Highland is a council area in the Scottish Highlands and is the largest local government area in the United Kingdom. It was the 7th most populous council area in Scotland at the 2011 census. It shares borders with the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Argyll and Bute, Moray and Perth and Kinross. Their councils, and those of Angus and Stirling, also have areas of the Scottish Highlands within their administrative boundaries.
Argyll and Bute is one of 32 unitary council areas in Scotland and a lieutenancy area. The current lord-lieutenant for Argyll and Bute is Jane Margaret MacLeod. The administrative centre for the council area is in Lochgilphead at Kilmory Castle, a 19th-century Gothic Revival building and estate. The current council leader is Councillor Jim Lynch.
Alan Reid is a Scottish Liberal Democrat politician who has been a councillor in the East Dunbartonshire ward of Bearsden North since 2022.
The Highlands and Islands is one of the eight electoral regions of the Scottish Parliament, created in 1999. Eight of the parliament's first past the post constituencies are sub-divisions of the region and it elects seven of the 56 additional-member Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs).
The County of Bute, also known as Buteshire, is a historic county and registration county of Scotland.
Argyll, sometimes called Argyllshire, is a historic county and registration county of western Scotland.
Cowal is a rugged peninsula in Argyll and Bute, on the west coast of Scotland. It is connected to the mainland to the north, and is bounded by Loch Fyne to the west, by Loch Long and the Firth of Clyde to the east, and by the Kyles of Bute to the south.
Argyll and Bute was a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was created for the 1983 general election, merging most of Argyll with some of Bute and Northern Ayrshire. A similar constituency, also called Argyll and Bute, is used by the Scottish Parliament.
Ross, Skye and Lochaber was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (Westminster). It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election.
The Highlands and Islands is an area of Scotland broadly covering the Scottish Highlands, plus Orkney, Shetland, and the Outer Hebrides.
Argyll and Bute is a constituency of the Scottish Parliament (Holyrood) covering most of the council area of Argyll and Bute. It elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) by the first past the post method of election. It is also one of eight constituencies in the Highlands and Islands electoral region, which elects seven additional members, in addition to the eight constituency MSPs, to produce a form of proportional representation for the region as a whole.
Orkney is a constituency of the Scottish Parliament (Holyrood) covering the council area of Orkney. It elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) by the first past the post method of election. It is also one of eight constituencies in the Highlands and Islands electoral region, which elects seven additional members, in addition to the eight constituency MSPs, to produce a form of proportional representation for the region as a whole.
Dumbarton is a constituency of the Scottish Parliament (Holyrood) covering parts of the council areas of Argyll and Bute and West Dunbartonshire. It elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) by the first past the post method of election. It is also one of ten constituencies in the West Scotland electoral region, which elects seven additional members, in addition to the ten constituency MSPs, to produce a form of proportional representation for the region as a whole.
Elections to Argyll and Bute Council were held on 3 May 2007 the same day as the other Scottish local government elections and the Scottish Parliament general election. The election was the first one using 11 new wards created as a result of the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004, each ward will elect three or four councillors using the single transferable vote system form of proportional representation. The new wards replace 36 single-member wards which used the plurality system of election.
Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch is a constituency of the Scottish Parliament (Holyrood) covering part of the Highland council area. It elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) by the first past the post method of election. It is also one of eight constituencies in the Highlands and Islands electoral region, which elects seven additional members, as well as eight constituency MSPs, to produce a form of proportional representation for the region as a whole.
Argyll and Bute Council is one of the 32 local authorities of Scotland, covering the Argyll and Bute council area.
Elections to Argyll and Bute Council were held on 3 May 2012 on the same day as the 31 other local authorities in Scotland. The election used the eleven wards created under the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004, with 36 councillors being elected. Each ward elected either 3 or 4 members, using the STV electoral system.
Brendan O'Hara is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician. He serves as Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber since the 2024, having previously represented the Argyll and Bute constituency from 2015 to 2024. He has been the SNP spokesperson for Foreign Affairs since September 2023. He served as the SNP Digital, Culture, Media and Sport spokesperson from 2017 to 2018, the SNP Defence spokesperson from 2015 to 2017, SNP International Development spokesperson from 2022 to 2023, and SNP Chief Whip in 2023.
The 2017 Argyll and Bute Council elections took place on 4 May 2017 alongside local elections across Scotland. This was the third local election to take place using the Single Transferable Vote electoral system.
Elections to Argyll and Bute Council took place on 5 May 2022, the same day as the 31 other Scottish local government elections. As with other Scottish council elections, it was held using single transferable vote (STV)—a form of proportional representation—in which multiple candidates are elected in each ward and voters rank candidates in order of preference. New ward boundaries were proposed by Boundaries Scotland in 2021, which would have reduced the total number of councillors to 34. However, these were rejected by the Scottish Parliament and the boundaries used at the previous election remained in place.
