Show name	The Daily Politics
Genre	Current Affairs & Politics
Presenter	Andrew NeilJo CoburnAnita Anand
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Runtime	30 minutes
Network	BBC Two
First aired
Last aired	present
Preceded	Westminster Live
Related	This Week
Website	http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/default.stm

The Daily Politics is a British television show launched by the BBC in 2003. Presented by Andrew Neil, Jo Coburn and Anita Anand, the programme takes an in-depth and sometimes irreverent look at the daily goings on in Westminster and other areas across Britain, and includes interviews with leading politicians and political commentators. It replaced Westminster Live which ended in 2002.

Broadcast times

The Daily Politics is broadcast live on BBC Two at a running time of 30 minutes from 12:00pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays when Parliament is sitting. On Wednesdays the programme runs from 11:30am to 13:00pm and includes live coverage of Prime Minister's Questions.

During the party conference season the Daily Politics has extended programmes of between 60 and 90 minutes long in the mornings with an additional show covering the leaders' speech in the afternoon.

The Daily Politics team also produce a conference highlights pogramme called Today at Conference which goes out after Newsnight on BBC Two and is also presented by Andrew Neil.

During the 2010 General Election, BBC Two ran nine, 45-minute Daily Politics Election Debates. These programmes were presented by Andrew Neil and a specialist BBC correspondent.

Presenters

Daisy Sampson was Neil's co-presenter until the summer of 2005 when she left to join ITV. Jenny Scott joined as her replacement. She left in June 2008 to join the Bank of England. Sally Magnusson joined briefly in 2005 as the sole presenter on Friday's episode. Anita Anand joined the programme as Jenny Scott's replacement in September with Jo Coburn presenting on Thursdays. The regular reporters are Adam Fleming and Giles Dilnot. Other regular contributors to the show include the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson. Jon Sopel and Eddie Mair have appeared as guest presenters in Andrew Neil's absence.

Shelagh Fogarty joined the team in January 2010 to co-host with Neil on Thursdays for three months after Anita Anand began maternity leave. Jo Coburn has taken on Anita Anand's role presenting four days a week. At the beginning of April 2010 Jo Coburn went full time presenting the programme every day. Anita Anand returned on 6 September 2010.

Daily Politics Debates

During the run up to the 2010 General Election The Daily Politics held a series of special editions of the programme featuring debates involving members of the incumbent Labour Cabinet and their Conservative and Liberal Democrat equivalents. These debates ran alongside the main leaders' debates held for the first time in 2010.

Starting on Monday 19 April, there were nine debates held on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays for the three weeks before 6 May. Andrew Neil acted as moderator, along with a specialist BBC correspondent.

Competition

Every Wednesday the programme features an e-mail competition where viewers answer a question for the chance to win a coveted Daily Politics mug. This competition was suspended as per BBC policy in the wake of the Blue Peter phone-in scandal. The competition returned in 2008 with entries picked out of a giant-sized Daily Politics mug instead of a normal mug (after initially using a Daily Politics bucket). Neither the enlarged mug nor the Daily Politics bucket have yet been made available as a prize. The design of the mug changed in September 2008, after a relaunch of the programme.

See also

This Week

References

External links

The Daily Politics at BBC Online

Category:2003 in British television Category:2003 television series debuts Category:2000s British television series Category:2010s British television series Category:BBC television news programmes Category:Political television series

Name	Nigel Farage
Honorific-suffix	MEP
Office	Leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party
Term start	5 November 2010
Predecessor	Jeffrey Titford
Term start1	27 September 2006
Term end1	27 November 2009
Predecessor1	Roger Knapman
Successor1	The Lord Pearson of Rannoch
Constituency mp2	the South East
Parliament2	European
Term start2	15 July 1999
Birth date	April 03, 1964
Birth place	Kent, England, United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Party	UK Independence Party
Spouse	Kirsten MehrGráinne Hayes (div.)
Children	4
Alma mater	Dulwich College

Nigel Paul Farage (; born 3 April 1964) is a British politician and is the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), a position he previously held from September 2006 to November 2009. He is a current Member of the European Parliament for South East England and co-chairs the Eurosceptic Europe of Freedom and Democracy group.

