Honorific-prefix	The Right Honourable
Name	Aneurin Bevan
Honorific-suffix	PC
Birth date	November 15, 1897
Birth place	Tredegar, Monmouthshire, Wales
Death place	Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England
Death date	July 06, 1960
Office	Deputy Leader of the Labour Party
Term start	4 May 1959
Term end	6 July 1960
Leader	Hugh Gaitskell
Predecessor	Jim Griffiths
Successor	George Brown
Office1	Minister of Health
Term start1	3 August 1945
Term end1	17 January 1951
Primeminister1	Clement Attlee
Predecessor1	Henry Willink
Successor1	Hilary Marquand
Constituency mp2	Ebbw Vale
Term start2	30 May 1929
Term end2	6 July 1960
Predecessor2	Evan Davies
Successor2	Michael Foot
Nationality	British
Party	Labour Party

Aneurin "Nye" Bevan (15 November 1897 – 6 July 1960) was a Welsh Labour Party politician of the first half of the 20th century.

The son of coal miners, Bevan was a lifelong champion of social justice and the rights of working people. He was a long-time Member of Parliament (MP) and became recognised as one of the leaders of the party’s left wing, and of left-wing British thought generally. His most famous accomplishment came when, as Minister of Health in the post-war Attlee government, he spearheaded the establishment of the National Health Service, which provides free medical care to all Britons. His first name is pronounced in Welsh, typically in English.

Youth

Bevan was born in Tredegar, Monmouthshire, in the South Wales Valleys and on the northern edge of the South Wales coalfield, the son of miner David Bevan. Both Bevan's parents were Nonconformists; his father was a Baptist and his mother a Methodist. One of ten children, David Bevan did poorly at school and his academic performance was so bad that his headmaster made him repeat a year. At age 13, Bevan left school and began working in the local Tytryst Colliery. David Bevan had been a supporter of the Liberal Party in his youth, but was converted to socialism by the writings of Robert Blatchford in the Clarion and joined the Independent Labour Party.

His son (Aneurin Bevan) also joined the Tredegar branch of the South Wales Miners' Federation and became a trade union activist: he was head of his local Miners' Lodge at only 19. Bevan became a well-known local orator and was seen by his employers, the Tredegar Iron & Coal Company, as a revolutionary. The manager of the colliery found an excuse to get him sacked. But, with the support of the Miners' Federation, the case was judged as one of victimisation and the company was forced to re-employ him.

In 1919, he won a scholarship to the Central Labour College in London, sponsored by the South Wales Miners' Federation. At the college he gained his life-long respect for Karl Marx. Reciting long passages by William Morris, Bevan gradually began to overcome the stammer that he had had since he was a child.

Bevan was one of the founding members of the "Query Club" with his brother Billy and Walter Conway. The club started in 1920 or 1921 and they met in Tredegar. They would collect money each week for any member who needed it. The club intended to break the hold that the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company had on the town by becoming members of pivotal groups in the community. by friends including Aneurin Bevan and Walter Conway. Conway is in the middle of the picture. Aneurin is second from right on the back row and his brother Billy is second right on front row.]]

Upon returning home in 1921, he found that the Tredegar Iron & Coal Company refused to re-hire him. He did not find work until 1924 in the Bedwellty Colliery, and it closed down after ten months. Bevan had to endure another year of unemployment and in February 1925, his father died of pneumoconiosis.

In 1926, he found work again, this time as a paid union official. His wage of £5 a week was paid by the members of the local Miners' Lodge. His new job arrived in time for him to head the local miners against the colliery companies in what would become the General Strike. When the strike started on 3 May 1926, Bevan soon emerged as one of the leaders of the South Wales miners. The miners remained on strike for six months. Bevan was largely responsible for the distribution of strike pay in Tredegar and the formation of the Council of Action, an organisation that helped to raise money and provided food for the miners.

He was a member of the Cottage Hospital Management Committee around 1928 and was chairman in 1929/30.

Parliament

In 1928, Bevan won a seat on Monmouthshire County Council. With that success he was picked as the Labour Party candidate for Ebbw Vale (displacing the sitting MP), and easily held the seat at the 1929 General Election. In Parliament he soon became noticed as a harsh critic of those he felt opposed the working man. His targets included the Conservative Winston Churchill and the Liberal David Lloyd George, as well as Ramsay MacDonald and Margaret Bondfield from his own Labour party (he targeted the latter for her unwillingness to increase unemployment benefits). He had solid support from his constituency, being one of the few Labour MPs to be unopposed in the 1931 General Election and this support grew through the 1930s and the period of the Great Depression in the United Kingdom.

