Donald Andrew John Cameron was elected to the devolved Scottish Parliament in 2016 on the regional list for Highlands & Islands. He served in many roles in the shadow cabinet at Holyrood, but last month resigned his seat upon appointment as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland in the national government at Westminster. To facilitate these duties he was ennobled yesterday as Baron Cameron of Lochiel, of Achnacarry in the County of Inverness. Although this is a life peerage, he also holds the hereditary chieftancy of Clan Cameron, of which two other members currently sit in the upper house – and both of them acted as supporters to his introduction ceremony.
Ewan James Hanning Cameron, Baron Cameron of Dillington, has sat as a crossbencher since 2004, having previously worked in semi-political rural advocacy roles during the premiership of Tony Blair. He is a grandson of Sir Donald Walter Cameron, the 25th Clan Chief, thus making him an agnatic first cousin once removed of Lord Cameron of Lochiel.
David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton, should already be familiar to most readers as the former prime minister and current foreign secretary. His consanguinity to the new peer is very distant, his great-great-grandfather Sir Ewen Cameron having claimed descent from the Camerons of Erracht, themselves being descended from a younger son of the 13th Lochiel and branching from the main clan in the sixteenth century.
The arms of Clan Cameron are Gules three bars Or. Lochiel naturally bears these undifferenced, while Dillington differences with in the honour point an escallop of the second. Chipping Norton differences with four bezants in chief.
The House of Commons also saw an introduction ceremony yesterday when George Galloway returned after a nine year absence having been elected MP for Rochdale. MPs who win by-elections are also traditionally escorted to the clerks’ table by two incumbent members. There were reports that Galloway had asked Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) and Sir David Davis (Haltemprice & Howden) to act as his sponsors but both had turned him down. He was instead accompanied by Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) and Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldey & Cowdenbeath).
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Robin Stanley Taylor 