Alex Cole-Hamilton
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Alexander Geoffrey Cole-Hamilton (born 22 July 1977) is a Scottish politician who has served as Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats since 2021 and the
Member of the Scottish Parliament Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP; gd, Ball Pàrlamaid 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 ad ...
(MSP) for the Edinburgh Western constituency since
2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...
.


Early life

Cole-Hamilton was born in
Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...
, England, the son of inorganic chemist Dr David John Cole-Hamilton,
FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...
, FRSC, a lecturer at the
University of Liverpool , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...
and speech therapist and marine archaeological academic Elizabeth Ann, daughter of RCNVR officer and government employee Bruce Lloyd Brown (1914-2002), of
Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Greater Victoria area has a population of 397,237. Th ...
,
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, grandson of Alexander Brown, co-founder of Christie, Brown and Company, the largest Canadian manufacturer of biscuits. His great-grandfather Richard Cole-Hamilton was
Archdeacon of Brecon An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denominations, above that of mos ...
from 1947 to 1955. The Cole-Hamiltons descend from
Arthur Cole-Hamilton Hon. Arthur Cole-Hamilton (born Cole; 8 August 1750 – 1810) was an Anglo-Irish politician who sat in the Irish House of Commons for Fermanagh and Enniskillen. After the Acts of Union 1800, he sat in British House of Commons for Enniskillen. C ...
, younger son of the Irish politician
John Cole, 1st Baron Mountflorence John Cole, 1st Baron Mountflorence (13 October 1709 – 30 November 1767) was an Irish peer and politician. Born in Dublin, he was the son of John Cole, Member of Parliament for Enniskillen. In 1726 he was admitted to Trinity College Dublin,''Al ...
, of
Florence Court Florence Court is a large 18th-century house and estate located 8 miles south-west of Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is set in the foothills of Cuilcagh Mountain. The nearby village is distinguished by the one-word name Flo ...
, whose eldest son and heir,
William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
, was created
Earl of Enniskillen Earl of Enniskillen is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1789 for William Cole, 1st Viscount Enniskillen. He had already been created Viscount Enniskillen in the Peerage of Ireland in 1776 and had inherited the title Baron ...
. Relatives include Anni Cole-Hamilton, founder of the private
Moray Firth School Moray Firth School was an independent school located at Gollanfield, between Inverness and Nairn, Scotland. It was open 2002–2010 and during that period was the only independent school in the Highland council area. Establishment Plans for t ...
, and Air Vice Marshal
John Cole-Hamilton Air Vice Marshal John Beresford Cole-Hamilton, (1 December 1894 – 22 August 1945) was an airship pilot in the Royal Naval Air Service during the First World War and a senior Royal Air Force commander during the Second World War. Family Cole- ...
. Cole-Hamilton's family moved from
Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...
to Scotland when he was 8 years old. After attending
Madras College Madras College, often referred to as Madras, is a Scottish comprehensive secondary school located in St Andrews, Fife. It educates over 1,400 pupils aged between 11 and 18 and was founded in 1833 by the Rev. Dr Andrew Bell. History Madras ...
, a state school in
St Andrews St Andrews ( la, S. Andrea(s); sco, Saunt Aundraes; gd, Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fou ...
, he graduated from the
University of Aberdeen The University of Aberdeen ( sco, University o' 'Aiberdeen; abbreviated as ''Aberd.'' in List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom), post-nominals; gd, Oilthigh Obar Dheathain) is a public university, public research university in Aberdeen, Sc ...
with a degree in politics and international relations. There, he was President of the Students' Representative Council from 1999 until 2000, where he was actively involved in negotiations with coalition ministers to abolish tuition fees in Scotland. On leaving Aberdeen in 2000, he was appointed to the role of constituency organiser in the Liberal Democrat held constituency of Edinburgh West. He went on to work for the Liberal Democrats in the Scottish Parliament until late 2003 at which point he was appointed as a policy and communications officer in the Children’s voluntary sector, where he worked for various organisations until his election in 2016. During this time he was a Director of and then latterly the Convener of "Together (Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights)". Cole-Hamilton won several Scottish and UK awards with other colleagues in the informal 'Coalition for Continuing Care' for their successful campaign to change the age of leaving care in Scotland from 18 to 21. Throughout his career, up to his election, Cole-Hamilton volunteered as a youth worker for a range of organisations.