Soon after he entered parliament Bevan was briefly attracted to Oswald Mosley's arguments, in the context of Macdonald's government's incompetent handling of rising unemployment. However, in the words of his biographer John Campbell, "he breached with Mosley as soon as Mosley breached with the Labour Party". This is symptomatic of his lifelong commitment to the Labour Party, which was a result of his firm belief that only a Party supported by the British Labour Movement could have a realistic chance of attaining political power for the working class. Thus, for Bevan, joining Mosley's New Party was not an option.

He married fellow socialist MP Jennie Lee in 1934. He was an early supporter of the socialists in Spain and visited the country in the 1930s. In 1936 he joined the board of the new socialist newspaper the Tribune. His agitations for a united socialist front of all parties of the left (including the Communist Party of Great Britain) led to his brief expulsion from the Labour Party in March to November 1939 (along with Stafford Cripps and C.P. Trevelyan). But, he was readmitted in November 1939 after agreeing "to refrain from conducting or taking part in campaigns in opposition to the declared policy of the Party."

He was a strong critic of the policies of Neville Chamberlain, arguing that his old enemy Winston Churchill should be given power. During the war he was one of the main leaders of the left in the Commons, opposing the wartime Coalition government. Bevan opposed the heavy censorship imposed on radio and newspapers and wartime Defence Regulation 18B, which gave the Home Secretary the powers to intern citizens without trial. Bevan called for the nationalisation of the coal industry and advocated the opening of a Second Front in Western Europe in order to help the Soviet Union in its fight with Germany. Churchill responded by calling Bevan "... a squalid nuisance".

Bevan was also critical of the leadership of the British Army which he felt was class bound and inflexible. After Auchinleck's defeat by Rommel and his disastrous retreat across Cyrenaica in 1942, Bevan made one of his most memorable speeches in the Commons in support of a motion of censure against the Churchill government. In this he said, "The Prime Minister must realise that in this country there is a taunt on everyone's lips that if Rommel had been in the British Army he would still have been a sergeant...There is a man in the British Army who flung 150,000 men across the Ebro in Spain, Michael Dunbar. He is at present a sergeant...He was Chief of Staff in Spain, he won the Battle of the Ebro, and he is a sergeant." How angry this criticism made Churchill can be seen from the following. Churchill devotes almost an entire page in his history "The Second World War" to a lengthy quotation of this speech, yet he never mentions Bevan as the speaker, referring to him only as, "One Member."

Bevan believed that the Second World War would give Britain the opportunity to create "a new society". He often quoted an 1855 passage from Karl Marx: "The redeeming feature of war is that it puts a nation to the test. As exposure to the atmosphere reduces all mummies to instant dissolution, so war passes supreme judgment upon social systems that have outlived their vitality." At the beginning of the 1945 general election campaign Bevan told his audience: "We have been the dreamers, we have been the sufferers, now we are the builders. We enter this campaign at this general election, not merely to get rid of the Tory majority. We want the complete political extinction of the Tory Party."

After World War II, when the Communists took control of China, Parliament debated the merits of recognising the Communist government. Churchill, no friend of Bevan or Mao Zedong, commented that recognition would be advantageous to the United Kingdom for various reasons and added, "Just because you recognise someone does not mean you like him. We all, for example, recognise the Right Honourable Member from Ebbw Vale."

Government

The 1945 General Election proved to be a landslide victory for the Labour Party, giving it a large enough majority to allow the implementation of the party's manifesto commitments and to introduce a programme of far-reaching social reforms that were collectively dubbed the 'Welfare State' (see 1945 Labour Election Manifesto). These reforms were achieved in the face of great financial difficulty following the war. The new Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, appointed Aneurin Bevan as Minister of Health, with a remit that also covered Housing. Thus, the responsibility for instituting a new and comprehensive National Health Service, as well as tackling the country's severe post-war housing shortage, fell to the youngest member of Attlee's Cabinet in his first ministerial position. The free health service was paid for directly through public money. Government income was increased for the Welfare state expenditure by a severe increase in marginal tax rates for wealthy business owners in particular, as part of what the Labour government largely saw as the redistribution of the wealth created by the working class from the owners of large-scale industry to the workers.

