Education
London School of Economics.
London School of Economics.
He first stood for Parliament at South Angus in the 1964 General Election, but was beaten by the Conservative Jock Bruce-Gardyne. Next he stood unsuccessfully for Edinburgh West in the 1966 General Election, against the Conservative incumbent Anthony Stodart. In 1967 Douglas was a Labour councillor and the defeated candidate at a by-election in Glasgow Pollok.
In the 1970 general election Douglas stood as the Labour and Company-operative candidate for Clackmannan and Eastern Stirlingshire and was elected to the House of Commons.
He did not retain the seat in the February 1974 General Election, nor regain it in October 1974. In the 1979 general election he stood as the Labour and Company-operative candidate for Dunfermline and was elected again.
By the time of the 1983 General Election the constituency boundaries had been revised, so Douglas stood as the Labour and Company-operative candidate for the new Dunfermline West constituency. In 1990 Douglas defected from Labour to the Scottish National Party. He favoured a non-payment campaign which Labour did not officially support, whilst the Scottish National Party had been quick to adopt such as policy.
Douglas" defection took the number of Scottish National Party MPs from four to five through to the 1992 general election.
At that election Douglas decided not to seek re-election in Dunfermline West, the seat he had represented for 13 years, but to stand against Donald Dewar (a then high profile Scottish Labour Member of Parliament) in his Glasgow Garscadden seat. He was unsuccessful, with Dewar winning his seat comfortably and Dunfermline West returning a Labour Member of Parliament.
Douglas died, aged 82, on 13 May 2014.
Labour Party, Scottish National Party.
He took this decision feeling the Labour Party was adopting too centrist a position on the political spectrum, and he was especially angry at the lack of direction in the Labour Party in their attitude to the Poll Tax.
45th United Kingdom Parliament. 48th United Kingdom Parliament. 49th United Kingdom Parliament.
50th United Kingdom Parliament]
Douglas did not return to front-line active politics, but remained a member of the Scottish National Party.