Mark Hirst | |
|---|---|
 Mark Hirst speaking outside the Scottish Parliament. | |
| Born | Scotland |
| Occupation | Editor-in-Chief |
Mark Hirst is former Editor-in-Chief of Radio Sputnik/Sputnik News UK, formerly RIA Novosti, (Rossiya Segodnya/Russia Today), Russia's largest news organisation. [1] [2] [3] Hirst is a former broadcast journalist [4] with STV News . [5] He has also produced and appeared in a number of independently-made documentary films.
Hirst has a BA in Communication Studies from Queen Margaret University. In 2001 Hirst was a communications officer for Orkney Islands Council. In 2003 he was appointed as press officer for the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration.[ citation needed ]
Hirst has worked as a staffer for four Scottish National Party politicians including Sandra White and Christine Grahame [6] [7]
In August 2004 Hirst was a speaker at the Damien Walsh Memorial Lecture at Queens University Belfast as part of the Féile an Phobail. The event was organised by the Victims and Survivors Trust. [8] [9] Former civil rights leader and journalist Eamonn McCann gave the second part of the lecture focused on the Bloody Sunday Inquiry.
In 2003 Hirst produced and appeared in Histoire d'un naufrage confidentiel (The Story of a Secret Sinking) in association with Atlantic Television and France 3. At the Toulon Film Festival in 2004, a three-day maritime festival in France, it won Best 'International Documentary'. The film subsequently screened in 85 countries. In 2017 Hirst was Associate Producer for an episode of “Combat Ships” broadcast on the History Channel. [10]
In 2005 Hirst co-founded the Lancastria Association of Scotland. In 2008 he successfully petitioned the Scottish Parliament to commission a Commemorative Lancastria Medal, which he designed. [11] [12] [13] In 2012 Hirst was an Associate Producer for the documentary Maritime Mysteries, Case Closed broadcast on the French international channel TV5 Monde. [14] In 2015 Hirst directed a one-hour documentary, The Ablyazov Syndicate, examining an alleged multibillion-dollar fraud of the BTA Bank by its former Chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov. [15] [16]
Hirst has contributed articles to the Scottish Left Review magazine [17] [18] [19] and also the Scots Independent newspaper. [20] A former reporter for Orkney Farmer magazine., [21] Hirst has written for every newspaper in Scotland. [ citation needed ] [22]
In March 2020, Mark Hirst released a youtube video where he said that the legally-protected anonymity of women who had accused Alex Salmond of sexual assault may not be continued and they were "going to reap the whirlwind." [23] When those remarks were criticised by Rape Crisis Scotland, Hirst alleged Rape Crisis Scotland had been directed by the Labour Party. [24] Following an investigation into reports of menacing communication, Hirst was arrested and charged by police in May. [25] At a hearing in August 2020 Hirst pled not guilty to an amended charge that he had acted in a “threatening or abusive manner”. [26] On 8 January 2021, at Jedburgh Sherrif Court, it was ruled that Mark Hirst had no case to answer. [27] SNP MP, Kenny MacAskill, the former Scottish Justice Secretary writing in The Scotsman said the action following the Alex Salmond Trial raised serious questions about Scotland’s prosecutors, stating, “This isn’t just an abuse of process; it’s looking like an abuse of power.” [28] Responding to Hirst's acquittal the President of the Chartered Institute of Journalist, Professor Tim Crook, said, "Mark Hirst is a respected professional journalist and a member of our Institute. Freedom of expression in the UK means that he has the right to exercise his skills with political activism in the media.” [29] Following his acquittal lawyers acting for Hirst confirmed they would sue both the Crown Office and Police Scotland for "malicious prosecution". [30] [31]
The Scottish National Party is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom and for membership of the European Union, with a platform based on civic nationalism. The SNP is the largest political party in Scotland, where it has the most seats in the Scottish Parliament and 45 out of the 59 Scottish seats in the House of Commons at Westminster, and it is the third-largest political party by membership in the United Kingdom, behind the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. The current Scottish National Party leader, Nicola Sturgeon, has served as First Minister of Scotland since 20 November 2014.
John Ramsay Swinney is a Scottish politician currently serving as Deputy First Minister of Scotland since 2014 and Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery since 2021. He was the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) from 2000 to 2004. He served as Finance Secretary from 2007 to 2016 and as Education Secretary from 2016 to 2021. Swinney has also served as the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Perthshire North since 2011, having previously represented North Tayside from 1999 to 2011.