On the "appointed day", 5 July 1948, having overcome political opposition from both the Conservative Party and from within his own party, and after a dramatic showdown with the British Medical Association, which had threatened to derail the National Health Service scheme before it had even begun, as medical practitioners continued to withhold their support just months before the launch of the service, Bevan's National Health Service Act of 1946 came into force. After 18 months of ongoing dispute between the Ministry of Health and the BMA, Bevan finally managed to win over the support of the vast majority of the medical profession by offering a couple of minor concessions, but without compromising on the fundamental principles of his NHS proposals. Bevan later gave the famous quote that, in order to broker the deal, he had "stuffed their mouths with gold". Some 2,688 voluntary and municipal hospitals in England and Wales were nationalised and came under Bevan's supervisory control as Health Minister.

Bevan said:

by Robert Thomas]] Substantial bombing damage and the continued existence of pre-war slums in many parts of the country made the task of housing reform particularly challenging for Bevan. Indeed, these factors, exacerbated by post-war restrictions on the availability of building materials and skilled labour, collectively served to limit Bevan's achievements in this area. 1946 saw the completion of 55,600 new homes; this rose to 139,600 in 1947, and 227,600 in 1948. While this was not an insignificant achievement, Bevan's rate of housebuilding was seen as less of an achievement than that of his Conservative (indirect) successor, Harold Macmillan, who was able to complete some 300,000 a year as Minister for Housing in the 1950s. Macmillan was able to concentrate full-time on Housing, instead of being obliged, like Bevan, to combine his housing portfolio with that for Health (which for Bevan took the higher priority). However critics said that the cheaper housing built by Macmillan was exactly the poor standard of housing that Bevan was aiming to replace. Macmillan's policies led to the building of cheap, mass-production high-rise tower blocks, which have been heavily criticised since.

Bevan was appointed Minister of Labour in 1951 but soon resigned in protest at Hugh Gaitskell's introduction of prescription charges for dental care and spectacles—created in order to meet the financial demands imposed by the Korean War. Two other Ministers, John Freeman and Harold Wilson resigned at the same time. See Bevan's speeches Later the same year, the Labour party lost power in a general election.

Opposition

In 1952 Bevan published In Place of Fear, "the most widely read socialist book" of the period, according to a highly critical right-wing Labour MP Anthony Crosland. Bevan begins: "A young miner in a South Wales colliery, my concern was with the one practical question: Where does power lie in this particular state of Great Britain, and how can it be attained by the workers?" In March 1952, a poorly prepared (and possibly inebriated) Bevan came off the worse in an evening Commons debate on health with Conservative backbencher Iain Macleod: Macleod's performance led Churchill to appoint him Minister of Health some six weeks after his debate with Bevan.

Out of office, Bevan soon initiated a split within the Labour Party between the right and the left. For the next five years, Bevan was the leader of the left-wing of the Labour Party, who became known as Bevanites. They criticised high defence expenditure (especially for nuclear weapons) and opposed the more reformist stance of Clement Attlee. In 1954, Gaitskell beat Bevan in a hard fought contest to be the Treasurer of the Labour Party. When the first British hydrogen bomb was exploded in 1955, Bevan led a revolt of 57 Labour MPs and abstained on a key vote. The Parliamentary Labour Party voted 141 to 113 to withdraw the whip from him, but it was restored within a month due to his popularity.

After the 1955 general election, Attlee retired as leader. Bevan contested the leadership against both Morrison and Labour right-winger Hugh Gaitskell, but it was Gaitskell who emerged victorious. Bevan's remark that "I know the right kind of political Leader for the Labour Party is a kind of desiccated calculating machine" was assumed to refer to Gaitskell, although Bevan denied it (commenting upon Gaitskell's record as Chancellor of the Exchequer as having "proved" this). However, Gaitskell was prepared to make Bevan Shadow Colonial Secretary, and then Shadow Foreign Secretary in 1956. In this position, he was a vocal critic of the government's actions in the Suez Crisis, noticeably delivering high profile speeches in Trafalgar Square on 4 November 1956 at a protest rally, and devastating the government's actions and arguments in the House of Commons on 5 December 1956. That year, he was finally elected as party treasurer, beating George Brown.

In 1957, Bevan joined Richard Crossman and Morgan Phillips in a controversial lawsuit for libel against The Spectator magazine, which had described the men as drinking heavily during a socialist conference in Italy. Having sworn that the charges were untrue, the three collected damages from the magazine. Many years later, Crossman's posthumously published diaries confirmed the truth of The Spectator's charges.

