AS far as love stories go, the Glasgow City Council Assessors and Electoral Registration Office is not one of the most romantic of settings. Yet back in 2011 it was here that the SNP’s Anne McLaughlin, while handing in her forms to stand in the 2011 Holyrood election, first encountered Graham Campbell, a dashing young SSP candidate.
Their eyes met, the pair hit it off and they have been together ever since. In that time, McLaughlin found herself elected to the House of Commons to represent Glasgow North East, while Campbell just last week was elected to Glasgow City Council as the SNP’s man in Springburn and Robroyston.
Yesterday they revisited the moment sparks first flew when McLaughlin handed in her nomination forms for next month’s election.
She took the seat off Labour’s Willie Bain with a swing of 39 per cent in what was the largest shift of votes from Labour to the SNP in 2015. Paul Sweeney, a Scottish Enterprise executive and former candidate for Holyrood, is trying to win the seat back, and overturn the SNP’s substantial majority of 9,222.
McLaughlin said: “Over the last two years my team and I have worked with thousands of constituents to ensure that their rights were upheld in a variety of situations but particularly with Department of Work and Pensions and HMRC issues. “Government bodies do sit up and listen when an MP gets involved. It shouldn’t be that way but under the Tory government that appears to be how it is.”
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