News / Jean Urquhart becomes list MSP
SNP candidate for the Shetland constituency seat, Jean Urquhart, has been elected to the Scottish Parliament as a list MSP.
The hotel owner from Ullapool came third behind Lib-Dem leader Tavish Scott and independent candidate Billy Fox in the constituency count on Thursday night.
She was 6th on the SNP’s regional list, but due to the landslide success of the nationals who won all Highland constituency seats, she just made a surprise entry into parliament.
The list result was announced in Dingwall just after 5pm on Friday afternoon. The SNP won three of the seven seats, Labour two and the Tories two.
She said she had just entered the car deck of the NorthLink passenger ferry ready to leave Shetland for her home in Wester Ross when she heard the news on the radio.
“I can’t believe it, I am in a state of shock,” she said as a first reaction, adding that she will speak to party leader Alex Salmon to make it her special job to look after Shetland.
“This is all very exciting, I am going to work with Tavish representing Shetland, she said.
“We got a very good list result in Shetland with just 300 votes less then the Lib-Dems. Our party has done so well all over Scotland.
“I promise to give it my best shot, and I will be back in Shetland before very long,” she said.
The other six list MSPs for the Highlands and Islands are John Finnie and Mike MacKenzie, for the SNP, Mary Scanlon and Jamie McGrigor, for the Tories, and Rhoda Grant and Dave Stewart, for Scottish Labour.
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