Background, Early Life and Career
MacAskill was born in Edinburgh and was educated at Linlithgow Academy before studying law at the University of Edinburgh. After completing his training at a firm in Glasgow, he set up Erskine MacAskill. He is married with two sons.
He came to prominence inside the SNP through his activities in the left wing 79 Group and became a party office bearer. In the 1980s he led the "Can't Pay, Won't Pay" campaign in opposition to the Poll Tax. It was widely known that he often disagreed politically with Alex Salmond, leader of the SNP through the 1990s, and he was at one stage viewed as belonging to the SNP Fundamentalist camp, being perceived to be allied to figures such as Jim Sillars and Alex Neil within the party.
Read more about this topic: Kenny MacAskill
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