Farage was a founding member of the UKIP, having left the Conservative Party in 1992 after they signed the Maastricht Treaty. Having unsuccessfully campaigned in European and Westminster parliamentary elections for UKIP since 1994, he was elected as the MEP for South East England in the 1999 European Parliament Election and was re-elected in 2004 and 2009.

In September 2006, Farage became the UKIP Leader and led the party through the 2009 European Parliament Election in which it received the second highest share of the popular vote, defeating Labour and the Liberal Democrats with over two million votes. However he stepped down in November 2009 to concentrate on contesting the Speaker John Bercow's seat of Buckingham in the 2010 general election.

At the 2010 General Election, Farage failed to unseat John Bercow and only received the third highest share of the vote in the constituency. Shortly after the polls opened on 6 May 2010, Nigel Farage was injured in a plane crash in Northamptonshire. The two-seated PZL-104 Wilga 35A had been towing a pro-UKIP banner when it flipped over and crashed shortly after takeoff. Both Farage and the pilot were hospitalised with non life threatening injuries.

In November 2010, Farage successfully stood in the 2010 UKIP leadership contest, following the resignation of its leader, Malcolm Pearson. Farage was also ranked 41st (out of 100) in The Daily Telegraph's Top 100 most influential right-wingers poll in October 2009, citing his media savvy and his success with UKIP in the European Elections. Farage was ranked 58th in the 2010 list compiled by Iain Dale and Brian Brivati for the Daily Telegraph.

Political career

Conservative Party

Active in the Conservative Party from his school days until the resignation of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1990, Farage left the party in 1992 when John Major's government signed the Treaty on European Union at Maastricht.

UKIP and the European Parliament

Farage became a founding member of UKIP in 1993.

He was elected to the European Parliament in 1999 and re-elected in 2004 and 2009. Farage is currently leader of the thirteen-member UKIP contingent in the European Parliament, and co-leader of the multinational eurosceptic group, Europe of Freedom and Democracy.

UKIP party leadership

On 12 September 2006, Farage was elected leader of UKIP with 45% of the vote, 20% ahead of his nearest rival. He pledged to bring discipline to the party and to maximise UKIP's representation in local, parliamentary and other elections. In a PM programme interview on BBC Radio 4 that day he pledged to end the public perception of UKIP as a single-issue party and to work with allied politicians in the Better Off Out campaign, committing himself not to stand against the MPs who have signed up to that campaign (ten in all at this moment).

At his maiden speech to the UKIP conference on 8 October 2006, he told delegates that the party was "at the centre-ground of British public opinion" and the "real voice of opposition". Farage said: "We've got three social democratic parties in Britain — Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative are virtually indistinguishable from each other on nearly all the main issues" and "you can't put a cigarette paper between them and that is why there are nine million people who don't vote now in general elections that did back in 1992."

At 10pm on 19 October 2006, Farage took part in a three-hour live interview and phone-in with James Whale on national radio station talkSPORT. Four days later, Whale announced on his show his intention to stand as UKIP's candidate in the 2008 London Mayoral Election. Farage said that Whale "not only has guts, but an understanding of what real people think". However Whale later decided not to stand and UKIP was represented by Gerard Batten. He stood again for UKIP leadership in 2010 after his successor Lord Pearson stood down.

Westminster elections

Farage had unsuccessfully contested UK parliamentary elections for UKIP five times, both before and after his election as an MEP in 1999. Under the 2002 European Union decision to forbid MEPs from holding a dual mandate, if he was ever elected to the House of Commons, he would have to resign his seat as an MEP.

When he contested the Bromley & Chislehurst constituency in a May 2006 by-election, organised after the sitting MP representing it, eurosceptic Conservative Eric Forth, died, Farage came third, winning 8% of the vote, beating the Labour Party candidate. This was the second-best by-election result recorded by UKIP out of 25 results, and the first time since the Liverpool Walton by-election in 1991 that a party in government had been pushed into fourth place in a parliamentary by-election on mainland Britain.

2010 UK General election

On 4 September 2009 Farage resigned as leader of UKIP to concentrate on his campaign to become Member of Parliament for Buckingham at Westminster in the 2010 general election. He later told Times journalist Camilla Long that UKIP internal fights took up too much time.