Bevan dismayed many of his supporters when, speaking at the 1957 Labour Party conference, he decried unilateral nuclear disarmament, saying "It would send a British Foreign Secretary naked into the conference-chamber". This statement is often misconstrued: Bevan argued that unilateralism would result in Britain's loss of allies, and one interpretation of his metaphor is that nakedness would come from the lack of allies, not the lack of weapons. According to the journalist Paul Routledge, Donald Bruce, a former MP and Parliamentary Private Secretary and adviser to Bevan, had told him that Bevan's shift on the disarmament issue was the result of discussions with the Soviet government where they advised him to push for British retention of nuclear weapons so they could possibly be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the United States.

In 1959, despite suffering from terminal cancer, Bevan was elected as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. He could do little in his new role and died the following year at the age of 62.

His last speech in the House of Commons, in the Debate of the 3 November 1959 on the Queen's Speech, in which Bevan referred to the difficulties of persuading the electorate to support a policy which would make them less well-off in the short term but more prosperous in the long term, was quoted extensively in subsequent years.

In 2004, over 40 years after his death, he was voted first in a list of 100 Welsh Heroes, this being credited much to his contribution to the Welfare State after World War Two.

See also

Social democracy

Democratic socialism

Bevanism

Blaenau Gwent

National Health Service

Trade Union

100 Welsh Heroes

Bibliographic publications

Why Not Trust The Tories?, 1944. Published under the pseudonym, 'Celticus'. The title was intended ironically.

In Place of Fear, 1952.

Excerpts from Bevan's speeches are included in Greg Rosen's Old Labour to New, Methuen, 2005.

Bevan's key speeches in the legislative arena are to be found in:

Peter J. Laugharne (ed) Aneurin Bevan - A Parliamentary Odyssey: Volume I, Speeches at Westminster 1929-1944, Manutius Press, 1996.

Peter J. Laugharne (ed), Aneurin Bevan - A Parliamentary Odyssey: Volume II, Speeches at Westminster 1945-1960, Manutius Press, 2000.

Peter J. Laugharne (ed), Aneurin Bevan - A Parliamentary Odyssey: Volumes I and II, Speeches at Westminster 1929-1960, Manutius Press, 2004.

Further bibliographic reading

The major biographies are the uplifting two-volume Aneurin Bevan by Michael Foot (1962 and 1974) and the more sceptical Nye Bevan and the Mirage of British Socialism, by John Campbell (1987).

Bevan's widow, Jennie Lee, published My Life with Nye, in 1980.

Shorter biographical essays can be found in:

Kevin Jefferys (ed), Labour Forces, IB Taurus, 2002.

Peter J. Laugharne (ed), Aneurin Bevan - A Parliamentary Odyssey: Volume I, Speeches at Westminster 1929-1944, Manutius Press, 1996.

Peter J. Laugharne (ed), Aneurin Bevan - A Parliamentary Odyssey: Volume II, Speeches at Westminster 1945-1960, Manutius Press, 2000.

Peter J. Laugharne (ed), Aneurin Bevan - A Parliamentary Odyssey: Volumes I and II, Speeches at Westminster 1929-1960, Manutius Press, 2004.

Kenneth O. Morgan, Labour People, OUP, 1987.

Greg Rosen (ed), Dictionary of Labour Biography, Politicos Publishing, 2001

G D H Cole, Aneurin Bevan, Jim Griffiths, L F Easterbrook, Ait William Beveridge, and Harold J Laski, Plan for Britain: A Collection of Essays prepared for the Fabian Society(Not illustrated with 127 text pages).

Notes

External links

Never Again! Aneurin Bevan, Housing and Harold Hill

Tredegar Medical Aid Society">History of the Tredegar Medical Aid Society

Aneurin Bevan and the foundation of the NHS

Biography with excerpts

BBC Biography with Audio clip of speech on NHS

Nye Bevan on The Guardian's Greatest Speeches of the 20th Century site, featuring full audio of Bevan's speech at the 4th November 1956 Trafalgar Square rally against British action in Suez.

