Torcuil Crichton

Torcuil Crichton is the Labour MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, born in December 1964 in Swordale, Point, on the Isle of Lewis, the islands he now represents. He is a published Gaelic author ("Fo Bhruid", Stòrlann, 2010), took his oath of allegiance in Gaelic on a Gaelic Bible, and his brother Donald stood as Labour's candidate for the same seat in the 2011 Holyrood election.

His career was journalism, and at a senior level. He began at the West Highland Free Press in 1987, the paper that covers this very constituency, moved to The Herald and Sunday Herald in Glasgow, and was Westminster Editor of the Daily Record, Scotland's largest tabloid, for 12 years until 2022, one of the most senior political journalism roles in Scottish media. He left the Record in 2022 specifically to win the seat, securing the Labour nomination in January 2023.

The constituency has Labour history: Calum MacDonald held it from 1987 to 2005 before Angus MacNeil took it for the SNP. MacNeil was expelled from the SNP in 2023, stood as an independent in 2024 finishing third, and later joined Alba. Crichton won with 6,692 votes (49.5 per cent) and a majority of 3,836 (28.4 per cent), defeating the SNP's Susan Thomson. He sits on the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, and continues to write for the Stornoway Gazette, which he has declared as a registered interest.