Политик шотландского лейборизма: Паулин Макнейл

Scottish Labour politician

Pauline Mary McNeill (born 12 September 1962) is a Scottish Labour politician serving as a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Glasgow region. She previously represented the Glasgow Kelvin constituency. Having represented her constituency since the 1999 Scottish Parliament election, she was not re elected in 2011. However, she returned to the Scottish Parliament on the Glasgow regional list at the following election in 2016.

McNeil was educated at the co educational, Roman Catholic Our Lady's High School, Cumbernauld before training as a graphic illustrator at Glasgow College of Building and Printing. She was President of the National Union of Students Scotland from 1986 to 1988 and was subsequently an organiser for GMB Scotland, representing NHS, hospitality and factory staff. An active member of the Labour Party since her time in the student movement, McNeill was also an executive committee member of the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly and a campaigner for devolution throughout the 1980s and 1990s. During her first term as an MSP, McNeill graduated from Strathclyde Law School after a period combining legislating and night school.

From 1999 until 2011, McNeill corresponded with 15,000 constituents by letter or at meetings and surgeries. She has campaigned on the need for more affordable and social housing, and better regulation of housing in multiple occupation. On the environment, she has campaigned for more effective steps to increase recycling take up and reduce energy usage. On transport and planning, McNeill has called for better regulation of the bus industry, improvements to the Glasgow Subway, a more locally accountable planning system and improving local sports facilities. She has supported successful campaigns to grant Fair Trade status to the City of Glasgow and restore the Kelvingrove Park bandstand. On crime, McNeill has sought better safety in Glasgow's city centre and the extension of community protections to its West End. McNeill unsuccessfully campaigned against the downgrading of the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Yorkhill and the Queen Mother's Hospital, including raising a 1,600 signature petition. However, children's services at what became West Glasgow Ambulatory Care Hospital closed in 2015 and their responsibilities were taken up by the Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow.

Since her student days, McNeill has had a strong interest in defence and foreign policy issues. She opposes the replacement of Trident with a new nuclear weapons system, opposes the holding of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and has spoken out in favour of the rights of asylum seekers and new migrants. She continues to speak out, both in parliament and at public demonstrations, on the need for Middle East peace. McNeill remains a supporter of many student campaigns, including the successful campaign to elect Israeli dissident Mordechai Vanunu as Rector of Glasgow University and takes a keen interest in the welfare of students across the many further and higher institutions located in Glasgow.

In 1999, at the Candlelight Chapel in Las Vegas, McNeill married Joseph Cahill, an advocate, a former police officer and Deputy Procurator Fiscal.