Despite a considerable SNP challenge, Clark was re-elected comfortably with a majority of over 9, 000 in 2010.

Rumbles was elected to the West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine constituency in the 1999 election, and comfortably held the seat in the 2003 election and 2007 election but was defeated by the SNP in 2011.

The resulting by-election held on 30 June, was won comfortably with a 5, 838 majority by Scottish Labour candidate Iain McKenzie despite several high profile campaign visits by SNP First Minister, Alex Salmond and the SNP coming within 511 votes of winning the nearest equivalent seat in the Holyrood elections a matter of weeks previously.

The SNP retained the Holyrood seat with Stewart Stevenson ( who had originally been selected to contest the Westminster constituency ) winning for them.

The idea for the 79 Group came from Roseanna Cunningham, then assistant research officer for the SNP, and her brother Chris, during the devolution referendum in early 1979.

At the time of the 1990 leadership contest he supported Margaret Ewing in her bid to become SNP leader, but this did not stop him becoming politically close to the man who went on to win that contest, Alex Salmond.

She became active in campaigning for Scottish independence through her membership of the Glasgow University Scottish Nationalist Association, and came to prominence in 1967 when she won the watershed Hamilton by-election as the Scottish National Party ( SNP ) candidate.

A practising solicitor at the time of her election, she proved to be a sound choice as her eloquence and ability bolstered a hard-fought SNP campaign and saw her through to victory.

She famously said at the time of her election, ' stop the world, Scotland wants to get on ', and her presence at Westminster proved to be a real focus for the SNP with a significant rise in membership being the result.

He had been active with her in politics for many years, and had himself served as an SNP councillor for the Summerston area in Glasgow.

Her son Fergus Ewing serves as SNP MSP, as did his late wife Margaret Ewing, and her daughter Annabelle Ewing, who was also an MP between 2001-2005.

This period marked her becoming less influential with the leadership of the SNP, firstly under Alex Salmond and then John Swinney, having been viewed as being in the SNP Fundamentalist mould and having supported Alex Neil in the party leadership election in 2000.

This culminated in her being placed fifth on the SNP list for Lothians for the 2003 Parliament election, whereas she had been first in 1999.

This effectively ended her chances of being elected as an SNP MSP and she decided to stand as an independent.

She had initially been left off the SNP's candidate shortlist over her brief relationship in the 1970s with Donald Bain, the former husband of SNP stalwart Margaret Ewing, on the grounds that the issue could prove an embarrassment to the party.

With the downturn in SNP electoral fortunes at the 1979 Election she lost her seat in the House of Commons.

She sought to become SNP candidate for Moray in the 27 April 2006 Scottish Parliament by-election to succeed her late sister-in-law, Margaret Ewing, but was defeated by North East Scotland MSP Richard Lochhead who went on to win the seat in the by-election.

Noted for her campaigning abilities, she was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 as a Scottish National Party ( SNP ) representative for Glasgow.

The tourists flagged down the next car to pass by, which turned out to be driven by a doctor, Dorothy Messer, accompanied by her fiancé as well as David Coutts, a Dundee SNP councillor who knew MacRae.

In November 2010 John Finnie, the SNP group leader on Highland Council and a former police officer, wrote to the Lord Advocate urging her to reinvestigate MacRae's death and release any details so far withheld.

Using her married name, Christine Creech, she was the SNP candidate at the 1992 General Election for Tweedale, Ettrick and Lauderdale.

Although she finished second, her position on the SNP regional list took her to Holyrood, after which she divorced and reverted to her maiden name.

Meanwhile it was a disappointing night for the SNP, they failed to gain any seats and lost a seat to the Conservatives by just 79 votes.

The SNP first won a parliamentary seat at the Motherwell by-election in 1945, but Dr Robert McIntyre MP lost the seat at the general election three months later.

This was clearly demonstrated when-although some argue it was influenced by general public dillusionment with Labour-the Scottish National Party ( SNP ) became the largest party in the Scottish Parliament by one seat.

The seat was won at 2011 Scottish Parliament elections by Bill Walker for the SNP.

The SNP won a Parliamentary seat in 1967, when Winnie Ewing was the surprise winner of the Hamilton by-election, 1967.

Govan was a Labour seat ( although Sillars ' wife Margo MacDonald had won it for the SNP in a by-election previously, in 1973 ), but Sillars won a dramatic victory.

She failed to retain the seat in the following general election of February 1974, but became Deputy Leader of the SNP in 1974, a post she held until 1979.

