SNP campaign director Angus Robertson loses own seat in Holyrood election

He was the SNP campaigns director charged with overseeing the party’s Holyrood election drive – but the contest has seen Angus Robertson lose his own constituency seat in the Scottish Parliament .

The result marked his second electoral defeat in less than a decade, with Mr Robertson having previously lost his Westminster seat.

As SNP Westminster leader and the party’s depute leader, he lost the Moray seat in the House of Commons to then Scottish Tory chief Douglas Ross in 2017.

Four years later he was back in elected politics, when he won the Edinburgh Central seat at Holyrood for the SNP – with then first minister Nicola Sturgeon appointing him constitution, external affairs and culture secretary when she announced her cabinet after the 2021 Scottish Parliament election.

But after five years – and some boundary changes in the constituency – he once again finds himself unelected, this time being ousted by the Scottish Greens and coming in third place.

Mr Robertson has attracted controversy during his time in Holyrood, over issues including his handling of the most recent census and a meeting with an Israeli diplomat.

He apologised after a 2024 meeting with the Israeli deputy ambassador, accepting afterwards that the talks should have been strictly limited to calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

However Mr Robertson said Daniela Grudsky had raised a number of issues which did not relate to the conflict, including energy, tourism and economic co-operation.

He faced a backlash from within his own party in the aftermath of the meeting, with then SNP MSP Christine Grahame branding him a “liability”.

He also faced criticism for the Government’s funding of the arts after Creative Scotland had its budget cut in 2023, reversing a previous commitment given by ministers.

At the time, Mr Robertson said “massive additional and unforeseen pressures” on the Scottish Government finances due to public sector pay deals had meant “tough choices” had had to be made.

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Meanwhile opposition MSPs said he had “botched” the most recent census – with the population-wide survey taking place a year later in Scotland than it did in other parts of the UK.

Concerns about low return rates meant the deadline for householders to complete the 2022 Scottish census had to be extended – and while this increased the return rate to 89%, in England and Wales 97% took part in the research.

Meanwhile in January this year Mr Robertson refused to say if he had confidence in the board of heritage body Historic Environment Scotland (HES) after the organisation was embroiled in a series of controversies.

That came after the Culture Secretary was accused of a “shocking lack of oversight” of HES after Scotland’s public spending watchdog found in December there were “unacceptable weaknesses” in the leadership of the organisation.