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Shirley-Anne Somerville
Shirley-Anne Somerville (born 2 September 1974) is a Scottish politician who has served as Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills since 2021. A member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), she has been the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Dunfermline since 2016, having previously served as an additional member for the Lothians region from 2007 to 2011. Born in Kirkcaldy, Somerville attended the University of Strathclyde, and later the University of Stirling, earning a BA (Hons) in Economics and Politics, and a Diploma in Housing studies respectively. After graduating, she worked as a Policy and Public Affairs Officer, and in 2006 she attended the Queen Margaret University. In the 2007 Scottish election, she was an SNP candidate for the Edinburgh Central constituency, but failed to win the seat, coming third. Following the resignation of Stefan Tymkewycz, Somerville succeeded him as the MSP for the Lothian region. She lost her seat in the 2011 election an ...
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Second Sturgeon Government
Nicola Sturgeon formed the second Sturgeon government following her Scottish National Party's victory in the 2016 Scottish Parliament election. Sturgeon was nominated by a vote of the 5th Scottish Parliament for appointment to the post of first minister on 17 May 2016. She was subsequently appointed by Queen Elizabeth II on 18 May, and announced formation of a new Scottish National Party minority government. The second Sturgeon government was an SNP minority administration and despite the whipping and resignation of some MSPs, this was also returned by Labour and Conservative opposition MSPs. Like the previous, it consisted of 50/50 gender balance cabinet; 5 men and 5 women. As part of wide criticism of policies, the resignation of many members and in response to the Brexit negotiations, Sturgeon conducted a major cabinet reshuffle in 2018. Following the resignation of Derek Mackay as Finance Secretary in 2020, Sturgeon performed a minor reshuffle of her cabinet. ...
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Member Of The Scottish Parliament
Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP; gd, Ball PĂ rlamaid na h-Alba, BPA; sco, Memmer o the Scots Pairliament, MSP) is the title given to any one of the 129 individuals elected to serve in the Scottish Parliament. Electoral system The additional member system produces a form of proportional representation, where each constituency has its own representative, and each region has seats given to political parties to reflect as closely as possible its level of support among voters. Each registered voter is asked to cast 2 votes, resulting in MSPs being elected in one of two ways: * 73 are elected as First past the post constituency MSPs and; * 56 are elected as Regional additional member MSPs. Seven are elected from each of eight regional groups of constituencies. Types of candidates With the additional members system, there are 3 ways in which a person can stand to be a MSP: * a constituency candidate * a candidate named on a party list at the regional election * an individu ...
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Queen Margaret University
Queen Margaret University is a university, founded in 1875 and located in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is named after the Scottish Queen Saint Margaret. History The university was founded in 1875, as ''The Edinburgh School of Cookery and Domestic Economy'', by Christian Guthrie Wright and Louisa Stevenson, both members of the Edinburgh Ladies' Educational Association. The School was founded as a women-only institution, with twin aims of improving women's access to higher education and improving the diets of working class families. Teaching was initially delivered via lectures at the Royal Museum, supplemented by a programme of public lectures and demonstrations delivered nationwide, but in 1877 the School established a base at Shandwick Place, in Haymarket. The school moved in 1891 to Atholl Crescent, expanding its courses and offering residential places to students. In 1909, the School was designated a Central Institution and brought under the public control of the Scottis ...
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2013 Dunfermline By-election
The Dunfermline by-election, 2013 is a by-election that was held for the Scottish Parliament constituency of Dunfermline on 24 October 2013. It followed the resignation of its MSP, Bill Walker after he was convicted of 23 charges of assault. It was won by Cara Hilton of the Labour Party, gaining the seat from the SNP. Background Bill Walker was elected as a SNP candidate in the 2011 election. In March 2012 a Scottish newspaper, the Sunday Herald, claimed that his first three marriages had ended with allegations of violent behaviour towards his wives. The SNP suspended Walker in March, and then expelled him in April, for allegedly not declaring similar claims cited in uncontested divorce proceedings during their MSP vetting process. On 22 August 2013, Walker was convicted of 23 offences of assault and one of breach of the peace in relation to three ex-wives and a stepdaughter, and sentencing was set for 20 September. The maximum sentence he could receive was 12 months, bu ...
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Yes Scotland
Yes Scotland was the organisation representing the parties, organisations, and individuals campaigning for a ''Yes'' vote in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. It was launched on 25 May 2012 and dissolved in late 2014 after Scotland voted against independence. Yes Scotland's chief executive was Blair Jenkins, and Dennis Canavan was the chair of its advisory board. Stephen Noon, a long term employee and policy writer of the SNP, was Yes Scotland's chief strategist. Its principal opponent in the independence campaign was the unionist Better Together campaign. By the formal start of the referendum campaign period in May 2014, it had become the "biggest grassroots movement in Scottish political history", said Jenkins. The campaign did not win independence, but "transformed politics in Scotland", suggested '' The Herald''. History Yes Scotland was launched in Edinburgh on 25 May 2012. The launch featured actors Alan Cumming and Brian Cox. A few days after the official l ...
