Frances Curran
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Frances Curran (born 21 May 1961, Glasgow) is a member of the Scottish Parliament for West of Scotland. She is a member of the Scottish Socialist Party, for several years was a member of its Executive Committee and is currently active in the SSP's international work.
She was formerly a member of the Labour Party while simultaneously denying her actual membership of the Militant Tendency, a separate political party operating covertly within Labour's ranks.
As a member of the Labour Party, she served as Youth representative on the party's National Executive Committee as a representative of the Militant-dominated Labour Party Young Socialists in the early 1980s. She joined the Scottish Socialist Party together with the majority of other Scottish Militant Labour members when it was amicably dissolved in 1998 in favour of the new party.
[edit] Campaigning
In July 2005, Curran played a leading role in organising the peaceful protest outside Gleneagles at the 2005 G8 Summit - as part of the G8 Alternatives group. The previous week, she and other SSP MSPs took part in a protest within the Scottish Parliament, which led to them being suspended for the month of September and fined £30,000. This protest was due to the First Minister going back on his word that the parliament would support the rally outside the Perthshire hotel.
She has been campaigning for nutritious school meals to be provided free of charge to all Scottish schoolchildren, to tackle the twinned problems of ill health and bad diet in Scottish schoolchildren. Her campaign has attracted a wide base of support from a number of childrens and health related charities. A bill to this effect was proposed in parliament in 2002 but was defeated, the bill is currently being resubmitted, following a Scottish Executive consultation which found that 96% of respondants were in favour of free school meals.
As part of the Save Our Services campaign Frances was involved in community occupations to stop the closure of a school and community centre.
In January 2007 she was arrested but not charged at a peaceful anti-nuclear protest at Faslane as part of the Faslane 365 campaign.
[edit] Other Information
In 2006, she announced her intention to stand down as an MSP at the Scottish Parliament election, 2007 for personal reasons. The SSP has now selected its list of candidates in the West region for this election, the top candidate on this list and her would-be replacement is Pamela Page.
[edit] External link
- Frances Curran MSP Biography at Scottish Parliament website