Category:1897 births Category:1960 deaths Category:Members of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Category:National Health Service Category:Labour Party (UK) MPs Category:UK MPs 1929–1931 Category:UK MPs 1931–1935 Category:UK MPs 1935–1945 Category:UK MPs 1945–1950 Category:UK MPs 1950–1951 Category:UK MPs 1951–1955 Category:UK MPs 1955–1959 Category:UK MPs 1959–1964 Category:Councillors in Wales Category:Welsh politicians Category:Welsh socialists Category:People from Tredegar Category:Cancer deaths in England Category:National Health Service people

Name	Tommy Cooper
Birth name	Thomas Frederick Cooper
Birth date	March 19, 1921
Birth place	Caerphilly, Wales
Death date	April 15, 1984
Death place	Haymarket, London, England
Restingplace	Mortlake Crematorium
Occupation	ComedianProp ComedianMagician
Spouse	Gwen
Partner	Mary Fieldhouse nee Kay
Children	Thomas Cooper Henty (deceased)Vicky Cooper
Grandchildren	Tam Henty
Parents	Tom Cooper and Gertrude (nee Wright)

Thomas Frederick "Tommy" Cooper (19 March 1921 – 15 April 1984) was a popular British prop comedian and magician.

Cooper was a member of The Magic Circle, and respected by traditional magicians. Famed for his red fez, his appearance was large and lumbering at and more than in weight.

Cooper had developed his conjuring skills and was a member of The Magic Circle, but there are various versions as to where he developed his act delivery of "failed" magic tricks:

Performing to his shipbuilding colleagues when everything went wrong. Devastated, Cooper still noted that the failed tricks got laughs.

During his British Army career.

At a post-war audition, at which his tricks went wrong, but which the panel thoroughly enjoyed.

To keep the audience on their toes, Cooper threw in the occasional trick that worked when it was least expected.

Career

Cooper rapidly became a top-liner in variety with his turn as the conjurer whose tricks never succeeded, but it was his television work which raised him to national prominence. After his debut on the BBC talent show New to You in March 1948, he soon started starring in his own shows, and was popular with audiences for four decades, most notably through his work with London Weekend Television from 1968 to 1972 and with Thames Television from 1973 to 1980. Thanks to his many Television shows during the mid 70s he was one of the biggest and most recognizable comedians in the world.

Cooper was a heavy drinker and smoker, and experienced a decline in health during the late 1970s, suffering a heart attack in 1977 while in Rome, where he was performing a show. However, just three months later he was back on television in Night Out at the London Casino. By 1980, though, his drinking meant that Thames Television would not give him another starring series, and Cooper's Half Hour was his last. He did continue to guest on other television shows, however, and worked with Eric Sykes on two Thames productions in 1982: The Eric Sykes 1990 Show and It's Your Move.

Legendary meanness

John Fisher writes in Cooper's biography, "Everyone agrees that he was mean. Quite simply he was acknowledged as the tightest man in show business, with a pathological dread of reaching into his pocket."

Friends remember he would persuade strangers to buy him a drink using magician's cunning. He would stand at a bar and, when he made eye-contact with a stranger, say 'Yes?' to which the stranger would reply, "Can I get you a drink?" Cooper would reply 'What are you drinking?' to which the stranger would think he was being offered a drink, state his preference and hear Cooper rejoin, "I'll have one as well." Another stunt was to leave a taxi, slipping something into the taxi driver's pocket saying, "Have a drink on me." That something turned out to be a tea bag.

He was also known for meanness of nature. In 1964 he was opening act at the Royal Variety Performance but short of material. He asked Billy Mayo, a retired variety pro who had seen better days, for help. Mayo went off to a hardware store and bought a paraffin heater, which he presented to Cooper telling him to walk on at the beginning, put it down in front of the audience and say, "They told me to go out there and warm them up." Cooper did, and the gag received an uproarious reception. A few days later he met Mayo along with fellow performers in Soho where he received much praise for his performance but offered not a word of thanks to Mayo. At leaving time Mayo asked a favour of Cooper, "My legs are not so good at the moment. Would it be possible for your driver to drop me off at my flat?" Cooper replied by saying, "I'm not a fucking taxi service."

However, Fisher reports that despite other such tales, Cooper's strengths outweighed his faults.

Drinking

Cooper's drinking increased and had a devastating effect on his family and nearly ruined his career. Initially he drank to allay the anxiety of going onstage. He told his friend Eric Sykes, "People say I've only got to walk out on stage and they laugh. If only they knew what it takes to walk out on stage in the first place. One of these days I'll just walk out and do nothing. Then they'll know the difference." Cooper also related during a TV interview that he would walk on stage behind the curtain and give it a shake. If the audience didn't laugh, he would shake the curtain even more violently. If the audience laughed, he would burst through the curtain and start his show. If they still didn't laugh, he would rush back to the changing room, grab his bag and leave the theatre.

What began as liquid courage became a psychological crutch. Michael Parkinson recalls working with Cooper on a dry ship: there was much agitation when Cooper requested brandy. Parkinson explained, "You give him the bottle or he doesn't go on. It's as simple as that. That's how he works." There was an incident in a hotel where he asked for a large gin and tonic at breakfast then poured it over his cornflakes, explaining it was good for him as 'milk is full of cholesterol'.

