Alex Neil

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Alex Neil was born in 1951 in Patna, East Ayrshire, Scotland. Born into a mining family he became somewhat naturally involved in Labour Politics, joining the Labour Party in the mid 1960s. He would become the chairman of both the Scottish Organisation of Labour Students and later the UK wide National Organisation of Labour Students. After graduating from the University of Dundee with a degree in economics he became the Senior Researcher for the Labour Party in Scotland.

In 1976, he, along with Jim Sillars MP and John Robertson MP left the Labour Party to form the Scottish Labour Party (SLP). By 1979 the SLP had collapsed and Neil fell out of active politics until 1985 when he joined the Scottish National Party (SNP).

Neil would go on to become the SNP's Publicity Director, and then in charge of the party's policy, as well as a candidate in the 1989 Glasgow Central by-election and candidate in the Kilmarnock and Loudoun constituency in both the 1992 and 1997 General Elections.

In 1999 he was elected SNP MSP for Central Scotland in the first Scottish Parliament.

The following year he stood unsuccessfully for the leadership of the SNP against John Swinney in a hard fought contest. Thereafter he was appointed chair of the Scottish Parliament's Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee, a role he kept on until 2003.

Neil is on the left of the SNP, and is known as a fundamentalist, critical of the gradualist wing.

In 2003 he was re-elected by the people of Central Scotland to the Scottish Parliament.

In July 2004, Neil announced that he would not be a candidate in the impending contest for the leadership of the SNP, despite the fact that he believed he had considerable support within the party. He said that the reason for his decision was that senior figures in the party (such as MSP Fergus Ewing and former SNP leader Alex Salmond) had made it clear publicly that they would not work with him as leader.

In 2004 Neil was appointed chair of the Enterprise and Culture Committee. He is also a current co-convenor of the Scottish Parliament's Cross-Party Group on the Scottish Economy. In May 2007, he will be standing for re-election to the Scottish Parliament, both as the SNP's top-ranked candidate in the Central Scotland region, and as the SNP candidate for the Hamilton North and Bellshill constituency.

Neil emerged as a leading supporter of former policewoman Shirley McKie as she bid to win compensation from the Scottish Executive following her acquittal from perjury charges.