He stood against Buckingham MP John Bercow, the newly elected Speaker of the House of Commons, despite a convention that the speaker, as a political neutral, is not normally challenged in their bid for re-election by any of the major parties.

On 6 May, on the morning the polls opened in the election, just before eight o'clock Farage was involved in a light plane crash, suffering injuries described as non-life threatening. A spokesperson told the BBC that "it was unlikely Mr Farage would be discharged from hospital today [6 May] Although his injuries were originally described as minor, his sternum and ribs were broken, and his lung punctured. The Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) report said that the plane was towing a banner, which caught in the tail plane forcing the nose down. On 1 December 2010, the pilot of the aircraft involved in the accident was charged with threatening to kill Farage. He was also charged with threatening to kill an AAIB official involved in the investigation into the accident.

Farage came third with 8,401 votes. Bercow was re-elected, and an independent who campaigned with "Flipper the Dolphin" (a reference to MPs flipping second homes) came second.

Controversies and whistleblowing

Copyright infringement

In 1999 the BBC spent four months filming a documentary about his European elections campaign but didn't show it. Farage, then head of UKIP's South East office, asked for a video and got friends to make illegal copies which were sold for £5 through the UKIP magazine. Surrey Trading Standards investigated and Farage has admitted the offence.

Expenses disclosure

In May 2009, The Guardian reported that Farage had said in a speech to the Foreign Press Association that over ten years as a member of the European Parliament he received and spent nearly £2 million of taxpayers' money in expenses and allowances, on top of his £64,000 a year salary.

The former Europe Minister, Denis MacShane, said that this showed that Farage was "happy to line his pockets with gold". Farage called this a "misrepresentation", pointing out that the money had been used to promote UKIP's message, not salary, but he welcomed the focus on the issue of MEP expenses, claiming that "[o]ver a five year term each and every one of Britain's 78 MEPs gets about £1 million. It is used to employ administrative staff, run their offices and to travel back and forth between their home, Brussels and Strasbourg." He also pointed out the money spent on the YES campaign in Ireland by the European Commission was "something around 440 million", making the NO campaign's figure insignificant in comparison.

Jacques Barrot

On 18 November 2004, Farage announced in the European Parliament that Jacques Barrot, the French Commissioner designate, had been barred from elected office in France for 2 years, after being convicted in 2000 of embezzling £2 million from government funds and diverting it into the coffers of his party. He claimed that French President Jacques Chirac had granted Barrot amnesty. Although initial BBC reports claimed that, under French law, it was illegal even to mention the conviction, the prohibition in question only applies to French officials in the course of their duties. The president of the Parliament, Josep Borrell, enjoined him to retract his comments under threat of "legal consequences".However, the following day it was confirmed that Barrot had received an 8 month suspended jail sentence in the case, and that this had been quickly expunged by the amnesty decided by Chirac and his parliamentary majority. The Commission's president, Jose Manuel Barroso admitted that he had not known of Barrot's criminal record when appointing him as a Commission vice-president. The Socialist and Liberal groups in the European Parliament then joined UKIP in demanding the sacking of Barrot for failing to disclose the conviction during his confirmation hearings.

José Manuel Barroso

During the spring of 2005, Farage requested that the European Commission disclose where the individual Commissioners had spent their holidays. The Commission did not provide the information requested, on the basis that the Commissioners had a right of privacy. The German newspaper Die Welt reported that the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso had spent a week on the yacht of the Greek shipping billionaire Spiro Latsis. It emerged soon afterwards that this had occurred a month before the Commission under Barroso's predecessor Romano Prodi approved 10.3 million euro of Greek state aid for Latsis' shipping company. It also became known that Peter Mandelson, then a member of the Commission, had accepted a trip to Jamaica from an unrevealed source.

Farage persuaded around 75 MEPs from across the political divide to back a motion of no confidence in Barroso, which would be sufficient to compel Barroso to appear before the European Parliament to be questioned on the issue. The motion was successfully tabled on 12 May 2005, and Barroso appeared before Parliament at a debate on 26 May 2005. The motion was heavily defeated. A Conservative MEP, Roger Helmer, was expelled from his group, the European People's Party - European Democrats (EPP-ED) in the middle of the debate by that group's leader Hans-Gert Poettering as a result of his support for Farage's motion.

