Bill Miller is a former Labour

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 MEP

Member of the European Parliament

A Member of the European Parliament is a person who has been elected to the European Parliament. The name of MEPs differ in different languages, with terms such as europarliamentarian or eurodeputy being common in Romance language-speaking areas.When the European Parliament was first established,...

 representing Scotland

Scotland (European Parliament constituency)

Scotland constitutes a single constituency of the European Parliament. For 2009 it elects 6 MEPs using the d'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation.- Boundaries :...

.

Personal life

Miller was brought up in Gartocharn

Gartocharn

Gartocharn is a village in West Dunbartonshire in Scotland. It is the only village in the parish of Kilmaronock . The parish has a population of 1,051....

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/archive/alphaOrder/view.do?id=2135&language=en and was educated at Paisley Technical College and Kingston Polytechnic. He was a chartered surveyor

Surveying

See Also: Public Land Survey SystemSurveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them...

 by profession and has one son and one daughter.http://www.alba.org.uk/meps/billmillar.html

Political life

Miller was chairman of the Glasgow Labour Party between 1984 and 1987 as well as acting as an election agent and was assistant secretary of the Glasgow branch of Nalgo between 1980 and 1986.

He served as a Strathclyde Regional Councillor

Strathclyde

right|thumb|the former Strathclyde regionStrathclyde was one of nine former local government regions of Scotland created by the Local Government Act 1973 and abolished in 1996 by the Local Government etc Act 1994...

 (from 1984 – 1994), chairing the Council’s Economic and Industrial Development

Economic development

Economic development generally refers to the sustained, concerted actions of policymakers and communities that promote the standard of living and economic health of a specific area...

 Committee.

He was elected to the European Parliament

European Parliament

The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...

,http://www.socialistgroup.eu/gpes/mepdetail.do?id=88&lg=en He represented the Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

 constituency from 1994 to 1999 and the Scotland constituency from 1999 to 2004,http://www.alba.org.uk/meps/billmillar.html when he was not re-elected, having been relegated to third on Labour’s regional list, a position that he described as a “walk-on part.”http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article424300.ece

In the Parliament, Miller served as Labour Party Whip

Whip

A whip is a tool traditionally used by humans to exert control over animals or other people, through pain compliance or fear of pain, although in some activities whips can be used without use of pain, such as an additional pressure aid in dressage...

 and was a member of the Parliament's Economic, Monetary and Industrial Affairs Committee and the delegation for ASEAN, South East Asia and Korea. He had also been a vice-chair of the European parliament's legal affairs and internal market committee.http://ww3.holyrood.com/nav/news/stories/story.asp?story=elec596

He was described by the Financial Times

Financial Times

The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....

 as a “Glasgow bruiser.”http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto012320061519484376&page=2

Since losing his seat in the European Parliament, Miller has continued to seek a Parliamentary seat to continue his political career.http://ww3.holyrood.com/nav/news/stories/story.asp?story=elec596 He has also worked for the Scottish Funding Council

Scottish Funding Council

The Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council, more commonly known as the Scottish Funding Council , is the body in Scotland that distributes funding from the Scottish Government to the country's colleges and universities...

(the body which funds colleges).http://www.scottishleftreview.org/php/public/pastissues.php?action=article&docid=351

External links

• Speeches in the European Parliament