John Hope (Liberal politician)

Hope first stood for Parliament at West Perthshire at the 1895 general election but could not remove the sitting Liberal Unionist MP Sir Donald Currie.

[4] and he held the seat until the general election of December 1910 when he lost to the Labour candidate William Adamson the Secretary of the Fife Miners’ Association.

[6] In the by-election that followed Hope emerged the winner with 3,652 votes to the 3,184 of the Unionist candidate B Hall Blyth – a respectable majority of 468 (albeit a decrease on the last election of over 200).

In his victory speech at Haddington Assembly Rooms, Hope said that East Lothian had been true to the cause of freedom, liberty and justice and had given a decisive verdict against the veto of the House of Lords (a reference to the ongoing struggle originating with the People's Budget of 1909 and the Parliament Act 1911.

[9] At the 1922 general election both the local Conservative and Lloyd George Liberal Associations repudiated Hope as their candidate on the grounds that he had not made a single speech during his 24 years in Parliament.