George Reid (Scottish politician)
George Reid, PC ( born July 4, 1939 in Tullibody ) is a Scottish politician and member of the Scottish National Party ( SNP).
Life
Reid attended the Abercromby School and the Dollar Academy. He then studied history at the University of St Andrews and earned a master's degree. He continued his education in the United States, Sweden and Switzerland in the fields of International Relations and International Humanitarian Law.
Following Reid worked as a journalist and correspondent for national and international journals. In addition, he worked as a reporter and producer for Scottish Television, Granada Television and the BBC. Here he was responsible for the production of more than 200 documentaries, including the Emmy award winning post Contract 736 Furthermore, Reid has written numerous articles for humanitarian and academic journals.
Reid is married and has two daughters.
House of Commons
Reid joined in 1974 as the candidate of the SNP in the constituency of Clackmannan and Eastern Stirlingshire at the general election in February 1974. This constituency was a traditional stronghold of the Labour Party, they come with a distance of about 10,000 won for second place in the previous elections. Reid it anyway after an ambitious campaign succeeded the candidate of the Labour Party by a margin of 3,500 votes to second place to refer to. This meant in this election the biggest turnaround in a constituency in the United Kingdom. In the following general election in October 1974 Reid was able to increase his lead to 7341 votes, which meant the biggest lead of the eleven MPs of the SNP. At the general election in 1979 Reid just going down to the candidate of the Labour Party. After Reid had withdrawn his political activities for several years, he joined the General Election 1997 for the constituency of Ochil, but was unable to obtain a majority vote.
Scottish Parliament
In the first elections to the Scottish Parliament in 1999, Reid ran for the SNP in the constituency of Ochil. He defeated the candidate of the Labour Party, Richard Simpson, but withdrew due to the election results as a contestant on the regional election list for the region Mid Scotland and Fife in the newly created Scottish Parliament a. He was a candidate for the post of parliamentary speaker, was defeated in the vote but the Liberal Democrats David Steel and eventually became his deputy. At the 2003 parliamentary elections Reid came again to for Ochil and won the direct mandate with a lead of about 300 votes. Reid ran a second time as Speaker of Parliament and won the election this year. Since partisan neutrality is expected of the Speaker of Parliament, Reid left to the end of his term in 2007 its membership of the SNP rest. At the subsequent parliamentary elections Reid did not occur to.
Other activities
Reid turned to his retirement from the House of Commons again reinforced to journalism. Here he produced a noteworthy report on the famine in Ethiopia, which contributed to the development of aid projects reportedly Band Aid and Live Aid. In the following twelve years, Reid headed the Public Affairs department of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement in Geneva. In this capacity, he acted as an emissary in numerous humanitarian disaster areas in the world. For his service as head of the delegation to the earthquake of Spitak in 1988 Reid was honored by the Soviet Union with the Pigorow Gold Medal.
After his retirement from the Parliament Reid was raised to the rank of a Freeman of the County of Clackmannanshire. 2008 Reid was appointed Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Since 2011, Reid is appointed Lord Lieutenant of Clackmannanshire.
The University of Glasgow appointed Honorary Professor Reid. The universities of St Andrews, Edinburgh, Stirling and Queen Margaret University in Musselburgh awarded an honorary doctorate from George Reid.