Karen Gillon, née Turnbull (born 18 August 1967, Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

) 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...

 Labour

Scottish Labour Party

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

 politician, and was Member of the Scottish Parliament

Member of the Scottish Parliament

Member of the Scottish Parliament is the title given to any one of the 129 individuals elected to serve in the Scottish Parliament.-Methods of Election:MSPs are elected in one of two ways:...

 for Clydesdale

Clydesdale (Scottish Parliament constituency)

Clydesdale is a constituency of the Scottish Parliament . It elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament by the plurality method of election...

 from 1999 to 2011. She had previously served as personal assistant to Helen Liddell

Helen Liddell

Helen Lawrie Liddell, Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament for Monklands East from 1994 to 1997, and then for Airdrie and Shotts until 2005, whereafter she became the British High Commissioner to Australia until 2009...

 MP

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 since 1997.

Scottish parliamentary member

Gillon was spokesperson on rural development

Rural development

Rural development in general denotes economic development and community development actions and initiatives taken to improve the standard of living in non-urban neighbourhoods, remote villages and the countryside...

 for Labour until 2011 in 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...

. She has campaigned vigorously for changes to the law in relation to corporate culpable homicide

Culpable homicide

Culpable homicide is a specific offence in various jurisdictions within the Commonwealth of Nations which involves the illegal killing of a person either with or without an intention to kill depending upon how a particular jurisdiction has defined the offence...

, following the death of four constituents in Larkhall

Larkhall

Larkhall is a town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland and is around southeast of Glasgow. It is twinned with Seclin in northern France.Larkhall sits on high ground between the River Clyde to the East and the Avon Water to the West...

, and won the Herald Campaigner of the Year in recognition of her work on this issue. She was co-chairperson of the Cross Party Group on Malawi and worked with civic society across Scotland and in the Clydesdale constituency to develop better links between the two countries.

External links

• Karen Gillon official website
• Karen Gillon profile at the site of Scottish Labour
• Bordering on victory
• Campaigners lose faith