By the mid-1970s, alcohol had started to erode Cooper's professionalism and club owners complained that he turned up late or rushed through his show in five minutes. His popularity generally carried him through but sometimes he was slow-handclapped onto the stage, audiences shouting 'Why are we waiting?' In clubs and on television, his timing began to desert him, he looked sad and was sluggish, eyes glazed, energy lowered. His slight incoherence had been part of his act but now words were being left out to embarrassing effect. Despite production crews pouring coffee down his throat, classic gags were omitted and other lines repeated for no reason. His health suffered and, fixated about his increasing weight, he started buying under-the-counter slimming pills which he mixed with insomnia tablets to form a potent cocktail.

In addition, he suffered chronic indigestion, lumbago, sciatica, bronchitis and severe circulation problems in his legs. When Cooper realised the extent of his injuries he cut down on his drinking and the energy and sparkle returned to his act and some of his later television performances were a revelation. However, he never stopped drinking and could be fallible: on an otherwise triumphant appearance with Michael Parkinson he forgot to set the safety catch on the guillotine illusion into which he had cajoled Parkinson. Only a last-minute intervention by the floor manager saved Parkinson's life. At this point the show's director, Alasdair MacMillan, cued the orchestra to play music for an unscripted commercial break (noticeable by several seconds of blank screen whilst LWT's master control contacted regional stations to start transmitting advertisements) and Jimmy Tarbuck's manager tried to pull Cooper back through the curtains. It was decided to continue with the show. Dustin Gee and Les Dennis were the act that had to follow Tommy Cooper, and other stars proceeded to present their acts in the limited space in front of the stage. For a long time, a rumour circulated that the size 13 feet from his 6' 4" frame protruded underneath the curtains. While the show continued, efforts were being made backstage to revive Cooper, not made easier by the darkness. It was not until a second commercial break that ambulancemen were able to move his body to Westminster Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. His death wasn't officially reported until the next morning, although the incident was the lead item on the news programme that followed the show.

The video of Tommy Cooper suffering a heart attack on stage has been uploaded to numerous video sharing websites. YouTube have been heavily criticised by the press when footage of the incident was posted on their website from May 2009. Recently, a cleaner and longer version of the incident surfaced, directly from a VHS; this also includes his last pieces of material before he was handed the cloak, and also features the point when the commercial break begins.

Cooper was cremated at Mortlake Crematorium in London. Cooper was survived by his wife, Gwen (whom he called 'Dove'), and two children, Thomas and Vicky, and a two year old grandchild, Tam. Cooper's son Thomas, who was an actor in his own right, changed his name for stage to Thomas Henty (his mother's maiden name). Henty said in interviews that, though he loved his dad, he needed his own identity to make a career on stage, and told very few who his famed father was, to further his dramatic acting career. Eventually son Tom traveled on the road as manager to his father. He also acted as occasional stage manager to his father, and was backstage with his father on the night he died. But like his father, son Thomas was a heavy drinker, and he died in August 1988 at Charing Cross Hospital in Fulham, London, age 32. He died of haemophilia, following complications caused by liver failure. Doctors had attempted to pump seventy pints of new blood into his body, but the blood failed to clot, and after three days his mother took the decision to have his life support machine switched off. Thomas Henty left a son, Tam Henty.

Honours

In a 2005 poll The Comedians' Comedian, Cooper was voted the sixth greatest comedy act ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. He is commonly cited as one of the best comedians of all time, with several polls placing him at number one.

Jerome Flynn has toured with his own tribute show to Cooper called Just Like That.

Statue

A statue of Tommy Cooper was unveiled in his hometown of Caerphilly, Wales on 23 February 2008 by fellow entertainer Sir Anthony Hopkins, who is patron of The Tommy Cooper Society. The statue was sculpted by James Done. In 2009 for Red Nose Day, a charity Red Nose was put on the statue, but the nose was stolen. Many papers said it had been stolen: "just like that", quoting Cooper's famous saying.

Film biography

In February 2007, The Independent reported that Andy Harries, a producer of The Queen, was working on a dramatization about the last week of Tommy Cooper's life. Harries described Cooper's death as "extraordinary" in that the whole thing was broadcast live on national television.

