Alexander Neil is a Scottish politician who served as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing from 2012 to 2014 and Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners' Rights from 2014 to 2016. A member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), he was the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Airdrie and Shotts constituency from 2011 until his retirement in 2021.
Annabelle Janet Ewing is a Scottish politician and lawyer who has served as Deputy Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, alongside Liam McArthur, since May 2021. A member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), she has been the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Cowdenbeath constituency since 2016, having previously been an MSP for the Mid Scotland and Fife region from 2011 to 2016.
Angus Struan Carolus Robertson is a Scottish politician serving as the Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture since 2021. Formerly 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.
Airdrie and Shotts is a constituency of the UK House of Commons, located in central Scotland within the North Lanarkshire council area. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) at least once every five years using the first-past-the-post system of voting.
Scottish Labour, is the part of the UK Labour Party active in Scotland. Ideologically social democratic and unionist, it holds 22 of 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament and 37 of 57 Scottish seats in the House of Commons. It is represented by 262 of the 1,227 local councillors across Scotland. The Scottish Labour party has no separate Chief Whip at Westminster.
Airdrie and Shotts is a constituency of the Scottish Parliament covering part of the council area of North Lanarkshire. It elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) by the plurality method of election. It is also one of nine constituencies in the Central Scotland electoral region, which elects seven additional members, in addition to the nine constituency MSPs, to produce a form of proportional representation for the region as a whole.
Central Scotland is one of the eight electoral regions of the Scottish Parliament which were created in 1999. Nine of the parliament's 73 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). Thus it elects a total of 16 MSPs.
Karen Whitefield is a Scottish Labour politician. She was the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Airdrie and Shotts constituency from 1999 to 2011.
James Anthony Kelly is a Scottish politician who has served as General Secretary of the Scottish Labour Party since 2021. He was a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Glasgow region between 2016 and 2021, having previously been MSP for Rutherglen from 2007 to 2016.
Anne McLaughlin is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Glasgow North East from 2019 to 2024, and previously from 2015 to 2017. She has been SNP Spokesperson for International Development since 2023.
Pamela Ann Catherine Nash is a British Labour Party politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke since 2024. She previously served as Chief Executive of Scotland in Union, a campaign group launched in March 2015 to help keep Scotland within the United Kingdom. Between 2010 and 2015 she was the Labour MP for Airdrie and Shotts.
James Dornan is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician who is Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Glasgow Cathcart.
The 2014 Scottish National Party leadership election was held to choose the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) and First Minister of Scotland, following the resignation of Alex Salmond as first minister and leader. Nicola Sturgeon emerged as the only candidate and was elected unopposed as leader of the SNP.
Graham Simpson is a British politician and former journalist who has been a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Central Scotland region since 2016. A member of the Scottish Conservatives, he served as Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity from 2020 to 2021.
Richard Leonard is a British politician who served as Leader of the Scottish Labour Party from 2017 to 2021. He has been a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP), as one of the additional members for the Central Scotland region, since 2016. He ideologically identifies as a socialist, democrat and internationalist.
The 2021 Airdrie and Shotts by-election was held in the UK parliament constituency of Airdrie and Shotts following the resignation of the sitting member (MP), Neil Gray, to run for the corresponding seat in the 2021 Scottish Parliament election. This was necessitated by Scottish National Party (SNP) rules banning its members from sitting as an MSP and an MP at the same time. It took place on 13 May 2021, a week after the Scottish Parliament elections, to reduce COVID-19 transmission risk.
Anum Qaisar, previously Anum Qaisar-Javed is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Airdrie and Shotts from 2021 to 2024, when she lost the seat to Kenneth Stevenson of the Labour Party. She was also the SNP Spokesperson for Levelling Up from 2023 to 2024.
The 2024 general election was held on 4 July 2024. 57 Scottish Westminster seats were contested. The election saw a resurgence of Labour within Scotland, with the party winning 37 seats, an increase of 36 from the previous election and becoming the largest party in Scotland for the first time since 2010. The Liberal Democrats also saw gains, increasing their Scottish representation in Parliament from two seats to six. The Scottish National Party, the dominant party in Scotland since 2007, saw a collapse of support in which they lost 39 seats, bringing their total from 48 seats won at the previous election to nine. This was their worst Westminster election result since 2010. The Conservative Party lost one seat, taking their total down to five. Turnout dropped to 59%, eclipsed for the first time by a preceding Scottish Parliament election (63.5%). This was a reduction in turnout of 8.4% from 2019 and in a few constituencies the turnout was down 10%.
Kenneth Stevenson is a Scottish Labour Party politician who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Airdrie and Shotts since 2024.
