Kenny MacAskill

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Kenny MacAskill (born 28 April 1958) is an Scottish National Party member of the Scottish Parliament.

He came to prominence inside the SNP through his activities in the left-wing 79 Group and became a party office bearer. In the 1980s he led the SNP campaign in opposition to the Poll Tax "Can't Pay, Won't Pay". It was widely known that he often disagreed politically with Alex Salmond, leader of the SNP through the 1990s, and he was at one stage viewed as belonging to the SNP Fundamentalist camp, being perceived to be allied to figures such as Jim Sillars and Alex Neil within the party.

However, upon becoming a Member of Scottish Parliament (MSP) he moderated his political position, seeing the development of the Scottish Parliament as the most achievable route for Scotland to become an Independent Nation-State. In this respect he was regarded as having adopted a gradualist approach to Scottish independence in place of his previous fundamentalist position. He was one of former SNP leader John Swinney's closest supporters.

In 2004, after John Swinney stood down as SNP party leader, Kenny MacAskill backed the joint leadership ticket of Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon. Upon their election as leader and depute leader respectively Kenny was selected to be the SNP's depute leader in the Scottish Parliament, making him the shadow Deputy First Minister.

During the leadership election of 2004 Kenny turned his attention to writing a book, 'Building a Nation - Post Devolution Nationalism in Scotland', which was launch at the SNP's 2004 annual conference in Inverness. He has since edited another book 'Agenda for a New Scotland - Visions of Scotland 2020' and has co-authored 'Global Scots - Voices From Afar' with former First Minister Henry McLeish.