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SNP Parliamentary Candidate for East Lothian

Welcome Tel: 01786 841911

Text Box: Hi, I’m Andrew Sharp. Welcome to my website. Selected as candidate for UK General Election. On Monday 17th September 2007, I was selected to be the SNP candidate for East Lothian in the forthcoming UK General Election. The momentum we developed in the Scottish Parliamentary election will continue, and will carry us to success in the UK election. I intend to fight a positive, aggressive campaign, holding the sitting MP and the UK government to account for its’ failures, to highlight the key national and international issues, and to emphasise the SNP’s positive and innovative alternatives to the policies which have failed Scotland and East Lothian. The Holyrood Campaign. In May 2007, I was honoured and delighted to stand for the Scottish National Party in East Lothian, in the Scottish Parliamentary Elections. It was a big challenge, for two reasons; Firstly, Labour held a majority of over 8000 votes over us, and we were in fourth place in the previous election. Secondly, it was my first shot at standing for anything political. So I was delighted when the SNP increased its vote by over 90%, to 9771, and came a strong and undisputed second to Labour. Not only this, we had the fourth highest swing to the SNP in Scotland, and reduced Labour’s majority from 26% to 7%. East Lothian is now a marginal seat for Labour. Next time, all we need is another 3-4 votes from every hundred people, and we take the seat. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to everyone who honoured me by giving me their vote on May 3rd, and indeed to all of our members, activists and council candidates who gave their support in the campaign. After the next Scottish Election, East Lothian will have an SNP MSP, and a UK MP

Text Box: A Huge Step Forward From fourth in 2003, to second in 2007. The SNP increased its vote from 5334 to 9771, and cut Labour’s majority from 8000 to 2448. This was the best result ever recorded by the SNP in East Lothian, and puts us in prime position to beat Labour next time.

A New Type of Government for Scotland

Nationally, the SNP overtook Labour, and formed the new

Scottish Government, with 47 seats in the Scottish Parliament.

The transformation in Scottish politics has been huge, and this

is due to the intelligent, positive and imaginative leadership

demonstrated by the First Minister, Alex Salmond, and his governmental team.

Our support has continued to grow rapidly, and the SNP is now well on the way to establishing itself as a party of enlightened, radical, and responsible government.

The cause of Scottish self determination is now the biggest idea in Scottish politics, and it is now being belatedly followed by most of the other parties.

Text Box: For our Council Candidates (pictured right), it was a night of undiluted glory. All 7 candidates were elected, and we now form the majority party in the SNP/Liberal Democrat coalition which runs the council. So the momentum is with us, our support is growing, and confidence is high, not least because our Councillors, led by Dave Berry (he’s the slightly windswept one at the top left), are uncovering all sorts of interesting stuff left behind by the departing Labour Council. The case of John Lindsay, who was awarded a lump sum of £130,000 for his redundancy, is just one example of, to put it mildly, questionable decisions made at the East Lothian taxpayer’s expense. That is why we stopped it. Others will follow, but we in the SNP are going to focus on the good things that we are doing in the area. We will take nothing for granted, because successful politics is measured in our deeds, and in what we achieve for the people of East Lothian and Scotland.

Websites and Blogs

J Arthur Macnumpty

Justified Spinner

Leading East Lothian Council

Email Andrew