Michael Russell is a Member of the Scottish Parliament.  His political biography can be found here.

Michael lives  lives in Glendaruel, Scotland. 

He was born in August 1953 in Bromley, Kent of Scottish parents and was brought up mostly in Ayrshire.

He received his secondary education at the Marr College, Troon after which he went to  Edinburgh University where he studied Theology and then Scottish History and Literature.

After graduation he  worked as an audio visual producer  for the Church of Scotland before moving to the Western Isles of Scotland to run Cinema Sgire,  a film and video project which worked on  13 inhabited islands.

In 1980 he founded the Celtic Film and TV Festival and was its full time director until he was appointed  Director of Network Scotland, a media support organisation based in Glasgow.   Having grown that company rapidly, in 1991 he left Network to found his own media company, Eala Bhan Ltd.

In 1994 he became the first Chief Executive and Campaign Director of the Scottish National Party and in 1999 was elected to the  new Scottish Parliament as a regional member for the South of Scotland.   He was Shadow Minister for the Parliament from 1999 to 2000 and Shadow Minister for Education and Culture from 2000 to 2003.    After losing his seat in the  2003 election he returned to writing and broadcasting

He remains an SNP member, served on the Government Commission on Voting Systems and Boundary Differences (the “Arbuthnott Commission”)  between 2004 and 2006, is Vice Chair of the Shetland based professional drama company “Skeklers” and was a founder board member of the Scottish National Photographic Centre , on which he continues to sit.  He is also a board director of “Aim-Hi” and a member of the Executive Committee  for PEN’s Scottish Centre.

Having lived in Benbecula, Foyers  (near Inverness) and  Tillietudlem (in South Lanarkshire), since he married Cathleen (ne MacAskill)  in March 1980 , they moved to    Glendaruel , Argyll in August 1992 on her appointment as Head Teacher of Kilmodan Primary School and they still live there, in an eighteenth century traditional single story HIghland farmhouse situated between Glendaruel and Colintraive and overlooking Loch Riddon.

Cathleen  is now  Head Teacher of Toward Primary School and their  son Cailean is a student at Dundee University.