Richard Giles "Dick" Douglas (born 4 January 1932) is a former Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

, having been a member of the British House of Commons

British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

 firstly as a Labour Co-operative

Labour Co-operative

Labour and Co-operative describes those candidates in British elections standing on behalf of both the Labour Party and the Co-operative Party, based on a national agreement between the two parties....

 candidate, then latterly as a Scottish National Party

Scottish National Party

The Scottish National Party is a social-democratic political party in Scotland which campaigns for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom....

 member.

In the 1970 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1970

The United Kingdom general election of 1970 was held on 18 June 1970, and resulted in a surprise victory for the Conservative Party under leader Edward Heath, who defeated the Labour Party under Harold Wilson. The election also saw the Liberal Party and its new leader Jeremy Thorpe lose half their...

 Douglas stood as the Labour

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 and Co-operative

Co-operative Party

The Co-operative Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom committed to supporting and representing co-operative principles. The party does not put up separate candidates for any UK election itself. Instead, Co-operative candidates stand jointly with the Labour Party as "Labour...

 candidate for Clackmannan and Eastern Stirlingshire

Clackmannan and Eastern Stirlingshire (UK Parliament constituency)

Clackmannan and Eastern Stirlingshire was a parliamentary constituency in the Clackmannan area of Central Scotland. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system.The constituency was created for the...

 and was elected to the House of Commons. He did not retain the seat in the February 1974 General Election

United Kingdom general election, February 1974

The United Kingdom's general election of February 1974 was held on the 28th of that month. It was the first of two United Kingdom general elections held that year, and the first election since the Second World War not to produce an overall majority in the House of Commons for the winning party,...

.

In the 1979 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1979

The United Kingdom general election of 1979 was held on 3 May 1979 to elect 635 members to the British House of Commons. The Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher ousted the incumbent Labour government of James Callaghan with a parliamentary majority of 43 seats...

 stood as the Labour and Co-operative candidate for Dunfermline

Dunfermline (UK Parliament constituency)

Dunfermline was a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1974 until 1983.There was also an earlier Dunfermline Burghs constituency, from 1918 to 1974.- Boundaries :...

 and was elected again. By the time of the 1983 General Election

United Kingdom general election, 1983

The 1983 United Kingdom general election was held on 9 June 1983. It gave the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher the most decisive election victory since that of Labour in 1945...

 the constituency boundaries had been revised, so Douglas stood as the Labour and Co-operative candidate for the new Dunfermline West

Dunfermline West (UK Parliament constituency)

Dunfermline West was a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1983 until 2005. It elected one Member of Parliament using the first-past-the-post voting system....

 constituency. Douglas was elected, and won the constituency again in the 1987 General Election

United Kingdom general election, 1987

The United Kingdom general election of 1987 was held on 11 June 1987, to elect 650 members to the British House of Commons. The election was the third consecutive election victory for the Conservative Party under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, who became the first Prime Minister since the 2nd...

.

In 1990 Douglas defected from Labour to the SNP. He took the decision as he felt the Labour Party was adopting too centrist a position on the political spectrum

Political spectrum

A political spectrum is a way of modeling different political positions by placing them upon one or more geometric axes symbolizing independent political dimensions....

, and was especially angry at the lack of direction in the Labour Party in their attitude to the Poll Tax

Community Charge

The Community Charge, popularly known as the "poll tax", was a system of taxation introduced in replacement of the rates to part fund local government in Scotland from 1989, and England and Wales from 1990. It provided for a single flat-rate per-capita tax on every adult, at a rate set by the...

. He favoured a non-payment campaign which Labour did not officially support, whilst the SNP had been quick to adopt such as policy. Douglas' defection took the number of SNP MPs from four to five through to the 1992 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1992

The United Kingdom general election of 1992 was held on 9 April 1992, and was the fourth consecutive victory for the Conservative Party. This election result was one of the biggest surprises in 20th Century politics, as polling leading up to the day of the election showed Labour under leader Neil...

.

At that election Douglas decided not to seek re-election in Dunfermline West, the seat he had represented for 13 years, but to stand against Donald Dewar

Donald Dewar

Donald Campbell Dewar was a British politician who served as a Labour Party Member of Parliament in Scotland from 1966-1970, and then again from 1978 until his death in 2000. He served in Tony Blair's cabinet as Secretary of State for Scotland from 1997-1999 and was instrumental in the creation...

 (a then high profile Scottish Labour MP) in his Glasgow Garscadden seat. He was unsuccessful, with Dewar winning his seat comfortably and Dunfermline West returning a Labour MP. Douglas has not since returned to front-line active politics, but remains a member of the SNP.

External links

• http://www.alba.org.uk/nextwe/m02.html