George Reid (Scottish politician)
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The Right Honourable George Reid is a Scottish politician, and a member of the Scottish National Party (SNP).
He worked for a few years as a broadcaster, and he was elected as the Member of Parliament for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire in the UK general election, February 1974. He defended the seat in the UK general election, October 1974, but lost it in the UK general election, 1979.
After several years away from Scottish politics, he heralded his comeback in 1994 by delivering an academic-style lecture at the SNP conference, drawing on his knowledge of continental European politics to argue a case for why a party like the SNP could be expected to prosper if a Scottish Parliament was established. George Robertson's contrary claim that devolution would kill the SNP stone dead were dismissed by Reid by saying "Ho, ho, ho".
He failed in an attempt to regain his old seat at Westminster in 1997, but was subsequently elected in the Scottish Parliamentary Election, 1999 to represent Mid-Scotland and Fife.
In 1999 he was defeated by David Steel for the position of Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament and was instead elected a Deputy Presiding Officer.
At the 2003 Scottish Parliament Election he was elected to represent the Ochil constituency. He was elected by his fellow MSPs to succeed Steel as Presiding Officer. As the role is non-partisan, he had to leave the SNP's parliamentary group upon being elected. When questioned by a television journalist about whether he was right to weaken the party's ranks in this way, he produced his SNP membership card and pointed out that it imposed two obligations on its holders - one to serve the party's best interests, but the other to do anything that would further the best interests of Scotland, which he argued was what he was doing.
At the official opening of the controversial new Scottish Parliament building in 2004, he made a keynote speech in which he paid tribute to the construction as an architectural achievement, and urged parliamentarians to "listen to the building" to inspire them in their future endeavours.
Reid has previously worked in television journalism and for the International Red Cross.
| Preceded by: David Steel | Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament 2003- | Followed by: Current incumbent |