Richard Arkless
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Richard Arkless MP |
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|---|---|
| Member of Parliament for Dumfries and Galloway |
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Assumed office 7 May 2015 |
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| Preceded by | Russell Brown |
| Majority | 6,514 (11.5%) |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
7 July 1975 Stranraer, Scotland |
| Political party | Scottish National Party |
| Alma mater |
Glasgow Caledonian University University of Strathclyde |
Richard Lambert Thomas Arkless (born 7 July 1975) is a Scottish National Party politician, who was elected MP for Dumfries and Galloway at the 2015 UK General Election on 7 May of that year.
Arkless was born in Stranraer in 1975. He spent an early part of his childhood living in London. He returned to Stranraer when he was eight years old.
He received a BA in Financial Services from Glasgow Caledonian University and has an LLB from the University of Strathclyde.
Arkless began to advocate Scottish Independence after the 2007 Scottish Parliament election in which the SNP were elected as a minority government. After a year he said the SNP were "doing a pretty good job". When the SNP won a majority in the 2011 Scottish election, he said in a May 2015 interview with The National, "I began to really research the figures – the GDP and tax-take – and I was completely and utterly astonished. I couldn't believe that Scotland had a higher per capita GDP, and much higher per capita tax-take over each of the last 35 years. I was flabbergasted and asked myself why I had believed completely the opposite all my life without every trying to make it evidence-based."
Standing for the SNP in the 2015 UK General Election, Arkless received 23,440 votes, 41.4% of those cast, with a majority of 6,514. He defeated Labour's Russell Brown, who had held the seat since its creation in 2005. His wife Anne works as his personal assistant.
Arkless left his job as a solicitor to run an online business
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Wikipedia