George Robertson, Baron Robertson of Port Ellen

Born in Port Ellen, Isle of Islay, Scotland, the son of George Philip Robertson (1916–2002), a policeman, and Marion Isabella Robertson née MacNeill (1913–1996).

His mother taught French and German.

His maternal grandfather Malcolm McNeill was the police sergeant at Bowmore during World War One, and wrote about the kindness of local people in shipwreck tragedies of SS Tuscania and HMS Otranto.

Robertson was educated at Dunoon Grammar School and studied economics at Queen's College, Dundee.

When he was 15 years of age, he was involved with protests against US nuclear submarines docking in Scotland.

George Islay MacNeill Robertson, Baron Robertson of Port Ellen, (born 12 April 1946), is a British politician of the Labour Party who was the 10th Secretary General of NATO from 1999 to 2003; he succeeded Javier Solana.

He wrote a column for the student newspaper Annasach, launched in 1967, and took an active role in student protests.

Robertson used his newspaper column to back the new University and encouraged his fellow students to take a University of Dundee degree (students who had started before 1967 could opt to take a degree from either the University of Dundee or the University of St Andrews).

During Robertson's time at Queen's College it broke away from the University of St Andrews to become the University of Dundee, of which Robertson was one of the first graduates (MA, 1968), and one of a minority of graduates that year who opted to take a Dundee, rather than a St Andrews, degree.

During his time at University he played a full part in student life.

In 1968, Robertson was one of a number of Dundee students to invade the pitch during a rugby match at St Andrews involving a team from the Orange Free State to protest against apartheid.

The same year he organised a 24-hour work-in by students in the university library in opposition to proposed cuts by the government in student grants.

Robertson is now the Chancellor of the University of Dundee.

Robertson married Sandra Wallace on 1 June 1970.

They have two sons and a daughter.

Robertson survived a serious car crash on 19 January 1976 when a Navy Land Rover, which was carrying 100 lb of gelignite and a box of detonators, hit his car head-on in the Drumochter Pass, one mile south of Dalwhinnie leaving him with two injured knees and a broken jaw.

In May 1976 the driver of the Land Rover was found guilty of careless driving.

Robertson was wearing a seat belt at the time and attributed his survival to this.

Robertson entered the House of Commons as a Labour MP in 1978, having won the Hamilton by-election in May of that year, caused by the death of the incumbent Labour MP Alex Wilson in March of that year.

The seat was contested by a SNP candidate, Margo MacDonald, who came second.

Robertson retained the constituency with an increased majority and obtained 51% of the overall vote.

He was re-elected to Parliament at five subsequent general elections, was Chairman of the Labour Party in Scotland, and was appointed to the Privy Council.

In 1995, Robertson, while he was Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland said, "Devolution will kill Nationalism stone dead".

This quote was designed to assuage hopes that devolution would provide a greater platform for the Scottish National Party (SNP).

Robertson's three children are former pupils of the school in Dunblane where gunman Thomas Hamilton murdered 16 children and their teacher in 1996.

After the massacre, Robertson, a long-time resident of the town, acted as a spokesman for the victims' families.

He was also a key figure in the subsequent campaign that led to the ban on handguns in Great Britain.

After Labour won the 1997 general election, Robertson was appointed Secretary of State for Defence.

He initiated the Strategic Defence Review, which was completed in 1998, presenting a coherent political and strategic narrative themed as 'a force for good'.

The review created the Joint Rapid Reaction Force and inaugurated the ambitious project to build two new large aircraft carriers for force projection, the Queen Elizabeth-class, and its new warplanes, symbolising the new government's commitment to defence.

However the new Labour government had come to power promising to follow the previous Conservative government's spending plans for its first two years, and this required a defence budget cut of £2 billion.

Though the defence budget was subsequently expanded, it was not sufficient for the increased ambitions of the review.

Tom Bower, in his book on that government, argued that "Robertson had created an unaffordable dream in 1998."

He was Secretary of State for Defence from 1997 to 1999, before becoming a life peer as Baron Robertson of Port Ellen, of Islay in Argyll and Bute, on 24 August 1999.

In 1999, Robertson was appointed Secretary General of NATO after the German defence minister Rudolf Scharping declined to the position, and doubts were raised about the suitability of the British politician and former Royal Marine Paddy Ashdown (at that time the outgoing leader of the Liberal Democrats) due to his never having held a position in government.

Robertson was the Secretary General of NATO at the time of the United States invasion of Afghanistan.

In October 2001, NATO invoked Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty for the first time in its history.

In December 2002, before the US-led invasion of Iraq, Robertson declared that NATO had a "moral obligation" to support the United States if it attacked Iraq.

In September 2022, during the 7th month of the Ukraine War, interviewed by Channel 4 about his nine meetings with Vladimir Putin, Robertson said, "At the first meeting (in Moscow, Oct 2001) Vladimir Putin clearly said, 'I WANT RUSSIA TO BE PART OF WESTERN EUROPE...at the 2nd meeting (in Brussels) he said..'WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO INVITE RUSSIA TO JOIN NATO?'...I started to sort of reach out and engage them in so many activities that they basically couldn't fight with us.. but after I left NATO (in Dec 2003), the American administration, the Bush administration (during their own illegal [Iraq War|war on Iraq]] opposed by Putin), lost any interest basically in doing business with Russia, they saw it as a threat..they didn't really want to make it part of the overall partnership. I think we missed an opportunity at that time because I think it's what he (Putin) wanted, and we could have grabbed hold of him!"

Robertson's quote is frequently recalled, usually in a mocking fashion, since the SNP won Scottish Parliament elections in 2007, 2011, 2016 and 2021.