Club Breakfast: A Sea Change in Scottish Politics

Friday, July 31, 2015
8:15AM for 8:30AM – Continental Breakfast
9:00AM – Address

Speaker: Nicola Sturgeon,
First Minister of Scotland

In 2007, the Scottish National Party began a series of political firsts. They became the first party to form a sustainable minority government in the Scottish Parliament; the first Scottish party to then form a majority government in 2011; and then, after the 2014 referendum on independence, they became this year the third-largest political party at Westminster, capturing 56 out of 59 Scottish seats.

Scotland and Hong Kong had a long connection. This year marked the bicentennial of the birth of James Legge, a Scot who was the leading figure of mid-19th century Hong Kong. He founded the city’s first school for girls, was the most famous translator of Confucius and later became the first chaired professor of Chinese studies at Oxford.

Nicola Sturgeon was the first woman to serve as Scottish First Minister. BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour named her the UK’s most powerful and influential woman this year. She won the Herald newspaper’s Scottish Politician of the Year Award in 2008, 2012 and 2014 and the Donald Dewar Debater of the Year Award in 2004, 2008 and 2011.