This was the first time the SNP had ever won a parliamentary seat in Edinburgh.

In 1969 he replaced Arthur Donaldson as SNP National Convenor, and it was during Wolfe's period as leader that the party had its greatest electoral success to the Westminster parliament, winning 30 % of the vote in Scotland and 11 of the 71 Scottish seats in the October 1974 General Election, though Wolfe failed to win a seat of his own.

The Kirkcaldy seat was won at the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections by David Torrance for the Scottish National Party ( SNP ).

Under the re-drawn constituency boundaries, Stevenson was elected as the SNP member for the new seat of Banffshire and Buchan Coast, It contains approximately 85 % of the electorate of Banff and Buchan and the remainder comes from the previous Moray seat's communities of Cullen, Findochty, Portknockie, Buckie, and from a part of the previous Gordon constituency comprising Rothiemay, Knock, Deskford, Grange.

At the General Election of that year his seat was gained by the Labour Party from the SNP and was consequently held until the 2005 general election when it was regained by the SNP's Angus Brendan MacNeil.

At the 2003 parliament election he lost his seat to Shona Robison, the SNP candidate.

He was SNP candidate for the Strathclyde East seat at the 1994 election to the European Parliament, as well as a candidate for the SNP in the Greenock and Inverclyde seat at the 1999 election to the Scottish Parliament.

Ian Stewart Hudghton ( born 19 September 1951 ) is a Scottish politician, and has been a Scottish National Party Member of the European Parliament for Scotland since 1998, when he won his seat in a rare European Parliamentary by-election, after the death of sitting SNP MEP Allan Macartney.

She was later selected to contest the Falkirk East seat in the 2007 election on behalf of the SNP as a replacement for the previously selected candidate, the late Douglas Henderson.

Henderson lost his seat to Conservative Albert McQuarrie in the 1979 general election by less than 600 votes, and only two MPs from the SNP remained in the new Parliament.

Future SNP leader Alex Salmond would represent this constituency from 1987, and it is has since become a somewhat safe SNP seat with four-figure majorities over the Conservative and Unionist Party.

In the 2004 European Parliament election the EFA was reduced to four MEPs two of the SNP ( Ian Hudghton and Alyn Smith ), one of PC ( Jill Evans ) and one of the Republican Left of Catalonia ( ERC ; Bernat Joan i Mari, replaced at the mid-term by MEP Mikel Irujo of Basque EA ) plus two affiliate members ( Tatjana Ždanoka of For Human Rights in United Latvia ( PCTVL ) and László Tőkés, independent MEP and former member of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania ( UMDR ).

The SNP was founded in 1934, and has had continuous representation in the Parliament of the United Kingdom since Winnie Ewing's groundbreaking victory at the 1967 Hamilton by-election.

The high point in a British General Elections thus far was when the SNP polled almost a third of all votes in Scotland at the October 1974 general election and returned 11 MPs to Westminster, to date the most MPs it has had, although its representation was reduced significantly in the 1979 general election.

He achieved this in a number of ways: establishing the SNP Trade Union Group ; promoting centre-left policies ; and identifying the SNP with labour campaigns ( such as the Upper-Clyde Shipbuilders Work-in and the attempt of the workers at the Scottish Daily Express to run as a cooperative ).

The SNP govern as a minority administration at Holyrood.

Sometimes, as in the case of the SNP, these parties can be very successful at the regional or local levels.

Although no members of the 79 Group were elected to the SNP National executive at the 1980 conference less than a month after Sillars joined, at the 1981 SNP conference, five were.

Swinney joined the SNP at the age of 15, citing his anger at the way in which Scotland had been portrayed by television commentators at the Commonwealth Games.

He involved himself in the SNP Youth Wing and gradually became more active in the party, becoming firstly the SNP Assistant National Secretary and then the National Secretary in 1986, at the age of 22.

Though retaining its two seats at the 2004 European elections, in a smaller field of 7 ( Scotland up until then had 8 MEPs ) the Scottish press and certain elements within the Fundamentalist wing of the Party depicted the result as a disaster for the SNP putting further pressure on Swinney who resigned soon afterwards on 22 June 2004.

On 8 April 2006, the YSI launched a " text referendum " at the SNP Conference in Dundee, which asks people to vote via text message " Scot yes " or Scot no " on the question " should Scotland be independent?

The Scottish National Party ( SNP ) had done well in opinion polls running up to the election, gaining 40 % in some approval ratings but this level of support was not maintained, and the SNP were the second largest party with 35 seats, but this was at the time their best performance since October 1974.