Dave Thompson (Scottish politician)

Dave Thompson MSP
Convener of the Scottish Parliament Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Incumbent
Assumed office 14 June 2011
Preceded by	Gil Paterson
Member of the Scottish Parliament for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch
Incumbent
Assumed office 2011
Preceded by	John Farquhar Munro (as member for Ross, Skye and Inverness West
Majority	4995
Member of the Scottish Parliament for Highlands and Islands
In office 3 May 2007 – 2011
Personal details
Born	(1949-09-20) 20 September 1949 Lossiemouth
Political party	Scottish National Party

Dave Thompson (born 20 September 1949) is a Scottish politician. A member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), he was elected to the Scottish Parliament to represent Highlands and Islands at the 2007 election. He was elected for the Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch constituency in the 2011 election.

Thompson received some media attention in the aftermath of the 2007 election because he pointed out to the returning officer that the number of additional members for each party had been wrongly calculated.^[1] The initial calculation would have given Labour four additional seats and the SNP none, which would have resulted in Labour gaining a plurality and winning the election. After Thompson challenged this calculation and the figures were correctly calculated, Labour were allocated three seats and the SNP two. This resulted in the SNP gaining a plurality of one seat and enabled them to form the Scottish Government.

In August 2011, before the main debate on equal marriage in Scotland, Thompson along with two other MSPs- Richard Lyle and Bill Walker had given their support to a motion proposed by John Mason; the motion had included a statement of support for the view that no person or organisation should be forced to be involved or to approve of same-sex marriage,^[2] however the motion fell on 5 December 2011.^[3]

References

External links

• Dave Thompson MSP Scottish Parliament website