References

External links

The Tommy Cooper Society

Tommy Cooper - Almost a Magician

Category:People from Caerphilly Category:People from Exeter Category:British actors Category:British comedians Category:Prop comics Category:Royal Horse Guards soldiers Category:British Army personnel of World War II Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:Music hall performers Category:Deaths onstage Category:Filmed deaths Category:Filmed deaths of entertainers Category:Old Radfordians Category:1921 births Category:1984 deaths

Name	Tom Blenkinsop
Honorific-suffix	MP
Constituency mp8	Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland
Predecessor8	Ashok Kumar
Term start8	6 May 2010
Majority8	1,677 (3.6%)
Birth date	August 14, 1980
Birth place	Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England
Party	Labour
Spouse	Victoria Emtage
Residence	Saltburn
Alma mater	Teesside UniversityUniversity of Warwick
Website	http://tomblenkinsop.com

Thomas Francis Blenkinsop (born 14 August 1980) is a British Labour Party politician and Member of Parliament (MP) for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland.

Born in Middlesbrough, Blenkinsop attended St Augustine's RC Primary School in Coulby Newham and the Newlands School FCJ, before attending St Mary's Sixth Form College in Saltersgill. He attended Teeside University where he obtained a BSc in PPE, and the University of Warwick, where he was awarded an MA in continental philosophy.

He became a constituency researcher for Ashok Kumar from 2002 until 2008 when he became a full-time regional official for the Community Trade Union until his election to parliament.

He stood as a candidate for the 2010 general election after the premature death of Kumar, taking the seat with a 1,677 majority.

He was appointed to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee and the Standards and Privileges Committee in June 2010.

He has been married to Victoria Emtage since 2007.

References

External links

http://tomblenkinsop.com

Interview after winning his seat in 2010 at Catch21

Category:1980 births Category:Living people Category:UK MPs 2010– Category:Labour Party (UK) MPs Category:Members of the United Kingdom Parliament for English constituencies Category:Alumni of Teesside University Category:Alumni of the University of Warwick

Honorific-prefix	The Right Honourable
Name	Michael Foot
Honorific-suffix	FRSL
Caption	Foot in 1953.
Office	Leader of the Opposition
Primeminister	Margaret Thatcher
Term start	4 November 1980
Term end	2 October 1983
Predecessor	James Callaghan
Successor	Neil Kinnock
Office1	Leader of the Labour Party
Deputy1	Denis Healey
Term start1	4 November 1980
Term end1	2 October 1983
Predecessor1	James Callaghan
Successor1	Neil Kinnock
Office2	Deputy Leader of the Labour Party
Leader2	James Callaghan
Term start2	5 April 1976
Term end2	4 November 1980
Predecessor2	Edward Short
Successor2	Denis Healey
Office3	Leader of the House of Commons
Primeminister3	James Callaghan
Term start3	8 April 1976
Term end3	4 May 1979
Predecessor3	Edward Short
Successor3	Norman St John-Stevas
Office4	Lord President of the Council
Primeminister4	James Callaghan
Term start4	8 April 1976
Term end4	4 May 1979
Predecessor4	Edward Short
Successor4	Christopher Soames
Office5	Secretary of State for Employment
Primeminister5	Harold Wilson
Term start5	5 March 1974
Term end5	8 April 1976
Predecessor5	William Whitelaw
Successor5	Albert Booth
Constituency mp6	Blaenau GwentEbbw Vale (1960-1992)
Term start6	17 November 1960
Term end6	9 April 1992
Predecessor6	Aneurin Bevan
Successor6	Llew Smith
Constituency mp7	Plymouth Devonport
Term start7	5 July 1945
Term end7	26 May 1955
Predecessor7	Leslie Hore-Belisha
Successor7	Joan Vickers
Birth date	July 23, 1913
Birth place	Plymouth, Devon
Death date	March 03, 2010
Death place	Hampstead, London
Party	Labour
Spouse	Jill Craigie (1949–1999)
Alma mater	Wadham College, Oxford
Religion	None (Atheism)

Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 1913 – 3 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician, journalist and author, who was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1945 to 1955 and from 1960 until 1992. He was also the Leader of the Opposition from 1980 to 1983.

Associated with the Labour left for most of his career, he was a supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and British withdrawal from the European Economic Community. A passionate orator, he was Labour leader at the 1983 general election when the party received its lowest share of the vote since 1918. Foot successfully sued the Sunday Times, winning "substantial" damages.