Joseph Daul

In January 2007, the French farmers' leader Joseph Daul was elected the new leader of the European People's Party–European Democrats (EPP-ED), the European Parliamentary grouping which then included the British Conservatives. The UK Independence Party almost immediately revealed that Daul had been under judicial investigation in France since 2004 as part of an inquiry into the alleged misuse of public funds worth €16 million (£10.6 million) by French farming unions." It was not suggested that Daul had personally benefited, but was accused of "complicity and concealment of the abuse of public funds." Daul accused Farage of publicising the investigation for political reasons and threatened to sue Farage, but did not do so though the court dropped all charges against him.

Prince Charles

Prince Charles gave a speech to the European Parliament on 14 February 2008, in which he called for EU leadership in the war against climate change. During the standing ovation that followed, Farage was the only MEP to remain seated and went on to describe the Prince's advisers as "naïve and foolish at best." Farage continued: "How can somebody like Prince Charles be allowed to come to the European Parliament at this time to announce he thinks it should have more powers? It would have been better for the country he wants to rule one day if he had stayed home and tried to persuade Gordon Brown to give the people the promised referendum [on the Treaty of Lisbon]." The leader of the UK Labour Party's MEPs, Gary Titley, accused Farage of anti-Royalism. Titley said: "I was embarrassed and disgusted when the Leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage, remained firmly seated during the lengthy standing ovation Prince Charles received. I had not realised Mr Farage's blind adherence to right wing politics involved disloyalty and discourtesy to the Royal Family. He should be thoroughly ashamed of himself and should apologise to the British people he represents." also asserting that Van Rompuy's "intention is to be the quiet assassin of European democracy and of European nation states." Van Rompuy commented afterwards, "There was one contribution that I can only hold in contempt, but I'm not going to comment further." The President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, said after his meeting with Farage:- 'I defend absolutely Mr Farage's right to disagree about the policy or institutions of the Union, but not to personally insult our guests in the European Parliament or the country from which they may come. [. . .] I myself fought for free speech as the absolute cornerstone of a democratic society. But with freedom comes responsibility - in this case, to respect the dignity of others and of our institutions. I am disappointed by Mr Farage's behaviour, which sits ill with the great parliamentary tradition of his own country. I cannot accept this sort of behaviour in the European Parliament. I invited him to apologise, but he declined to do so. I have therefore - as an expression of the seriousness of the matter - rescinded his right to ten days' daily allowance as a Member'.

Footnotes

References

2002 amnesty law

Penal Code, articles L133-9, L133-10, L133-11

External links

Profile at European Parliament website

Official website of the UK Independence Party in the European Parliament

Political group in the European Parliament

Category:1964 births Category:Living people Category:United Kingdom Independence Party politicians Category:Members of the European Parliament for English constituencies Category:Critics of the European Union Category:Anti-globalist activists Category:People from Farnborough, London Category:Old Alleynians Category:Leaders of the United Kingdom Independence Party Category:British libertarians Category:UK Independence Party MEPs Category:MEPs for the United Kingdom 1999–2004 Category:MEPs for the United Kingdom 2004–2009 Category:MEPs for the United Kingdom 2009–2014

Honorific-prefix	The Right Honourable
Name	Iain Duncan Smith
Honorific-suffix	MP
Office	Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Primeminister	David Cameron
Term start	12 May 2010
Predecessor	Yvette Cooper
Office1	Leader of the Opposition
Monarch1	Elizabeth II
Primeminister1	Tony Blair
Term start1	13 September 2001
Term end1	29 October 2003
Predecessor1	William Hague
Successor1	Michael Howard
Office2	Leader of the Conservative Party
Term start2	13 September 2001
Term end2	6 November 2003
Predecessor2	William Hague
Successor2	Michael Howard
Office3	Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
Leader3	William Hague
Term start3	15 June 1999
Term end3	13 September 2001
Predecessor3	John Maples
Successor3	Bernard Jenkin
Office4	Shadow Secretary of State for Social Security
Leader4	William Hague
Term start4	2 June 1997
Term end4	15 June 1999
Predecessor4	Harriet Harman
Successor4	David Willetts
Constituency mp5	Chingford and Woodford GreenChingford (1992–1997)
Term start5	9 April 1992
Predecessor5	Norman Tebbit
Majority5	12,963 (30.1%)
Birth date	April 09, 1954
Birth place	Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
Party	Conservative
Spouse	Betsy Fremantle
Children	4
Alma mater	Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
Profession	BusinessmanSoldier
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Branch	British Army
Serviceyears	1975–1981
Rank	Captain
Unit	Scots Guards

