Parliamentary Career
A committed and vocal supporter of Scottish independence, Margo MacDonald won the Glasgow Govan by-election, 1973, as a Scottish National Party (SNP) candidate; Govan had until then been a Labour stronghold. She failed to retain the seat in the following general election of February 1974, but became Deputy Leader of the SNP in 1974, a post she held until 1979.
A political left-winger, she was prominent in the socialist 79 Group and left the party in 1982 due to this group's proscription.
She began to establish herself as a forceful presenter of various radio and television programmes, including the short-lived Colour Supplement for Radio 4 in the mid-1980s. She currently writes regularly for Scottish newspapers including the Edinburgh Evening News.
By the mid-1990s she had returned to the SNP and in 1999, she was elected to the Scottish Parliament, representing the Lothians. This period marked her becoming less influential with the leadership of the SNP, firstly under Alex Salmond and then John Swinney, having been viewed as being in the SNP Fundamentalist mould and having supported Alex Neil in the party leadership election in 2000. This culminated in her being placed fifth on the SNP list for Lothians for the 2003 Parliament election, whereas she had been first in 1999. This effectively ended her chances of being elected as an SNP MSP and she decided to stand as an independent. She was officially expelled from the SNP on 28 January 2003.
She was re-elected as an independent MSP at the 2003 Scottish Parliament election, and again in 2007 and 2011. After her 2007 re-election MacDonald stood to become Presiding Officer, but lost the ballot to Alex Fergusson.
In 2002 she stated that she had Parkinson's Disease, and had known about the diagnosis for six years.
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