Annabelle Ewing

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Annabelle Ewing (born 20 August 1960) is a Scottish politician, and former Scottish National Party (SNP) Member of Parliament for Perth. 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 was an EC 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.

Annabelle 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 March 23, 2002.

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.[1] 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. [2] 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 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".

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Salmond closer to Holyrood return", BBC News, 2006-01-04. Retrieved on 2006-03-22. 
  2. ^ Falkirk East

[edit] External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Roseanna Cunningham		 Member of Parliament for Perth
2001–2005		 Succeeded by
(constituency abolished)