Michael Moore (politician)

Michael Moore

Michael Kevin Moore (* 3. June 1965 in Dundonald, Belfast , Northern Ireland ) is a British politician of the Liberal Democrats who, from May 2010 to July 2014 Scotland minister (Secretary of State for Scotland) .

biography

After attending the Strathallan School in Forgandenny and the Jedburgh Grammar School , the son of a military chaplain studied political science and history at the University of Edinburgh and graduated in 1987 with a Master of Arts (MA Politics and Modern History).

He then worked for a year as a research assistant to the liberal-democratic MP Archy Kirkwood before joining the auditing and consulting firm Coopers & Lybrand . There he was promoted to a certified accountant and was then a manager in the company's finance department from 1993 to 1997.

He began his political career in 1997 when he became a member of the House of Commons for the first time as a candidate for the Liberal Democrats and initially represented the interests of the constituency of Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale as the successor to David Steel . Since the electoral district was dissolved in 2005, he has represented the newly created constituency of Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk .

Immediately after the election, he was appointed a member of his party's shadow cabinet for the first time and was initially a transport policy spokesman.

In the first elections to the Scottish Parliament on May 12, 1999, he was chairman of the election campaign of the Liberal Democrats and had this role in the Scottish general election in 2003 . In the elections, the party won 17 seats each, making it the fourth strongest force after the Labor Party , the Scottish National Party and the Conservative & Unionist Party .

In addition, from 2000 to 2003 he was governor and vice chairman of the Westminister Foundation for Democracy , a foundation that supports democratic projects in Africa and other parts of the world.

In 2001 he was appointed Foreign Policy Spokesman in the shadow cabinet of the Liberal Democrats. In October 2002 he was also Deputy Chairman of the Scottish Liberal Democrats and held this position until September 2010. He also served from 2003 to 2004 as parliamentary guest scholar ( Parliamentary Visiting Fellow ) at St Antony's College of Oxford University and from 2004 to 2010 a member of the Council of the Royal Institute of International Affairs , now Chatham House . Between 2005 and 2006 he was his party's defense policy spokesman.

After Charles Kennedy's resignation as chairman of the Liberal Democrats on January 7, 2006, he was appointed chief of staff to the successor candidate Menzies Campbell and, after his election as the new party chairman, on March 2, 2006, he was reappointed foreign policy spokesman in the Liberal Democrats' shadow cabinet, before he was between 2007 and Spokesperson for International Development in 2010 as well as for Scotland and Northern Ireland from March to October 2008.

On May 29, 2010, Prime Minister David Cameron appointed him Minister of Scotland in his cabinet , succeeding Danny Alexander , who, after only seventeen days in office, succeeded David Laws as Chief Secretary of the Treasury. In the general election of 2015 , Moore was unable to prevail against the SNP candidate Calum Kerr and subsequently left the British House of Commons.

Web links

Commons : Michael Moore  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Michael Moore at Hansard (English)
• Homepage of the Liberal Democrats
• Homepage of the Scottish Liberal Democrats

Individual evidence

1. ^ STV: Michael Moore resigns as deputy leader of Scottish Liberal Democrats. Jo Swinson, MP for East Dunbartonshire, will replace him (September 20, 2010)
2. ↑ Results of the general election 2015