Roseanna Cunningham

Roseanna Cunningham MSP
Minister for Community Safety
Incumbent
Assumed office 25 May 2011
First Minister	Alex Salmond
Preceded by	Fergus Ewing
Member of the Scottish Parliament for Perthshire South and Kinross-shire Perth 1999-2011
Incumbent
Assumed office 6 May 1999
Preceded by	new constituency
Majority	7166
Member of Parliament for Perth Perth and Kinross (1995–1997)
In office 25 May 1995 – 7 June 2001
Preceded by	Nicholas Fairbairn
Succeeded by	Annabelle Ewing
Personal details
Born	27 July 1951 (1951-07-27) (age 60) Glasgow, Scotland
Nationality	Scottish
Political party	Scottish National Party
Profession	Lawyer
Website	Official website

Roseanna Cunningham (born 27 July 1951, Glasgow) is the Scottish Government's Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs and Scottish National Party Member of the Scottish Parliament for Perthshire South and Kinross-shire, having previously represented Perth.

Early life

Raised in Australia, she returned to Scotland and was a member of the left-wing 79 Group inside the Scottish National Party (SNP) in the early 1980s, but avoided expulsion as she was not a member of its steering committee (future SNP Convenor Alex Salmond by contrast who served on the 79 Group committee was expelled, whilst Margo MacDonald resigned from the party in protest before she could be expelled).

Cunningham worked as a solicitor and became an advocate in 1990.

Parliamentary career

Cunningham first came to prominence in 1995 when she won the bitter Perth and Kinross by-election to replace the Conservative MP, Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, who had died. She had initially been left off the SNP's candidate shortlist over her brief relationship in the 1970s with Donald Bain, the former husband of SNP stalwart Margaret Ewing, on the grounds that the issue could prove an embarrassment to the party. However, she was put back in contention following an intervention by the then party leader Alex Salmond, and after Ewing made clear she had no objection to Cunningham's candidature.

In 1999 she became the MSP for Perth and continues to represent the area in the Scottish Parliament to this day. In 2000 she was elected the SNP Senior Vice-Convener (deputy leader). Also in that year she helped establish the Scottish Left Review publication. She stood down as an MP in 2001, to concentrate on the Scottish Parliament.

John Swinney announced his resignation as leader of the SNP on 22 June 2004, and on the same day Roseanna Cunningham announced that she would be a candidate in the subsequent election for the party leadership. In the early stages of the campaign she appeared to be the clear front-runner, but the entirely unexpected decision of the popular former leader Alex Salmond to enter the race just before nominations closed changed everything, and Cunningham ultimately finished a distant second.

She is sometimes known as "Republican Rose" for her well-known support for the replacement of the monarchy with an elected head of state.

In December 2006 she led an unsuccessful attempt to prevent same-sex couples gaining the right to adopt children,^[1] despite having previously been named ScotsGay Parliamentarian of the Year in 1998.^[2]

In August 2007 she voiced her disdain nationally about a video showing pupils from Glenalmond College, a co-educational independent boarding school in Scotland, acting out in a satirical video called "Class Wars"^[3] in which students dressed in the stereotypical attire of the Ned subculture are hunted by pupils dressed as Aristocrats. She is quoted as saying "I suppose this video could be billed as the revent of Monty Python's upper-class twits, Doubtless it is intended as humour and irony but it comes across as brash, crass and arrogant.".^[4]

In the first reshuffle of the SNP Government in February 2009, Cunningham was appointed as Minister for the Environment.^[5] In December 2010 she also took on portfolio responsibility for climate change, becoming Minister for the Environment and Climate Change. After the 2011 election, which saw a SNP landslide, she was appointed Minister for Community Safety with special responsibility for tackling sectarianism.

References

External links

• Official website
• Scottish Parliament
• SNP website

v d e Members of the Scottish Parliament in the Mid Scotland and Fife region Elected in the 2011 election Constituency MSPs Keith Brown (SNP, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane) · Helen Eadie (Lab, Cowdenbeath) · Bill Walker (SNP, Dunfermline) · Tricia Marwick (PO, Fife Mid and Glenrothes) · Roderick Campbell (SNP, Fife North East) · David Torrance (SNP, Kirkcaldy) · John Swinney (SNP, Perthshire North) · Roseanna Cunningham (SNP, Perthshire South and Kinross-shire) · Bruce Crawford (SNP, Stirling) Additional Members Claire Baker (Lab) · Murdo Fraser (Con) · Annabelle Ewing (SNP) · John Park (Lab) · Willie Rennie (Lib Dem) · Richard Simpson (Lab) · Elizabeth Smith (Con) SNP (8 seats), Labour (4 seats), Conservative (2 seats), Lib Dems (1 seat); Presiding Officer (1 seat)

v d e      Junior Ministers in the Scottish Government Shona Robison (Minister for Commonwealth Games and Sport) · Michael Matheson (Minister for Public Health) · Fergus Ewing (Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism) · Derek Mackay (Minister for Local Government and Planning) · Roseanna Cunningham (Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs) · Stewart Stevenson (Minister for Environment and Climate Change) Alasdair Allan (Minister for Learning, Science and Scotland's Languages) · Aileen Campbell (Minister for Children and Young People) · Angela Constance (Minister for Youth Employment) · Keith Brown (Minister for Housing and Transport) · Brian Adam (Minister for Parliamentary Business and Chief Whip) ·