David Gibson was a Scottish socialist politician.
Gibson joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and at the 1935 general election was its candidate in Stirling East and Clackmannan. [1] He was elected to Glasgow City Council, [2] and he stood unsuccessfully in the 1947 Liverpool Edge Hill by-election.
The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893, when the Liberals appeared reluctant to endorse working-class candidates, representing the interests of the majority. A sitting independent MP and prominent union organiser, Keir Hardie, became its first chairman.
The 1935 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 14 November 1935 and resulted in a large, albeit reduced, majority for the National Government now led by Stanley Baldwin of the Conservative Party. The greatest number of members, as before, were Conservatives, while the National Liberal vote held steady. The National Labour vote also held steady, but the resurgence in the main Labour vote caused over a third of their MPs, including party leader Ramsay MacDonald, to lose their seats.
Clackmannan and Eastern Stirlingshire was a parliamentary constituency in the Clackmannan area of Central Scotland. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system.
In 1948, Gibson succeeded Robert Edwards as chairman of the ILP. [3] As chairman, he focussed on opposing war, and feared that the North Atlantic Treaty would lead to a Third World War. [4]
The North Atlantic Treaty, also referred to as the Washington Treaty, is the treaty that forms the legal basis of, and is implemented by, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The treaty was signed in Washington, D.C. on 4 April 1949.
Gibson was succeeded as chairman by Fred Barton in 1951, and focussed on his role as chair of the Glasgow Corporation's Housing sub-Committee on Sites and Buildings, working to build council housing in the city as rapidly as possible. [5] At the 1951 general election, Gibson was selected as the party's candidate for Glasgow Shettleston, but he withdrew shortly before the election, to the disappointment of the party. In 1953, he resigned from the ILP and joined the Labour Party. [6]
Fred Barton was a British socialist politician.
The 1951 United Kingdom general election was held twenty months after the 1950 general election, which the Labour Party had won with a slim majority of just five seats. The Labour government called a snap election for Thursday 25 October 1951 hoping to increase their parliamentary majority. However, despite winning the popular vote and achieving both their highest-ever total vote and percentage vote share, Labour were defeated by the Conservative Party. This election marked the beginning of the Labour Party's thirteen-year spell in opposition, and the return of Winston Churchill as Prime Minister. This was the final general election to be held with George VI as monarch, as he died the following year on 6 February and was succeeded by his daughter, Elizabeth II.
Glasgow Shettleston was a burgh constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1918 until 2005. The Shettleston area is represented is now covered by Glasgow Central and Glasgow East.
By 1961, Gibson was the baillie - most senior magistrate - of Glasgow and was active in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. [7]
The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judicial and executive powers. In other parts of the world, such as China, a magistrate was responsible for administration over a particular geographic area. Today, in some jurisdictions, a magistrate is a judicial officer who hears cases in a lower court, and typically deals with more minor or preliminary matters. In other jurisdictions, magistrates may be volunteers without formal legal training who perform a judicial role with regard to minor matters.
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is an organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It opposes military action that may result in the use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and the building of nuclear power stations in the UK.
