Elder was the first woman to run an investigative team, "The Insiders", on the Glasgow Herald, where she worked on reporters, news features and leaders.
She worked as features editor and columnist on Scotland's first cooperatively run newspaper, the ill-fated Scottish Daily News.
In June 1998, she was announced as an SNP candidate for the newly formed Scottish Parliament in the elections that would take place the following year.
[4] In the 1999 election she stood in the Glasgow Baillieston constituency and gained a 17% swing to the SNP in a former Labour heartland.
Although she did not win the seat outright,[5] she was elected on the list to Parliament as a Scottish National Party (SNP) representative for Glasgow region.
While in the Scottish Parliament, Elder launched a cross party group to look at shortage of help for chronic pain patients.
Scotland had no residential service for severe chronic pain cases, with some sent hundreds of miles to Bath.
She also claimed that: "I was reported to the chief whip after a woman MSP and one of Nicola [Sturgeon]’s chums discovered I had privately asked a women’s group for advice on male bullying in politics...