George Iain Duncan Smith (born 9 April 1954; often referred to by his initials "IDS") is a British politician. He served as the Leader of the Conservative Party from September 2001 to October 2003. He is currently the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in the Cabinet of Prime Minister David Cameron, and a Member of Parliament (MP) representing the London constituency Chingford and Woodford Green. He is the founder of the Centre for Social Justice, a centre-right think tank independent of the Conservative Party. He is also a published novelist.

Prior to his political career, Duncan Smith served as a British Army officer in the Scots Guards from 1975 to 1981.

Early life

Duncan Smith was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1954. He is the son of W. G. G. Duncan Smith, a Royal Air Force Group Captain highly decorated in World War II, and Pamela, a ballerina, who married Iain's father 1946. Pamela's maternal grandmother (Iain's great-grandmother) was Ellen Oshey, a Japanese woman, making Iain one-eighth Japanese (Yonsei). Other ancestors and relatives include British Canadian CBC wartime broadcaster Peter Stursberg, whose 2002 book, No Foreign Bones in China, records the story of this uncommon couple, and his son, current CBC vice-president, Richard Stursberg. Through Group Captain Shaw, Duncan Smith is also a distant relative of George Bernard Shaw, the Irish playwright and socialist.

Duncan Smith converted to Roman Catholicism as a teenager.

Duncan Smith was educated at HMS Conway, a naval training school on the isle of Anglesey, where he played rugby union in the position of fly-half alongside Clive Woodward at centre. He also attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He joined the Scots Guards in 1975, with his six-year service including spells in Rhodesia and Northern Ireland.

On leaving the Guards, Duncan Smith joined the Conservative Party and took up employment at the General Electric Company in 1981. He married Elizabeth "Betsy" Fremantle, daughter of the 5th Baron Cottesloe, in 1982. The couple have four children.

At the 1987 general election, Duncan Smith contested the constituency of Bradford West, where he was defeated by the incumbant Labour Party MP Max Madden. At the 1992 general election, he stood in the constituency of Chingford (where the Conservative MP, Norman Tebbit, was retiring), and was elected to parliament. (Following boundary changes, Duncan Smith's constituency became Chingford and Woodford Green in 1997.)

Early parliamentary career

A committed Eurosceptic, Duncan Smith was a constant thorn in the side of Prime Minister John Major's government in 1992–97, disrupting Major's pro-European agenda at the time (something that would often be raised during his own subsequent leadership when he called for the party to unite behind him).

Duncan Smith remained on the backbenches until 1997, when the new Conservative leader William Hague brought him into the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Social Security Secretary. In 1999, Duncan Smith was moved to replace John Maples as Shadow Defence Secretary.

Conservative Party leader

William Hague resigned after the Labour Party's victory in the 2001 general election. On 13 September 2001, Duncan Smith won the Conservative Party leadership election. He had initially been seen as an outsider candidate, but his support was bolstered when Margaret Thatcher publicly announced her support for him. His victory in the contest was helped by the fact that his opponent in the final vote of party members was Kenneth Clarke, whose strong support for the European Union was at odds with the views of much of the party.

As a mark of respect for the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, the announcement of Duncan Smith's victory in the leadership contest was delayed until 13 September 2001. In November 2001, he was one of the first politicians to call for an invasion of Iraq and held talks in Washington, DC, with senior US officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz.

In local elections, the only elections in which Duncan Smith led the party, the Conservatives gained over 500 extra seats on local councils, primarily in England.

