The recent death of the artist Craigie Aitchison brings to mind the career of his father, Craigie Mason Aitchison, elected Labour MP for Kilmarnock in 1929 after losing in Clackmannan (as a Liberal), Hartlepool and Glasgow.
He defected to National Labour in 1931. The 1933 by-election featured Sir Alexander McEwen, leader of the Scottish Party before it merged with the National Party of Scotland to become the SNP.
Aitchison Jr's art showed more interest in religion than in politics, though he did illustrate Jeffrey Archer's 1994 Christmas book The First Miracle. The present MP Des Browne's campaign to save the Johnnie Walker bottling plant would have shocked the town's first Labour MP, Robert Climie (1923-24 and 1929), who, like many early socialists, was a lifelong teetotaller.
Stephen Brasher
