Mark Ballard
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Mark Ballard, born June 27, 1971 is a Member of the Scottish Parliament for Lothians region, representing the Scottish Green Party and rector of the University of Edinburgh.
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[edit] Personal life
Ballard was born in Leeds, England on June 27th 1971. During his childhood he lived in Punjab, India (1973-1975) and Islamabad, Pakistan (1984-1985) [1].
He married Heather Stacey on 28 September 2002 and his first son, Adam, was born on Saturday 18 February 2006.
He attends the Edinburgh Central Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.
[edit] Education
He attended Lawnswood Comprehensive school in Leeds before going on to Edinburgh University, where he gained a MA(Hons) in Economic and Social History [2]. He is a life member of the Edinburgh University Union, part of the Edinburgh University Students Association (EUSA) [3].In February 2006 he was elected Lord Rector of Edinburgh University (see below).
[edit] Career and Politics
Between 1994 and 1998 he worked for European Youth Forest Action (now European Youth For Action) in Edinburgh and Amsterdam. After this until 2001 he worked as editor of the journal Reforesting Scotland before setting up an environmental communications consultancy company that ran until 2003.[4]
He joined the youth wing of the Labour Party when he was 15 and remained a member until 1991. At this point he became involved in the Scottish Green Party's student movement. He ran as a candidate for this party in the 1995 council elections, the 1999 Scottish Parliamentary election and a 2001 council by-election. He was first elected in the 2003 Holyrood election, as the second Green MSP in the Lothians.
He is currently a member of the Scottish Parliament Finance Committee [5] and is also substitute member of the Enterprise and Culture Committee [6].
He has also been involved in direct action campaigning, most notably against British nuclear weapons on the River Clyde at Faslane, against the release of Genetically modified organisms and motorway construction through the group Earth First [citation needed]. He has been arrested at Faslane several times, as part of the CND 'Big Blockade', most recently in August 2004. He was involved in a long-running court case over the destruction of a field of rapeseed at the Roslin Institute near Dalkeith in 1999. [Although initially found guilty of "wilfully and recklessly" destroying plants belonging to Monsanto [7], all charges were quashed due to a delay in the hearing of the appeal [8].
Mr Ballard is very active in community campaigning in the Lothian region, having supported campaigns to stop the construction of the Dalkeith Northern Bypass, working to help the Portobello community resist a huge superstore development and campaigning for better public transport and public transport funding in the Lothian region, as well as his parliamentary interests.
He holds membership of a large number of organisations listed in his Register of Interest [9] as Friends of the Earth, Sustrans, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Democratic Left Scotland, Reforesting Scotland, Water of Leith Conservation Trust, Friends of Inverleith Park, SSPCA, Advocates for Animals and Scottish Education and Action for Development. Until 2005 he was also an unpaid director of UK charity Seeds for Change [10], treasurer of the Scottish Environmental Festivals association and he is also associated with the campaign group People and Planet at Edinburgh University [11].
In February 2006 he stood for election as Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh standing against MP Boris Johnson, pro-Palestine journalist John Pilger and former Scotsman editor Magnus Linklater. The election received a high level of publicity mostly due to Boris Johnson's candidature.
The election took place on the 15th / 16th February 2006, with a turn out of almost 8000. A system of Single Transferable Vote was used. In the final round Mark Ballard received 3,597 votes against Magnus Linklater's 3,052 [12] and was elected.
He was formally installed on the 9th June 2006 in a ceremony in the University's Old College. Present at this ceremony were the Chancellor of the University, HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the University Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Timothy O'Shea, and Mark Ballard's predecessor as Rector, Labour MP Tam Dalyell[13].
| Preceded by Tam Dalyell |
Lord Rector of Edinburgh University 2006 – |
Succeeded by Current incumbent |
[edit] Trivia
His favourite pub in Edinburgh is the Southsider on West Richmond St, which in his words is "a proper cosy Edinburgh Pub, and it’s a micro-brewery too".[14]
