20 Facts About Margo MacDonald

Margo Symington MacDonald was a Scottish politician, teacher and broadcaster.

Margo MacDonald was the Scottish National Party Member of Parliament for Glasgow Govan from 1973 to 1974 and was Depute Leader of the Scottish National Party from 1974 to 1979.

Margo MacDonald later served as an SNP and then Independent Member of the Scottish Parliament for Lothian from 1999 until her death.

Margo MacDonald's mother, Jean, was a nurse, and her father, Robert, was described as a "very cruel" man from whom her mother separated when Margo was 12 years old.

Margo MacDonald was educated at Hamilton Academy, and trained as a teacher of physical education at Dunfermline College of Physical Education immediately after leaving school.

Margo MacDonald married her first husband, Peter MacDonald, in 1965, and they ran a Blantyre pub, the Barnhill Tavern, together.

Petra Margo MacDonald married Craig Reid of the Proclaimers; the Reids have four children.

Margo MacDonald has alleged that her election to the House of Commons was followed by KGB and CIA agents taking her for lunch while posing as journalists, and believed the SNP was infiltrated during the 1970s by MI5 agents worried booming North Sea oil revenues could lead to independence.

Margo MacDonald failed to retain her seat in the following general election of February 1974, but became Deputy Leader of the SNP that year.

At a December 1974 National Council meeting, Margo MacDonald criticised the SNP for failing to win seats from Labour in industrial Scotland and urged the party to move to the left to compete.

Margo MacDonald had already been selected as the SNP candidate in Hamilton when the death of the MP led to the 1978 Hamilton by-election, which she lost.

In 1982, Margo MacDonald resigned from the SNP in protest of the 79 Group's proscription.

Margo MacDonald began to establish herself as a forceful and respected presenter of various radio and television programmes, including the short-lived Colour Supplement for Radio 4 in the mid-1980s.

Margo MacDonald contributed regularly to Scottish newspapers including the Edinburgh Evening News near the end of her life.

Margo MacDonald quickly established herself as a rebel within the party, and was disciplined in 2000 for missing a parliamentary vote without permission and briefing a Sunday newspaper against party policy.

In 2002, Margo MacDonald was ranked fifth on the SNP list for Lothians for the 2003 Parliament election, effectively ending her chances of being re-elected as an SNP MSP.

Margo MacDonald, who had known about the diagnosis for six years, said it had been leaked to the press by "forces of darkness" in the SNP, but a spokesperson insisted that the leak did not come from within the party.

Margo MacDonald was re-elected as an independent MSP at the 2003 Scottish Parliament election, and again in 2007 and 2011.

Margo MacDonald died at her home in Edinburgh on 4 April 2014, aged 70.

In July 2008, Margo MacDonald co-operated with BBC Scotland in the making of a documentary about assisted dying.