In Memory of Jim Wallace

The first democratic events I took part in as a voter were in 1997 – the General Election that brought Tony Blair’s New Labour party into power after 18 years of Conservative dominance, and the Referendum on Scottish Devolution in the September of that same year. Although the Westminster seat in my then home of Greenock was at that time solidly Labour, the Liberal Democrats had built credibility at a local level. 

Jim Wallace was one of the Liberal Democrat politicians whose approach attracted me into supporting the party and to voting in support of the creation of the Scottish Parliament. I was proud to see the party that I supported go into Government in coalition with Labour following the first elections in 1999 and to see Jim elected Deputy First Minister, the first Liberal to hold ministerial office since the Second World War. 

Jim went on to serve as Deputy First Minister to three Labour First Ministers and served as Acting First Minister on three occasions. Like my predecessor but one in North East Fife, Ming Campbell, he was someone who had led a full life before entering politics, and brought that knowledge and expertise into all three of the chambers in which he served; Westminster as MP for Orkney and Shetland, MSP for Orkney, and latterly as Lord Wallace of Tankerness from 2007 until his death last week, and where he served for a second time in Government as the Advocate General for Scotland during the coalition.

His loss at the age of 71 is felt keenly, not just by his wife Rosie, his daughters and wider family, not just by his Scottish and Federal Liberal Democrat colleagues, not just by the Church of Scotland, but by parliamentarians across both Holyrood and Westminster and many other members of the public too. Although I did not get to know Jim properly until my election in 2019, he was a very supportive former Chief Whip when I took on that role in the Commons. He was the very best type of advisor; he listened, asked good questions, and made me realise that I knew what I needed to do all along and that I just needed to get on and do it. 

Immediately before tributes to Jim were heard in the House of Lords today, the new Lords Speaker, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, announced that Peter Mandelson was resigning as a peer. The absolute contrast between Mandelson and Jim, the true public servant, was not lost on any of those present.