Born in Castlemilk, Glasgow, his family moved to Govan when he was five years old, as his father was a caretaker at a local primary school. He left Govan High School aged eighteen, and worked in a variety of jobs including as a retail manager and a holiday rep in Tenerife before becoming a parliamentary case worker for Anne McLaughlin MSP. After the 2011 Scottish Parliament Elections, he became a case worker for James Dornan MSP.
Political career
He was selected unopposed as the SNP candidate for the Glasgow South constituency in October 2014. At the 2015 UK general election, McDonald was elected with 54.9% of the vote, defeating the Labour incumbent Tom Harris. His total represented the largest number of actual SNP votes in the city, and the largest majority. In December 2015, McDonald came second place in the Beard Liberation Front's Parliamentary Beard of the Year Award. He was reported to have come very close to winning first place but was narrowly defeated by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn after Labour MP Diane Abbott urged people on Twitter to vote for Corbyn in the contest. He supports Pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV prevention to be available on the NHS. He has said that those opposing PrEP's introduction to the NHS were being homophobic, and has accused the UK government of "putting more hurdles in the way of the rollout of PrEP." McDonald retained his seat in the 2017 snap general election with a decreased majority. In July 2017 McDonald introduced a Private Members' Bill to ban unpaid trial shifts for workers. He called the practice "exploitation" for young job-seekers, and his Bill gained the support of the Scottish Trades Union Congress and National Union of Students among others. In March 2018 the Bill was talked out ofthe Commons meaning it could not be voted on. A year on from when he first introduced the Bill, he vowed to "keep fighting" to end unpaid trial work. On 11 April 2018, as the SNP's Defence Spokesperson, McDonald warned Prime Minister Theresa May over launching airstrikes on Syria without first having the airstrikes approved by a parliamentary vote. He said the SNP would support such airstrikes if they were part of a wider plan to bring an end to the war. The UK launched airstrikes on 14 April without a parliamentary vote, which McDonald condemned as "gesture bombing".
