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Drew Hendry

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Preceded by
  
Danny Alexander

Party
  
Scottish National Party

Role
  
Scottish Politician

Name
  
Drew Hendry

Majority
  
10,809 (18.85%)


Drew Hendry wwwinvernesscouriercoukimagelibraryClientIm

Born
  
21 May 1964 (age 59) Edinburgh, Scotland (
1964-05-21
)

Political party
  
Scottish National Party

Profiles

Drew hendry the snp s westminster candidate speaks to the gurn


Andrew Egan Henderson Hendry (born 21 May 1964), known as Drew Hendry, is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey since 2015. He was a councillor in Highland from 2007-15 and was Council Leader from 2012−15. He is the SNP Transport spokesperson in the House of Commons.

Contents

Early life

He grew up in Edinburgh. Although as a teenager he was too young to vote in the Scottish referendum of 1979 he feels this sparked his interest in politics and representation. He worked for Electrolux as head of sales. He lived and worked in Edinburgh until 1999 when he and his wife moved to Tore in the Black Isle. In 1999 he founded a company, teclan ltd, in Inverness, which delivers digital marketing services for online retailers and ecommerce merchants.

Political career

Hendry was first elected in the 2007 Local Elections for the Aird and Loch Ness Ward with 892 first preferences taking the third seat out of four. He was appointed leader of the SNP Highland Council group in 2011, replacing John Finnie who had become a list MSP for the Highlands and Islands. In September 2007, he was appointed to the board of the Cairngorms National Park Authority.

He was selected to stand as one of the SNP's candidates for the six Scotland seats in the 2009 European Parliament election, although he was fourth on their list and the outcome of the voting was the SNP returned two MEPs.

In the 2012 local elections he took the second seat in the ward, being elected with 840 first preferences and on the first count. After the 2012 Scottish local elections the SNP, the Scottish Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Labour Party formed a coalition to run the Council with Drew Hendry as Council Leader. The coalition held a 44-36 majority. This was the first time that the Independents have not been involved in the administration of the Highland Council.

Prior to the formation of the administration, he was leader of the SNP group in the council. He is credited with bringing in the living wage for council employees

In November 2014 he put his name forward as a prospective candidate for the Westminster election. In January 2015 it was announced that he had been selected to contest the Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey constituency in the 2015 general election. The incumbent Danny Alexander had held the seat for the past 10 years and had been a key architect of the Liberal Democrats coalition deal with the Conservatives in 2010. Hendry spent less than half the amount on his campaign for this election that Alexander did. Alexander's campaign spend of £50,000 was the highest in Scotland, with 80 per cent of this money coming from wealthy individuals. Hendry won the election, beating Alexander by more than 10,000 votes.

On 20 May 2015, he was announced as one of the SNP's leadership team at Westminster and as the party's spokesperson on Transport.

Having been elected as an MP, Hendry immediately resigned from his position as leader of Highland Council. Two months later, he announced that he was also resigning from his position of councillor for Aird and Loch Ness, in order to focus on his duties as an MP.

Hendry chairs Westminster's all-party parliamentary group on the digital economy.

At the 2017 election, Hendry's majority was reduced from 10,809 to 4,924.

References

Drew Hendry Wikipedia