 | 'She is a smashing candidate. She is such a nice person and has a strength of character that shines through. As a little girl she had these huge brown eyes which never missed a thing. She's a bright lawyer but can enjoy a night out with the girls. She is close to her mother but not cloyingly so.' Margo MacDonald MSP on Annabelle Ewing. |  |
It must sometimes seem to Annabelle Ewing that she is destined to remain the outsider. One of her earliest childhood memories is of her exclusion from her mother's mould-shattering by-election victory in Hamilton in 1967. Winnie Ewing's achievement in snatching the seat from an incompetent and complacent Labour party shook the political Establishment. There was jubilation in much of Scotland and near-panic in Whitehall. The genie of Scottish nationalism had escaped from its bottle, never to return.
Seven-year-old Annabelle was not with her mother at the count. She wasn't waving SNP flags and chanting with the crowd for the woman dubbed Scotland's Joan of Arc. She was at home in bed. "I feel very aggrieved about that," she says. "It sometimes seems as if everyone in the world was in Hamilton that night apart from me. My mother says it was because I was too young. My recollection is that I had a cold."
Fast forward to another pivotal event in the political history of the nation: the state opening of the Scottish parliament in July. Annabelle stood as the SNP's candidate in Stirling, Michael Forsyth's former constituency, and though unsuccessful did surprisingly well, banishing the Tories to third place. But while her mother, brother Fergus and his wife Margaret - all successful MSPs - basked in the warmth and goodwill of the Queen's official opening, Ewing was on the streets outside, watching with the crowd.
Each MSP was given two tickets for the ceremony and one might have thought that this close-knit family would have been falling over each other to include the disappointed Annabelle, the baby of the political dynasty, in their success. She has, after all, traipsed the countryside of Morayshire many times canvassing for Winnie and Margaret. She was outside a polling station campaigning for her father the day before her Higher French exam.
Instead Winnie used her extra ticket to take her husband Stewart, Margaret took her brother and Fergus took his election agent. Ewing bridles slightly at the memory. "No tickets for me, I'm afraid. I fell off the list," she says.
Now many believe she is setting herself up for another disappointment. She is standing as the SNP's candidate in Hamilton South in what the party hopes will be a rerun of her mother's famous victory. The Lanarkshire seat has fallen vacant because of George Robertson's elevation to the House of Lords ahead of his posting to Brussels as secretary-general of Nato. Robertson took more than 65% of the vote for Labour at the last general election, with a majority of more than 15,800.
Seasoned political observers are not dismissing Ewing. She may be an inexperienced candidate - the Scottish election in May was the first she had fought on her own behalf - but she is a feisty campaigner and a sharp lawyer. She is likely to appear nimble and quick-quitted in comparison with Labour's candidate, the trade unionist and right-wing Labour apparatchik Bill Tynan. Robertson secured a strong personal vote and Labour is midway through its first term of government. Ewing fishes in her bag for a sprig of white heather given to her by a lifelong Labour voter who is switching to the SNP.
Her most potent political weapon is her name. Andrew Wilson, the SNP's finance spokesman who is running the campaign launched on Thursday, says: "Fighting for a Ewing in Hamilton has a certain romance to it".
Winnie is the Queen Mother of Scottish politics and being her daughter is not always easy. "I appreciate that comparisons will be made," says Ewing, who at 39 is two years older than her mother was when she became an MP. "My mother is a unique human being. She is held in huge regard by people in Scotland, whatever their political hue, because they know that she has worked very hard for Scotland all her life. If the question is, 'Can I live up to my mother?', I don't know. Time will tell. I am not Winnie, I'm Annabelle."
Fergus was ten, Annabelle seven and their younger brother Terence three when their mother won the Hamilton by-election. In an interview at the time, Winnie described her children's reaction to her success: "Fergus is intrigued and proud . . . Terry is bewildered but I think Annabelle finds it a wee bit embarrassing. I think she'd sometimes like to have a mum just like the other girls' mums".
Ewing lacks the sartorial flamboyance of her mother who in the early days at Westminster wowed the Commons with her outfits. Winnie complained of being treated as a music-hall joke but could never resist playing to the gallery. One ensemble - a long blue, pink and green dress with goatskin jacket and matching blue skullcap - earned her the nickname Gypsy Rose. Annabelle dresses like a lawyer.
She has not inherited her mother's quasi-religious style of political argument. Winnie traces her nationalism back to a cruise "doon the water" as a 10-year-old. "The band started playing Road to the Isles and I think I knew then I was a Scottish nationalist," she once said.
Annabelle cannot remember when she joined the party. "By my early teens I was politically active. I remember campaigning in Govan in 1973 for Margo MacDonald. As I matured as individual I just got more involved," she says.
MacDonald, who has known Ewing since she was a girl, says: "She is a smashing candidate. She is such a nice person and has a strength of character that shines through. As a little girl she had these huge brown eyes which never missed a thing. She's a bright lawyer but can enjoy a night out with the girls. She is close to her mother but not cloyingly so."
Not everyone is complimentary. One friend of the family describes Annabelle as "Winnie without the charm". She shares with her brother Fergus a certain chippiness which is often a feature of the children of famous parents. The Ewings believe past press coverage has been unfair, and are particularly defensive of their mother.
It is therefore difficult to fathom why Ewing is keen to subject herself to the public glare. She describes the decision to become a candidate as "a process that was germinating over the years. If you believe in something very strongly and other people are relying on you to articulate their case for them, then it is a natural step. I'm good at speaking out for people. That is what I do in my job."
Ewing was born and brought up in Glasgow. The family lived in a large Victorian house in Pollokshields and Ewing attended Craigholme school in the city before following her mother to Glasgow university to study law. She did postgraduate studies in Italy and Amsterdam before returning to Scotland to complete her articles in a small legal firm in Saltcoats. It specialised in cases of domestic violence and was, she says, "a real eye-opener".
An internship with the European Commission followed and she stayed 10 years, ultimately becoming a salaried partner specialising in EC law for a large American firm. "The money was good but the hours were long." Despite setting up the Brussels arm of the SNP and being heavily involved in Amnesty International, her profile was low. By contrast, her mother "Madame Ecosese" was making an impact on the European parliament as MEP for the Highlands and Islands.
Ewing returned to Scotland and the bosom of the family before the Scottish parliamentary elections, joining the family law firm and working with Fergus. Her family represents a kind of magnet whose force she cannot resist. Of the three children only Terence, an SNP member but with no desire to become a politician, has a child of his own.
Ewing has not ruled out the possibility of children but is currently unattached. "I'm not courting at present. I just haven't had very much time for a normal social life in the past two years," she says. "A personal life is important to me. You only live once. At 39 my biological clock is ticking but it's not impossible. A good friend who is a fertility expert in Brussels has always said to me, 'Annabelle, if it comes to the crunch, no problem'. I think kids are fascinating, often more interesting to talk to than the adults."
Winnie's advice to her daughter during the campaign is general rather than tactical. "It is to be true to yourself, enjoy it and be an optimist, which is basically what I am in life," says Ewing. "She would always be there if I needed her." Winnie will be out in Hamilton in the next few weeks with her own inimitable style of campaigning. "Try keeping her away," says Ewing.
It is easy to portray the relationship as a total eclipse of the daughter; Ewing has a difficult balancing act to maintain in exploiting the family name while carving out an identity with the electorate. But if she succeeds on September 23, Hamilton 1999 will earn equal billing with her mother. She remains bullish; she knows more than most that you cannot buck your genes.
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