{"id":729204,"date":"2026-01-29T19:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T19:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/729204\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T19:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T19:20:12","slug":"scotlands-first-deputy-first-minister-lord-jim-wallace-dies-aged-71","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/729204\/","title":{"rendered":"Scotland&#8217;s first deputy first minister Lord Jim Wallace dies, aged 71"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Born in Annan, in Dumfries and Galloway, Wallace became MP for Orkney and Shetland in 1983, and joined the Scottish Parliament in 1999 as MSP for Orkney.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">As deputy first minister, he covered Scotland&#8217;s top job on several occasions, including stepping in following the death of Donald Dewar and the resignation of Henry McLeish.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He stepped down as an MSP in 2007 and was appointed to the House of Lords.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He sat on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/ce8z7jy3we3o\" class=\"ssrcss-6mgqu7-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sir Kenneth Calman&#8217;s<\/a> commission on devolution, which recommended extending Holyrood&#8217;s powers. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A popular Lib Dem figure, he campaigned with his successor Alex Cole-Hamilton as recently as 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Wallace was brought up in the Church of Scotland &#8211; in which his accountant father was an elder &#8211; and religion and politics were inter-related interests and influences throughout his life. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In 2021, he took on the role of the moderator of the Church of Scotland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Born in Annan, in Dumfries and Galloway, Wallace became MP for Orkney and Shetland in 1983, and joined&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5009],"tags":[748,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-729204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scotland","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-scotland","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115980011194964580","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}