Problems as leader

In 2002, Michael Crick on the TV programme Newsnight caused some embarrassment when probing Duncan Smith's curriculum vitae, which had been in circulation for years, for example, being reproduced in the authoritative annual Dod's Parliamentary Companion for the previous ten years. The CV claimed that he had attended the University of Perugia when he had in fact attended the Università per Stranieri, which did not grant any degrees at that time, and a claim that he had attended the prestigious-sounding Dunchurch College of Management turned out to refer to some weekend courses at GEC Marconi's staff college.

Duncan Smith proved not to be a particularly effective public speaker in the rowdy atmosphere of Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) in the House of Commons. His seeming troubles with a "frog in his throat" throughout most of his two years as leader prompted Private Eye to refer to him incessantly as "Iain Duncan Cough". As well as this, there were continued rumours of discontent among his backbenchers, not dampened by his warning to his party in November 2002: "My message is simple and stark, unite or die".

The 2002 Conservative Party conference saw an attempt to turn Duncan Smith's lack of charisma into a positive attribute, with his much-quoted line, "do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man". The line was as much derided as it was admired. During PMQs, Labour backbenchers would raise their fingers to their lips and say "shush" when he was speaking. The following year, Duncan Smith's conference speech appeared to have abandoned this technique in favour of an aggressive hard-man approach that few found convincing, even if the party members in the hall punctuated the speech with several ovations. The most remembered sound bite from the speech was his, "the quiet man is here to stay, and he's turning up the volume."

Duncan Smith stated in December 2002 that he intended to be party leader for a "very long time to come." This did little to quell the speculation in Westminster regarding his future. On 21 February 2003, The Independent newspaper published a story saying that a number of MPs were attempting to start the process of petitioning for a vote of no confidence in Duncan Smith, as many Conservative MPs considered him to be unelectable.

These worries came to a head in October 2003. Michael Crick revealed that he had compiled embarrassing evidence, this time of dubious salary claims Duncan Smith made on behalf of his wife that were paid out of the public purse from September 2001 to December 2002. The ensuing scandal, known as "Betsygate" weakened his already tenuous position.

Vote of no confidence

Under leadership vote of confidence rules, fifteen percent of Conservative MPs (at this point twenty-five MPs) had to write to the Chairman of the 1922 Committee demanding the vote. On 26 October, amid mounting claims that the threshold of twenty-five was about to be reached, Duncan Smith made an appearance on television daring his opponents to show their hand by the evening of 29 October, or to withdraw their challenge. He also stated that he would not step down if a vote was called. Duncan Smith's demand that the twenty-five MPs write to the Chairman by 29 October had no bearing on Party regulations. Had the votes not been delivered until later the vote of no confidence would still have gone ahead. Nevertheless, by 28 October, twenty-five Conservative MPs had indeed signed on to demand a vote.

After the vote was announced, Duncan Smith made an appearance in front of Conservative Party headquarters in Smith Square, where he stated that he was "absolutely" going to contest the vote, which was held on 29 October. He lost by 90 votes to 75. He stepped down as leader eight days later when Michael Howard was confirmed as his successor (Howard was unopposed for the role and so no election was required). Iain Duncan Smith became the second Conservative Party leader, after William Hague, who could not lead the Party to victory, who become Prime Minister since Austen Chamberlain.

Return to the backbenches

After his term as party leader, Duncan Smith established the Centre for Social Justice in 2004. This organisation is a centre-right think tank which works with small charities with the aim of finding innovative policies for tackling poverty. (Duncan Smith served as the centre's Chairman until he joined the Cabinet in May 2010, and remains its Life Patron.) He also served under Michael Howard on the Conservative Party's advisory council, along with John Major, William Hague and Kenneth Clarke.

On 7 December 2005, Duncan Smith was appointed Chairman of the Social Justice Policy Group, which was facilitated by the Centre for Social Justice. The group's aim was to "study the causes and consequences of poverty in Britain and seek practical ideas to empower the least well-off," and was one of several that were set up by Conservative Party leader David Cameron. Duncan Smith's Deputy Chair was Debbie Scott, the Chief Executive of the charity Tomorrow's People. The group released two major reports, "Breakdown Britain" and "Breakthrough Britain". "Breakdown Britain" was a three hundred thousand word document that analysed what was going wrong in the areas of Economic Dependence and Unemployment, Family Breakdown, Addiction, Educational Failure, Indebtedness, and the Voluntary Sector. "Breakthrough Britain" recommended almost two hundred policy ideas using broadly the same themes. On their website the group claimed that the Government has so far taken on sixteen of the recommendations, and the Conservatives twenty-nine.

