Dave Thompson is a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 politician. A member of the Scottish National Party

Scottish National Party

The Scottish National Party is a social-democratic political party in Scotland which campaigns for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom....

 (SNP), he was elected to the Scottish Parliament

Scottish Parliament

The Scottish Parliament is the devolved national, unicameral legislature of Scotland, located in the Holyrood area of the capital, Edinburgh. The Parliament, informally referred to as "Holyrood", is a democratically elected body comprising 129 members known as Members of the Scottish Parliament...

 to represent Highlands and Islands

Highlands and Islands (Scottish Parliament electoral region)

The Highlands and Islands is one of the eight electoral regions of the Scottish Parliament which were created in 1999. Eight of the parliament's first past the post constituencies are sub-divisions of the region and it elects seven of the 56 additional-member Members of the Scottish Parliament .The...

 at the 2007 election. He was elected for the Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch

Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch (Scottish Parliament constituency)

Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch is a constituency of the Scottish Parliament . It will elect one Member of the Scottish Parliament by the first past the post method of election...

 constituency in the 2011 election.

Thompson received some media attention in the aftermath of the 2007 election because he pointed out to the returning officer

Returning Officer

In various parliamentary systems, a returning officer is responsible for overseeing elections in one or more constituencies.-Australia:In Australia a returning officer is an employee of the Australian Electoral Commission or a State Electoral Commission who heads the local divisional office...

 that the number of additional members

Additional Member System

The Additional Member System is the term used in the United Kingdom for the mixed member proportional representation voting system used in Scotland, Wales and the London Assembly....

 for each party

Political party

A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

 had been wrongly calculated. The initial calculation would have given Labour

Scottish Labour Party

The Scottish Labour Party is the section of the British Labour Party which operates in Scotland....

 four additional seats and the SNP none, which would have resulted in Labour gaining a plurality and winning the election. After Thompson challenged this calculation and the figures were correctly calculated, Labour were allocated three seats and the SNP two. This resulted in the SNP gaining a plurality of one seat and enabled them to form the Scottish Government.

He is currently learning Scottish Gaelic.