Torcuil Crichton | |
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Member of Parliament for Na h-Eileanan an Iar | |
Assumed office 5 July 2024 | |
Preceded by | Angus MacNeil |
Majority | 3,836 (28.4%) |
Personal details | |
Born | December 1964 (age 59) Isle of Lewis, Scotland |
Political party | Labour |
Website | www |
Torcuil Crichton (born December 1964) is a Scottish Labour Party politician who is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Na h-Eileanan an Iar since 2024.[1] He previously worked as a journalist and Gaelic broadcaster.[2]
Crichton was born in December 1964.[3] He is from Swordale in Point, Isle of Lewis, where he grew up.[2][4] He attended Knock primary school.[5]
He worked as a journalist with the West Highland Free Press, and subsequently for the Daily Record for 12 years, leaving his role as Westminster editor in 2022.[6] He has also worked for the Herald and Sunday Herald, as well as the BBC,[7] for whom he made a Gaelic TV documentary, broadcast on BBC Alba, on Donald Trump's mother Mary Anne MacLeod's journey from the Isle of Lewis to America, Mathair a' Chinn-Suidhe – Trump's Mother.[8][9]
He co-wrote the Gaelic TV drama Eilbheas which first aired on BBC Alba in 2008 and received a Bafta Scotland nomination.[10][11] He has also written a teenage novel,[12] Fo Bhruid, a modern Gaelic retelling of Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson.[13]
Along with Malcolm Maclean he devised a temporary art installation, Sheòl nan Iolaire, as a memorial marking the 100th anniversary of the sinking of HMY Iolaire, with the loss of 201 men, on 1 January 1919.[14][15] As of 2024[update] the memorial remains in place in Stornoway harbour.[16]
He was selected as a Labour parliamentary candidate in January 2023,[6] and elected in the 2024 general election.
On entering parliament, he took the Oath of Allegiance in Gaelic using a Gaelic Bible.[17][18]
He has a brother, Donald, who stood as the Labour candidate for Na h-Eileanan an Iar in the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, coming second to Alasdair Allan.[19]
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