Annabelle Ewing

Annabelle Janet Ewing^[1] (born 20 August 1960) is a Scottish politician, lawyer and currently a SNP Member of the Scottish Parliament for Mid Scotland and Fife. She is a former Member of Parliament for Perth.

Background

She attended the Craigholme School for Girls in Glasgow and the University of Glasgow, where she graduated with a law degree.

Before becoming an MP, Annabelle Ewing was an European Community competition lawyer in Brussels and ran a small legal practice.

She lives in Perthshire, and is a member of what is perhaps Scottish politics' best-known 'clan'. Her mother is former SNP President, Winnie Ewing, who in the past was a member of three different parliaments - Westminster, the Scottish Parliament and the European Parliament. She is sister to MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) Fergus Ewing, and sister-in-law to the late Margaret Ewing, who was also an MSP and a former Westminster MP.

Ms Ewing is a member of both Shelter and Amnesty International. She has been involved in a number of Parliamentary campaigns, including fighting for the rights of Hepatitis C sufferers, and working to gain a public enquiry into the events at Princess Royal Barracks, Deepcut, where James Collinson, a constituent, died on 23 March 2002.

Parliamentarian

She was elected to Roseanna Cunningham's old seat in 2001, defeating the Conservative candidate by just 48 votes, giving her the slimmest majority in Scotland. In the 2005 election, following a radical boundary revision, she contested the new constituency of Ochil and South Perthshire, but lost it to the Labour party candidate, Gordon Banks. She stood to succeed her sister-in-law as SNP candidate for Moray in the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections but was defeated by North East Scotland MSP Richard Lochhead.^[2] She was later selected to contest the Falkirk East seat in the 2007 election on behalf of the SNP as a replacement for the deceased Douglas Henderson.^[3] On 3 May 2007 a 9% swing from Labour to the SNP in Falkirk East, however this was not enough to displace the incumbent Cathy Peattie. She contested Ochil and South Perthshire for a second time at the 2010 election, failing again to take it from Gordon Banks, this time on an increased (4%) swing away from the SNP to Labour.

She is famed due to an incident that occurred on 16 December 2004, whereby the deputy speaker removed her from the house as she refused to apologise for calling the then Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon a "back-stabbing coward"^[4] during exchanges over Geoff Hoon's plans to merge Scottish Regiments, including the Black Watch.^[5]

References

External links

• Official website
• Guardian
• They Work For You
• The Public Whip
• BBC News 2005
• SNP Falkirk
• SNP Grangemouth