Duncan Smith was re-elected comfortably in Chingford and Woodford Green at the 2005 general election, almost doubling his majority, and remained a backbencher for the Conservative Party. Iain Duncan Smith has been Member of Parliament for Chingford and Woodford Green since 1992 – when he succeeded Norman Tebbit.

In September 2006 he was one of fourteen authors of a report concerning Anti-Semitism in Britain. He was also one of the only early supporters of the Iraq surge policy. In September 2007, he called for Britain to withdraw from the war against Afghanistan and to fight in the war in Iraq indefinitely. In his 2009 Conservative Party Conference speech, Conservative Party leader David Cameron signalled that Duncan Smith might serve in his Cabinet, with responsibility for social justice, should he be called upon to form an administration after the next general election.

Cabinet appointment

Following the 2010 general election, the Conservative Party formed coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, with David Cameron as Prime Minister. Cameron appointed Duncan Smith as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with responsibility for seeing through changes to the welfare state.

Outlining the scale of the problem, Duncan Smith said almost five million people were on unemployment benefits, 1.4 million of whom had been receiving support for nine or more of the last 10 years. In addition, 1.4 million under-25s were neither working nor in full-time education. "This picture is set against a backdrop of 13 years of continuously increasing expenditure, which has outstripped inflation," he said. "Worse than the growing expense though, is the fact that the money is not even making the impact we want it to. He continued saying "A system that was originally designed to support the poorest in society is now trapping them in the very condition it was supposed to alleviate."

It was also announed that Duncan Smith will chair a new Cabinet Committee, involving Cabinet members from the Treasury, Home Office, Health, and Communities and Local Government departments, to tackle the underlying causes of poverty.

In June 2010 Duncan Smith said that the Government will encourage people to work for longer by making it illegal for companies to force staff to give up work at 65. At the same time, the age at which employees can claim the state pension will rise to 66 as soon as 2016 for men — 10 years earlier than the last government had decreed. Life expectancy is currently 77.4 for men and 81.6 for women. At present rates, there will be three people in their nineties for every newborn by 2050. Duncan Smith, told The Daily Telegraph that the radical pension reform he will oversee was designed to “reinvigorate retirement”. “People are living longer and healthier lives than ever, and the last thing we want is to lose their skills and experience from the workplace due to an arbitrary age limit,” he said. “Now is absolutely the right time to live up to our responsibility to reform our outdated pension system and to take action where the previous government failed to do so. If Britain is to have a stable, affordable pension system, people need to work longer, but we will reward their hard work with a decent state pension that will enable them to enjoy quality of life in their retirement. He continued saying, “That is why we are issuing a call for evidence on moving the state pension age to 66, and thereafter plan to take a frank look at the relationship between state pension age and life expectancy.” The announcement coincides with John Hutton, the former Labour minister, beginning a review of public sector pensions which is expected to recommend that staff contributions increase substantially as soon as 2011.

In July 2010 Duncan Smith said that more workers will have to wait until they are 68 to claim their state pension as the Government speeds up plans to raise the retirement age. Duncan Smith says the move will save billions of pounds. Labour set out plans to increase the retirement age to 66 by 2024 and 68 by 2046 to reflect growing life expectancy. Before the election, the Tories suggested that it should rise to 66 sooner - by 2016. Mr Duncan Smith said workers would have to accept even quicker increases as Britain tightens its belt. The Government's timetable suggests that the retirement age is likely to reach 68 by 2038, meaning millions more will be forced to wait for their pension.

On 30 July 2010 Duncan Smith announced a series of reforms that are intended to ensure that low earners will always be better off in employment. They are in a document that will form the basis of a White Paper to be published this autumn and herald the end of Labour’s complicated tax credits system, with many benefits being rolled into one. "After years of piecemeal reform the current welfare system is complex and unfair," said Duncan Smith. One example cited by Mr Duncan Smith involves the case of a lone parent with three school-age children earning £7.50 an hour as an office administrator. Working 23 hours a week, he says, she would have a net weekly income (including benefits and tax credits) of £345 after paying rent and council tax. However, if she were to increase her hours to 34 a week she would get only about £10 more due to a loss of benefits. The new system will be called the Universal Credit.

