Richard Giles Douglas (4 January 1932 – 3 May 2014) was a Scottish politician who was a Member of Parliament (MP) elected as a

Labour Co-operative Labour and Co-operative Party (often abbreviated to Labour Co-op; ) is a description used by candidates in United Kingdom elections who stand on behalf of both the Labour Party and the Co-operative Party. Candidates contest elections under an el ...

candidate, but who subsequently joined the

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic party. The party holds 61 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, and holds 9 out of the 57 Scottish seats in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, ...

(SNP).

Political career

He first stood for Parliament at South Angus in the 1964 General Election, but was beaten by the

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

Jock Bruce-Gardyne John Bruce-Gardyne, Baron Bruce-Gardyne (12 April 1930 – 15 April 1990), was a British Conservative Party politician. Son of Captain Evan Bruce-Gardyne, DSO, RN, 13th Laird of Middleton, and a member of a Scottish landholding family who hav ...

. Next he stood unsuccessfully for Edinburgh West in the 1966 General Election, against the Conservative incumbent Anthony Stodart. In 1967 Douglas was a Labour councillor and the defeated candidate at a by-election in Glasgow Pollok. In the 1970 general election Douglas stood as the Labour and

Co-operative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democr ...

candidate for Clackmannan and Eastern Stirlingshire and was elected to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

. He did not retain the seat in the February 1974 General Election, nor regain it in October 1974. In the 1979 general election he stood as the Labour and Co-operative candidate for

Dunfermline Dunfermline (; , ) is a city, parish, and former royal burgh in Fife, Scotland, from the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. Dunfermline was the de facto capital of the Kingdom of Scotland between the 11th and 15th centuries. The earliest ...

and was elected again. By the time of the 1983 General Election the constituency boundaries had been revised, so Douglas stood as the Labour and Co-operative candidate for the new Dunfermline West constituency. Douglas was elected, and won the constituency again in the 1987 General Election. In 1990 Douglas

defected In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...

from Labour to the SNP. He took this decision feeling the Labour Party was adopting too

centrist Centrism is the range of political ideologies that exist between left-wing politics and right-wing politics on the left–right political spectrum. It is associated with moderate politics, including people who strongly support moderate policie ...

a position on the

political spectrum A political spectrum is a system to characterize and classify different Politics, political positions in relation to one another. These positions sit upon one or more Geometry, geometric Coordinate axis, axes that represent independent political ...

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

Poll Tax A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. ''Poll'' is an archaic term for "head" or "top of the head". The sen ...

. 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. 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 Campbell Dewar (21 August 1937 – 11 October 2000) was a Scottish statesman and politician who served as the inaugural First Minister of Scotland, first minister of Scotland from 1999 until his death in 2000 and leader of the Labour Par ...

(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 did not return to front-line active politics, but remained a member of the SNP., alba.org.uk; accessed 14 May 2014.

Death

Douglas died, aged 82, on 3 May 2014. Then Scottish first Minister,

Alex Salmond Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond ( ; 31 December 1954 – 12 October 2024) was a Scottish politician who served as First Minister of Scotland from 2007 to 2014. A prominent figure in the Scottish nationalist movement, he was Leader of the Sc ...

paid tribute to Douglas saying he was an "extraordinary politician".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Douglas, Dick 1932 births 2014 deaths Labour Co-operative MPs for Scottish constituencies Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Fife constituencies Scottish National Party MPs UK MPs 1970–1974 UK MPs 1979–1983 UK MPs 1983–1987 UK MPs 1987–1992 Politicians from Glasgow Alumni of the London School of Economics Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Stirling constituencies Scottish Labour councillors