Kenneth Wright MacAskill is a Scottish politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for East Lothian since 2019. He previously served as Cabinet Secretary for Justice from 2007 to 2014 and was a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) from 1999 to 2016. A former member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), he defected to the Alba Party in 2021, and serves as their depute leader.
Angus Struan Carolus Robertson is a Scottish politician serving as the Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture since 2021. Former Depute Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) from 2016 to 2018, he has served as the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Edinburgh Central since 2021. Robertson previously served as a Westminster MP for Moray from 2001 to 2017, where he served from 2007 to 2017 as the Leader of the SNP in the House of Commons.
Peter Wishart is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician and musician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Perth and North Perthshire, formerly North Tayside, since the 2001 general election.
Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon is a Scottish politician serving as First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) since 2014. She is the first woman to hold either position. She has been a member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) since 1999, first as an additional member for the Glasgow electoral region, and as the member for Glasgow Southside from 2007.
Michael William Russell is a Scottish politician who served as Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, Europe and External Affairs from 2020 to 2021. He served as Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning from 2009 to 2014 and Cabinet Secretary for Government Business and Constitutional Relations from 2018 to 2020. A member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Russell has been President of the SNP since November 2020. He was the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Argyll and Bute from 2011 to 2021, having previously served as a list MSP for South of Scotland from 1999 to 2003 and 2007 to 2011.
Bernard Ponsonby is a Scottish broadcast journalist for regional news and current affairs programming for STV. He joined the station in 1990 and was appointed political editor in 2000, following the retirement of longstanding political editor Fiona Ross. Since 2019, Bernard has been Special Correspondent for STV News.
Duncan Hamilton QC is a Scottish lawyer and Scottish National Party politician. He was a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Highlands and Islands region from 1999 to 2003.
The 2007 Scottish Parliament election was held on Thursday 3 May 2007 to elect members to the Scottish Parliament. It was the third general election to the devolved Scottish Parliament since it was created in 1999. Local elections in Scotland fell on the same day.
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond is a Scottish politician who served as First Minister of Scotland from 2007 to 2014, currently serving as leader of the Alba Party since 26 March 2021. He was previously the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), serving two terms, from 1990 to 2000 and from 2004 to 2014. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Banff and Buchan from 1987 to 2010, when he stood down to focus on his role as First Minister, and then for Gordon from 2015 to 2017. Salmond was the Depute Leader of the SNP from 1987 to 1990 and was a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) from 1999 to 2001 and 2007 to 2016.
The 2021 Scottish Parliament election took place on 6 May 2021, under the provisions of the Scotland Act 1998. All 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament were elected in the sixth election since the parliament was re-established in 1999. The election was held alongside the Senedd election, English local elections, London Assembly and mayoral election and the Hartlepool by-election.
Events from the year 2014 in Scotland.
Ian Blackford is a Scottish politician serving as Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in the House of Commons since 2017. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ross, Skye and Lochaber since 2015.
Joanna Catherine Cherry is a Scottish politician and lawyer serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Edinburgh South West since 2015. A member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), she was the party's Shadow Home Secretary and Shadow Secretary of State for Justice in the House of Commons from 2015 to 2021.
Her Majesty's Advocate v Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond was the 2020 criminal prosecution of Alex Salmond, the former First Minister of Scotland. Salmond faced 14 charges, mostly of sexual assault. The trial began on 9 March 2020 at the High Court in Edinburgh and concluded on 23 March 2020 with the jury acquitting him of all charges.
The Alex Salmond scandal was a political scandal in Scotland concerning the behaviour of former First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, and his successor, incumbent First Minister Nicola Sturgeon between 2018 and 2021.
The Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints was a Committee of the Scottish Parliament which was set up to investigate the Alex Salmond scandal, in which the Scottish Government breached its own guidelines in its original investigation into claims of sexual harassment claims by former First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond, leading to the loss of a judicial review into their actions. The Committee met from 2020 to 2021 and published its final report on 23 March 2021. Prior to publication, it leaked that the Committee concluded that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon misled them in her evidence.
The Alba Party is a Scottish nationalist and pro-independence political party in Scotland. The party was founded by the retired television producer Laurie Flynn, with the former first minister of Scotland Alex Salmond taking over as leader. Salmond launched the party's 2021 Scottish Parliament election campaign in March 2021, with the party planning to stand list-only candidates. Two Members of Parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons defected from the Scottish National Party (SNP) to the Alba Party on 27 March 2021, and several other high-profile figures from the SNP including members of its governing body and former MPs joined the party in the days following Salmond's announcement. No Alba candidate that has stood for election as part of the party has been elected.