 Christine Grahame (born September 9, 1944, Burton-on-Trent) is a Scottish politician. Born in England but brought up in Edinburgh, she joined the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 1970. She was elected to the Scottish Parliament to represent the South of Scotland region at the 1999 election and re-elected in 2003 and 2007.
Grahame attended Edinburgh University and after graduating she worked as a teacher. She later returned to Edinburgh University as a mature student where she earned a law degree, and afterwards she practiced as a solicitor.
Using her married name, Christine Creech, she was the SNP candidate at the 1992 General Election for Tweedale, Ettrick and Lauderdale. In 1994 she stood for the European Parliament.
At the 1999 Scottish Parliament election she fought Tweedale, Ettrick and Lauderdale again, and despite finishing second her position on the SNP regional list took her to Holyrood, after which she divorced and reverted to her maiden name. She contested Tweedale, Ettrick and Lauderdale at both the 2003 and 2007 elections, coming within 1,000 votes of victory on both occasions.
In 2004 she ran as a candidate for Deputy Leader of the SNP after the resignation of Leader John Swinney propelled Deputy Leader Roseanna Cunningham into the contest to replace him. Grahame came second, between Nicola Sturgeon, the winner, and Fergus Ewing.
After the leadership election she was reshuffled from being chair of the Scottish Parliament's Health committee to being its Shadow Minister for Social Justice, generally seen by media commentators as capabable, articulate and hardworking MSP. In June 2005 she was elected Honorary President of the Federation of Student Nationalists.
In the 2007 Scottish election she increased the SNP vote in Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale by a further 8.2 percent and only narrowly avoided displacing the sitting Liberal Democrat MSP. She returned to Parliament as the top ranking SNP member of the regional list. She was elected to the Convenorship of the Health and Sport Committee on her return.
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