John Nicolson

Since the 2019 general election, Nicolson has been the SNP Member of Parliament (MP) for Ochil and South Perthshire. He was previously the MP for East Dunbartonshire, having been elected at the 2015 general election, and defeated at the 2017 general election.

Nicolson chose not to stand again in East Dunbartonshire, instead choosing to stand for the SNP in Ochil and South Perthshire at the 2019 general election where he successfully gained the seat from Luke Graham.

He has worked as a radio presenter for BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Radio 4 where he presented The Westminster Hour, and BBC Radio 5. He is a regular commentator on UK politics for American audiences on the Cumulus Media Networks radio programme The John Batchelor Show. He presented the daily breakfast 'John Nicolson and Jane Moore Show' on LBC 97.3 and has, since 2017, been the host of The Week with John Nicolson on TalkRadio.

In 2017, Nicolson lost his seat to Jo Swinson, having previously gained it from her in 2015.

In 2016, Nicolson put forward a Private Member's Bill for an "Alan Turing law" which would 'pardon' retrospectively all gay men who had been convicted of offences no longer on the statute books. The Conservative government initially promised to support his proposed legislation, but then reversed its position following Theresa May's election as Conservative leader, causing a number of Tory MPs to condemn their own front bench as untrustworthy. Nicolson's bill was filibustered by Conservative government Justice Minister Sam Gyimah. The SNP Scottish Government subsequently announced that it would pick up and pass a Scottish version of the bill with all party support at Holyrood.

In 2015, Nicolson was appointed as the SNP front bench spokesperson on Culture, Media and Sport in the House of Commons and elected a member of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. Following his re-election in 2019, John Nicolson MP was appointed to the Frontbench Team of Ian Blackford as SNP Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Nicolson also returned as a member of the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee.

Ahead of the 2015 United Kingdom general election, Nicolson took part in SNP candidate selection contests in Linlithgow and East Falkirk, North Ayshire and Arran, Midlothian and West Dunbartonshire and East Dunbartonshire. Upon being selected as the SNP candidate for East Dunbartonshire, Nicolson withdrew his candidacies in the other seats. He became an MP after defeating the sitting MP, Jo Swinson, in the 2015 general election.

As a student he won the Scottish, British Isles Observer Mace (now the John Smith Memorial Mace), and World Universities Debating Championship in the same year, winning the World Championship with his debate partner Frank McKirgan at Princeton University, New Jersey. He returned to the Glasgow University Union in 2012 to debate against other former World Universities' Championship winners on a motion welcoming Scottish independence.

He was the BBC presenter on 11 September 2001 when the Twin Towers in New York were attacked, anchoring and providing live commentary on BBC News 24 and BBC One – a broadcast which won the BBC a Foreign Press Association award for best live breaking news coverage. Of the broadcast, Nicolson has said, "My time on air seemed dream like, with hours passing in an instant, and yet individual moments seeming to linger endlessly."

In 1999, when he was a presenter on BBC Breakfast, Nicolson came out as gay in various newspapers. He was the first BBC network television presenter to do so.

John Mackenzie Nicolson (born 23 June 1961) is a Scottish journalist, broadcaster and Scottish National Party (SNP) politician.