Thrust into national spotlight – wearing jeans and a T-shirt

Mark McDonald first stood for office in a council by-election for Aberdeen’s Queen’s Cross ward in 2004, in which he finished a distant fourth, with just 53 votes.

But in 2007, then working with Maureen Watt, he was elected to the Dyce, Bucksburn and Danestone ward ahead of Labour’s Barney Crockett.

The city council’s SNP group at the time – under the leadership of now MSP Kevin Stewart – made the biggest gains and was poised to take power in Aberdeen for the first time, in coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

But local and national headlines in the wake of the election focused on the ages of four members of the group – including John West, who was 18, his 21-yearold sister Kirsty West, who is now the

SNP’s deputy Westminster leader Kirsty Blackman, and 22-year-old Callum McCaig, who would go on to become one of the country’s youngest council leaders, as well as serving as an MP and now as an adviser to Nicola Sturgeon.

At 26, Mr McDonald was the “old guy” of the four, and became Mr Stewart’s deputy.

He subsequently began to look to a future in national politics and was elected to Holyrood in 2011.

It was such an unexpected result – amid an unprecedented SNP landslide – that he appeared at the declaration wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

Mr McDonald was made parliamentary liaison officer for Finance Secretary John Swinney and later Alex Salmond.

He became MSP for Aberdeen Donside in 2013 and increased his majority in 2016, being appointed childcare and early years minister by Ms Sturgeon after that election.