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Edinburgh Central (Scottish Parliament Constituency)
Edinburgh Central is a burgh constituency of the Scottish Parliament ( Holyrood) covering part of the council area of Edinburgh. It elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) by the plurality (first past the post) method of election. It is also one of nine constituencies in the Lothian electoral region, which elects seven additional members, in addition to the nine constituency MSPs, to produce a form of proportional representation for the region as a whole. The constituency was created with the name and boundaries of a constituency of the '' Edinburgh Central'' UK Parliament constituency. Since 1999, the constituency MSP has been an ex officio member of the board of trustees of the National Library of Scotland. From 1925 until 1999, that role had been taken by the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Westminster constituency. The constituency was one of the few areas to vote "Yes" in the 2011 UK Alternative Vote referendum held on the same day as the 2011 Scottish ...
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2007 Scottish Parliament Election
The 2007 Scottish Parliament election was held on Thursday 3 May 2007 to elect members to the Scottish Parliament. It was the third general election to the devolved Scottish Parliament since it was created in 1999. Local elections in Scotland fell on the same day. The Scottish National Party emerged as the largest party with 47 seats, closely followed by the incumbent Scottish Labour Party with 46 seats. The Scottish Conservatives won 17 seats, the Scottish Liberal Democrats 16 seats, the Scottish Greens 2 seats and one Independent ( Margo MacDonald) was also elected. The SNP initially approached the Liberal Democrats for a coalition government, but the Lib Dems turned them down. Ultimately, the Greens agreed to provide the numbers to vote in an SNP minority government, with SNP leader Alex Salmond as First Minister. The Scottish Socialist Party and the Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party, which won seats in the 2003 election, lost all of their seats. Former MSP Tommy She ...
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Kirkcaldy
Kirkcaldy ( ; sco, Kirkcaldy; gd, Cair Chaladain) is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It is about north of Edinburgh and south-southwest of Dundee. The town had a recorded population of 49,460 in 2011, making it Fife's second-largest settlement and the 12th most populous settlement in Scotland. Kirkcaldy has long been nicknamed the Lang Toun (; Scots for "long town") in reference to the early town's main street, as indicated on maps from the 16th and 17th centuries. The street would finally reach a length of nearly , connecting the burgh to the neighbouring settlements of Linktown, Pathhead, Sinclairtown and Gallatown, which became part of the town in 1876. The formerly separate burgh of Dysart was also later absorbed into Kirkcaldy in 1930 under an act of Parliament. The area around Kirkcaldy has been inhabited since the Bronze Age. The first document to refer to the town is from 1075, when Malcolm III granted the settlemen ...
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2011 Scottish Parliament Election
The 2011 Scottish Parliament election was held on Thursday, 5 May 2011 to elect 129 members to the Scottish Parliament. The election delivered the first majority government since the opening of Holyrood, a remarkable feat as the Additional Member System used to elect MSPs was allegedly originally implemented to prevent any party achieving an overall parliamentary majority. The Scottish National Party (SNP) won a landslide of 69 seats, the most the party has ever held at either a Holyrood or Westminster election, allowing leader Alex Salmond to remain as First Minister of Scotland for a second term. The SNP gained 32 constituencies, twenty two from Scottish Labour, nine from the Scottish Liberal Democrats and one from the Scottish Conservatives. Such was the scale of their gains that, of the 73 constituencies in Scotland, only 20 came to be represented by MSPs of other political parties. Scottish Labour lost seven seats and suffered their worst election defeat in Scotland sin ...
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Lothian (Scottish Parliament Electoral Region)
Lothian is one of the eight electoral regions of the Scottish Parliament. Nine of the parliament's 73 first past the post constituencies are sub-divisions of the region and it elects seven of the 56 additional-member Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs). Thus it elects a total of 16 MSPs. The region is located in the eastern area of the Central Belt of the Scottish Lowlands and is anchored by capital city of Scotland, Edinburgh. The Lothian region was created as a result of the First Periodic Review of Scottish Parliament Boundaries and largely replaced the Lothians region. Constituencies and local government areas As a result of the First Periodic Review of Scottish Parliament Boundaries the boundaries for the region and constituencies were redrawn for the 2011 Scottish Parliament election. Members of the Scottish Parliament Constituency MSPs Regional list MSPs Elections take place on a whole-region basis: candidates shown in the same column have no particul ...
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