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8 April 2015updated 14 Apr 2015 7:05pm

The Returning Officer: West Fife II

A novel solution and a reformed scotland.

By Stephen Brasher

James Duncan Millar died in 1932, causing a by-election in 1933. The Liberal National James Henderson-Stewart won with Tory support. J L Anderson finished third for the Agricultural Party, declaring that he was a Tory.

The novelist Eric Linklater finished last for the National Party of Scotland. Linklater wrote the novel Magnus Merriman about the campaign. The hero becomes the National Party candidate for Kinluce, his membership paid for without his knowledge by his friend Meiklejohn, who tells him that the party is “the biggest thing that’s happened in Scotland for generations. It means the re-creation of a people, the rebirth of . . . Scotland.”

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