However, in the Daily Telegraph in 2010 Charles Moore gave a "full account", which he claimed had been provided to him by Gordievsky shortly after Foot's death, of the extent of Foot's alleged KGB involvement. Moore also wrote that, although the claims are difficult to corroborate without MI6 and KGB files, Gordievsky's past record in revealing KGB contacts in Britain had been shown to be reliable.

On 23 July 2006, his 93rd birthday, Michael Foot became the longest-lived leader of a major British political party, passing Lord Callaghan's record of 92 years, 364 days.

A staunch republican (though actually well-liked by the Royal Family on a personal level), Foot rejected honours from the Queen and the government, including a knighthood and a peerage, on more than one occasion.

Health

Foot suffered from asthma until 1963 (which disqualified him from active service in World War II) and eczema until middle age.

In October 1963 he was involved in a car crash, suffering pierced lungs, broken ribs, and a broken left leg. He subsequently used a walking stick for the rest of his life. According to former MP Tam Dalyell, Foot had up to the accident been a chain-smoker, but gave up the habit thereafter.

In 1976, Foot became blind in one eye following an attack of shingles.

Death

Foot died at his Hampstead, North London home in the morning of 3 March 2010. The House of Commons was informed of the news later that day by Justice Secretary Jack Straw, who told the House: "I am sure that this news will be received with great sadness not only in my own party but across the country as a whole." Foot's funeral was a non-religious service, held on 15 March 2010 at Golders Green Crematorium in North West London.

Fictional depiction

Foot was portrayed by Patrick Godfrey in the 2002 BBC production of Ian Curteis' long unproduced The Falklands Play.

Notes

Bibliography

"Cato". Guilty Men. Left Book Club. 1940.

"Brendan and Beverley" (as "Cassius"). Victor Gollancz. 1940.

Foot, Michael: The Pen and the Sword. MacGibbon and Kee. 1957. ISBN 0-261-61989-6.

Foot, Michael: Aneurin Bevan. MacGibbon and Kee. 1962 (vol 1); 1973 (vol 2). ISBN 0-261-61508-4.

Foot, Michael: Debts of Honour. Harper and Row. 1981. ISBN 0-06-039001-8.

Foot, Michael: Another Heart and Other Pulses. Collins. 1984. ISBN 978-0002172561.

Foot, Michael: H. G.: The History of Mr Wells. Doubleday. 1985. ISBN 978-1887178044.

Foot, Michael: Loyalists and Loners. Collins. 1986. ISBN 978-0002175838.

Foot, Michael: Politics of Paradise. HarperCollins. 1989. ISBN 0-06-039091-3

Foot, Michael: 'Introduction' in Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. Penguin (Penguin Classics), 1967 & 1985.

Foot, Michael: 'Introduction' in Russell, Bertrand: Autobiography. Routledge. 1998.

Foot, Michael: Dr Strangelove, I Presume. Gollancz. 1999.

Foot, Michael, Brian Brivati (ed.): The Uncollected Michael Foot. Politicos Publishing. 2003. ISBN 978-1842750964.

Foot, Michael: 'Foreword' in Rosen, Greg: Old Labour to New. Methuen Publishing. 2005. ISBN 978-1842750452.

Foot, Michael: Isaac Foot: A West Country Boy - Apostle of England. Politicos Publishing. 2006. ISBN 978-1842751817.

Biographies

Hoggart, Simon; & Leigh, David. Michael Foot: a Portrait. Hodder. 1981. ISBN 0-340-27040-3

Jones, Mervyn. Michael Foot. Gollancz. 1993. ISBN 0-575-05933-8

Morgan, Kenneth O. Michael Foot: A Life. HarperPress (HarperCollins) 2007. ISBN 978 0 00 717826 1

External links

Michael Foot at 90 Johann Hari, 24 July 2003 - In-depth biographical interview marking Foot's 90th birthday

Michael Foot (1913-2010) Slideshow, The First Post

Fictional obituary of Michael Foot: "what if" the Falklands Task Force had been defeated? Today in Alternate History

The Labour History Archive and Study Centre hold Michael Foot's archive at: People's History Museum

Michael Foot 1913-2010 New Statesman, 3 November 2008 - The last published interview with the former Labour leader, who died on 3 March 2010 at the aged of 96

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Grant Geoffrey Robinson (born 24 July 1979 in Gisborne) is a New Zealand cricketer who plays for the Northern Districts Knights. In 2005-06 Robinson scored 268 for Hamilton against Northland to record the second highest score in the history of the Hawke Cup competition.

References

Category:1979 births Category:Living people Category:New Zealand cricketers Category:Northern Districts cricketers Category:People from Gisborne, New Zealand