SNP Winnie’s stalker was ‘sinister Lib Dem lord’
Ex-Labour MP mentioned in Ewing autobiography named by sources
A FORMER Labour MP turned Lib Dem grandee was the “sinister” politician who allegedly stalked SNP icon Winnie Ewing.
Lord Maclennan, who died last month aged 83, is said to have tormented Ewing over a six-month period after she was first elected to Westminster.
Ewing famously won the Hamilton by-election in 1967 and is one of the giants of the Nationalist movement. She also served as an MEP and MSP.
In her 2004 autobiography, Stop the World, she recounted how she was “stalked” by a Labour MP who she did not name.
She wrote that the “very frightening” experience began after she made a speech saying the enemies of Scotland were not the English but “Scots traitors within the gate”. Ewing added: “Wherever I sat, this MP sat opposite. If I changed seats, he did so also.
“Then I noticed that he had started to follow me along corridors, appearing behind me without saying anything.”
She recalled an incident when she left the public lobby at Westminster, writing: “I saw the door swinging in front of me. I felt afraid but I went on through the door and down the steps.
“As I turned a bend on the stair, there was my stalker right in front of me, looking very sinister indeed.
“He kept staring and following me, but I made it and breathlessly told the cloakroom attendant what was going on.”
She said the leader of the House took
“prompt action”, she received an apology and the stalking stopped.
Sources have told the Record that Maclennan, first elected as the Labour MP for Caithness and Sutherland in 1966, was Ewing’s alleged stalker.
He rose to become a junior minister in Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan’s governments, before helping form the SDP in the 80s.
He briefly was leader of the SDP in the late 80s, after which he became president of the Lib Dems.
After Maclennan’s death, Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie said: “Bob was such a kind and generous gentleman who was passionate about social democracy and fairness.”
The Ewing family, Scottish Labour and the Scottish Lib Dems all declined to comment yesterday.