b. 1913)
“I have hardly begun to live on Staten Island yet; but, like the man who, when forbidden to tread on English ground, carried Scottish ground in his boots, I carry Concord ground in my boots and in my hat,—and am I not made of Concord dust? I cannot realize that it is the roar of the sea I hear now, and not the wind in Walden woods. I find more of Concord, after all, in the prospect of the sea, beyond Sandy Hook, than in the fields and woods.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“He felt that it would be dull times in Dublin, when they should have no usurping government to abuse, no Saxon Parliament to upbraid, no English laws to ridicule, and no Established Church to curse.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)