| Intro | Scottish lawyer and politician |
| Is |
Lawyer Advocate Politician |
| From | United Kingdom |
| Type |
Law Politics |
| Gender | male |
| Birth | 1 January 1973, Irvine, North Ayrshire, Scotland, United Kingdom |
| Age: | 47 years |
| Politics | Scottish National Party |
Duncan Hamilton (born 1973 in Troon) is a Scottish lawyer and politician. He was a Scottish National Party Member of the Scottish Parliament for Highlands and Islands region from 1999 to 2003.
He writes a column for The Scotsman newspaper.
Education
Hamilton attended Glasgow University, obtaining a first class MA in Modern History before attaining a LL.B at Edinburgh University. He also attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
In 1994, he won the World Debating Championship.
Career
He worked briefly for Procter & Gamble before becoming Assistant to SNP Leader, Alex Salmond and then to the SNP Chief Executive, Michael Russell.
In the 1999 election he stood as a constituency candidate in Argyll and Bute, where he finished second behind Liberal Democrat George Lyon achieving the largest swing from the Liberal Democrats to the SNP.
Upon his election in 1999 he was the youngest Member of the Scottish Parliament. In Holyrood he was a shadow deputy spokesman for the SNP. He is also served as the SNP Deputy Health and Community Care spokesperson, and was a member of the Health and Community Care Committee.
- Shadow Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care, May 1999 – September 2000
- Shadow Deputy Minister for Enterprise & Lifelong Learning, September 2000 – April 2003
In February 2002, he wrote an open letter to his Argyll and Bute constituency party in which he said he believed it was best for elected representatives to have “real life experience” outside politics.
Along with fellow SNP MSPs Winnie Ewing, Kay Ullrich, Colin Campbell he decided not to stand for election in 2003.
He had been tipped to be one of the rising stars of the Scottish Parliament and was regarded as one of the SNP’s most able politicians.
He has since pursued a career in law, having been admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 2006. He has criticised the quality of the legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament.
In 2007 Hamilton was appointed as a political advisor to First Minister Alex Salmond.