Political career

Cole-Hamilton stood in several constituencies unsuccessfully as a Lib Dem candidate: at the 2003 Scottish Parliament election for the Kirkcaldy constituency; at the 2005 general election for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath; in 2007 for Stirling and in 2011 for Edinburgh Central. Following the
2015 United Kingdom general election The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 7 May 2015 to elect 650 members to the House of Commons. It was the first and only general election held at the end of a Parliament under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. Loca ...
, Deputy Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat Leader
Nick Clegg Sir Nicholas William Peter Clegg (born 7 January 1967) is a British media executive and former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who has been president for global affairs at Meta Platforms since 2022, having previously been vicepr ...
quoted Cole-Hamilton when delivering his resignation speech. He referred to the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, saying "In 2011 after a night of disappointing election results for our party in Edinburgh, Alex Cole-Hamilton said this: if his defeat was part-payment for the ending of child detention, then he accepted it with all his heart. Those words revealed a selfless dignity which is very rare in politics, but common amongst Liberal Democrats." In May 2016, Cole-Hamilton was elected to the Scottish Parliament for the Edinburgh Western constituency. After the election, he was made Scottish Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Health. Cole-Hamilton's 2016 electoral expenses were investigated in June of the following year, according to the ''
Edinburgh Evening News The ''Edinburgh Evening News'' is a daily newspaper and website based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded by John Wilson (1844–1909) and first published in 1873. It is printed daily, except on Sundays. It is owned by JPIMedia, which also ...
'': "Mr Cole-Hamilton recorded the highest election costs of any Edinburgh candidate, spending £32,549 on his campaign while his rival for the Edinburgh Western seat, SNP candidate Tony Giugliano, spent £18,593." While Cole-Hamilton was cleared of any wrongdoing, the party was fined for failing to file an accurate spending return on its national spending return. He received the 'one to watch' award at the Herald – Scottish Politician of the Year Awards in August 2016. In 2018, Cole-Hamilton successfully persuaded the Scottish Government to reverse a planned funding cut to
HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...
Scotland that would have sunk that organisation. In 2020, during parliamentary deliberation of the first Coronavirus Act, Cole-Hamilton introduced amendments which forced a government U-turn on their proposals to abolish jury trials in Scotland for the duration of the emergency. From 2019 until March 2021, he was a member of the
Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints The Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints was a Committees of the Scottish Parliament, Committee of the Scottish Parliament which was set up to investigate the Alex Salmond scandal, in which the Scottish Government ...
against the former First Minister,
Alex Salmond Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (; born 31 December 1954) is a Scottish politician and economist who served as First Minister of Scotland from 2007 to 2014. A prominent figure on the Scottish nationalist movement, he has served as leader ...
. In February 2021, Cole-Hamilton was forced to apologise after having been seen swearing at Minister for Children and Young People
Maree Todd Maree Todd is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician who has been the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross since May 2021. She was previously an MSP for the Highlands and Islands from the election in ...
during an online committee hearing. He wrote Todd a letter of apology, as well as publicly apologising in the Holyrood Chamber the week after. At the
2021 Scottish Parliament election The 2021 Scottish Parliament election took place on 6 May 2021, under the provisions of the Scotland Act 1998. All 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament were elected in the sixth election since the parliament was re-established in 1999. The ele ...
, Cole-Hamilton received 25,578 votes, the highest number of votes ever cast for a single candidate in the Scottish Parliament election. He beat the runner-up, SNP candidate Sarah Masson, by 9,885 votes. On 27 July 2021, Cole-Hamilton announced his intention to stand in the upcoming Scottish Liberal Democrats leadership election to replace
Willie Rennie William Cowan Rennie (born 27 September 1967), commonly known as Willie Rennie, is a Scottish politician who served as the Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats from 2011 to 2021. He has served as the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MS ...
. He won the election unopposed on 20 August 2021 and took office the same day. He led the party into the 2022 local elections, which saw an increase of 20 councillors to 87, and increased vote share to 8.7%. He has prioritised campaigning on children's mental health, long covid, tackling the climate crisis and supporting Ukrainian refugees. He was sanctioned by the
Kremlin The Kremlin ( rus, Московский Кремль, r=Moskovskiy Kreml', p=ˈmɐˈskofskʲɪj krʲemlʲ, t=Moscow Kremlin) is a fortified complex in the center of Moscow founded by the Rurik dynasty, Rurik dynasty. It is the best known of th ...
in August 2022 following his public criticism of the
Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...
, and his efforts to highlight Russian influence in Scotland.


Personal life

Cole-Hamilton is married to Gillian, a teacher and Liberal Democrat candidate. They have three children. In 2019, he resuscitated his daughter after she swallowed a 50c Euro coin. He used the publicity around this to raise awareness of the importance of infant first aid and organised several first aid training events in his constituency. His relative John Cole-Hamilton was Provost of
Kilwinning Kilwinning (, sco, Kilwinnin; gd, Cill D’Fhinnein) is a town in North Ayrshire, Scotland. It is on the River Garnock, north of Irvine, about southwest of Glasgow. It is known as "The Crossroads of Ayrshire". Kilwinning was also a Civil Pa ...
from 1940 until 1947, Deputy Lord Lieutenant for the County of Ayr in 1951, and Chairman of the Central Ayrshire
Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...
when that constituency was formed, and Richard Cole-Hamilton, former chief executive of the
Clydesdale Bank Clydesdale Bank ( gd, Banca Dhail Chluaidh) is a trading name used by Clydesdale Bank plc for its retail banking operations in Scotland. In June 2018, it was announced that Clydesdale Bank's holding company CYBG would acquire Virgin Money for ...
. He ranked 27 out of 50 on the Top 50 Lib Dems of 2020 list.


References


External links

*
Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP
profile at the site of Scottish Liberal Democrats {{DEFAULTSORT:Cole-Hamilton, Alex 1977 births Living people Alumni of the University of Aberdeen Liberal Democrat MSPs Members of the Scottish Parliament 2016–2021 Members of the Scottish Parliament 2021–2026 Members of the Scottish Parliament for Edinburgh constituencies People educated at Madras College