Brian Souter

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Brian Souter (born 1954 in Perth, Scotland), is a Scottish businessman who is the co-founder of the Stagecoach Group, along with his sister, Ann Gloag. The son of a bus driver,^[1] he was educated at Perth Academy and the University of Dundee, before he completed training as a Chartered Accountant.

Souter has gained notoriety for the business practices of his transport company, for his controversial public statements, and for his attempt to block the repeal of Section 28.

Souter is a prominent member of the evangelical Church of the Nazarene.^[2]^[3] He lives in Perth, with his wife and 4 children.

In 1998, Souter once described northerners (who make up a considerable proportion of his customers) as "the beer-drinking, chip-eating, council house-dwelling, Old Labour-voting masses." ^[4]^[5]

In 2000 Souter was the prominent leader of the Keep the Clause campaign, which aimed to resist the repeal of legislation known as Clause 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which dealt with the promotion of homosexuality by local authorities. Souter funded a private postal ballot in Scotland to guage public opinion on the issue, which returned an apparent 86% support for keeping the clause, from a return of roughly a third of the 3.9 million registered Scottish voters^[6]. The campaign was ultimately unsuccesful, with the poll criticised as an exercise in chequebook democracy, and ultimately not representative of public opinion.

In March 2007, he donated £500 000 to the Scottish National Party, citing an imbalance of funding within Scottish politics.^[7] One month later, in April 2007, the SNP's commitment (made at the party's 2006 conference) to re-regulate the bus network was dropped from the 2007 manifesto, although the SNP denies any direct link.^[8]