In November 2010 a major shake-up in the welfare system will benefit all those who "play by the rules", Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said. The plan, which will see people who refuse to take up job opportunities stripped of benefits for up to three years, is part of a "contract" with the unemployed. Duncan Smith said simplifying the welfare system would ensure "work always pays more" than relying on the state by easing the rate at which benefits are withdrawn as income rises.

In a Commons statement on 11 November 2010, he said: "This is our contract: we make work pay and support you through the Work Programme to find a job. "''But in return, if we do that, we also expect co-operation from those who are seeking work. "That is why we are developing a regime of sanctions for those who refuse to play by the rules as well as targeted work activity for those who need to get used to the habits of work''".

In December 2010 Duncan Smith studied a state-sponsored relationship education programme in Norway, under which couples are forced to “think again” and confront the reality of divorce before formally separating. The policy has been credited with reversing Norway’s trend for rising divorce rates and halting the decline of marriage in the country over the past 15 years. Mr Duncan Smith said he was keen to explore ways in which similar approaches could be encouraged in Britain. Officials point out that such a programme would be expensive but an approach could reduce the long-term cost of family breakdown, which has been estimated at up to £100 billion. Duncan Smith said couples in Norway were able to “work through what is going to happen with their children”, which has “a very big effect on their thinking”. “Many of them think again about what they are going to embark on once they really understand the consequences of their actions subsequently,” he said.

Novelist

On 6 November 2003, Duncan Smith's novel The Devil's Tune was released, less than a fortnight after his removal from the party leadership. The book received heavily critical reviews such as, "Really, it's terrible ... Terrible, terrible, terrible.", by Sam Leith in the Daily Telegraph. The book was never published in paperback.

Personal life

Football

Duncan Smith has been reported to support both Tottenham Hotspur where he holds a season ticket and Aston Villa. Gareth Southgate cited Duncan Smith when he remarked after England's 2002 World Cup quarter-final defeat against Brazil that "we were expecting Winston Churchill and instead we got Iain Duncan Smith." This comparison was seen as being a scathing criticism of the then England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson's quiet and understated approach to management.

Family

Duncan Smith has been married to Betsy since 1982; they have two sons and two daughters.

Wealth

His wealth is estimated at £1 million.

References

External links

Iain Duncan Smith MP ''official constituency website'

Profile at the Conservative Party

Website at ePolitix.com

Collected news and commentary at The New York Times

The fall and rise of Iain Duncan Smith Guardian video profile

|- |- |- |- |- |- |- |- ! colspan="3" style="background:#cfc;" | Order of precedence in Northern Ireland

Category:1954 births Category:21st-century Roman Catholics Category:British people of Japanese descent Category:Conservative Party (UK) MPs Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism Category:Leaders of the Conservative Party (UK) Category:Leaders of the Opposition (United Kingdom) Category:Living people Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Category:Members of the United Kingdom Parliament for English constituencies Category:People from Edinburgh Category:Politicians of Japanese descent Category:Scots Guards officers Category:UK MPs 1992–1997 Category:UK MPs 1997–2001 Category:UK MPs 2001–2005 Category:UK MPs 2005–2010 Category:UK MPs 2010–

Name	Dom Joly
Caption	Publicity photo of Joly on I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here, November 2010.
Birth name	Dominic JohnRomulus Joly
Birth date	November 15, 1967
Birth place	Beirut, Lebanon
Medium	Comedian, journalist,broadcaster, author, columnist
Active	1999–present
Genre	Comedy, television
Notable work	Trigger Happy TV (2000–1)
Spouse	Stacey MacDougall

Dominic John Romulus "Dom" Joly (; born 15 November 1967) is a British television comedian and journalist. He came to note as the star of Trigger Happy TV, a hidden camera show that was sold to over seventy countries worldwide. Since then, Joly has continued to make edgy off-beat television like World Shut Your Mouth for BBC1 and Dom Joly's Happy Hour, a spoof travel show for Sky One.

Joly is also an author with several books to his name, and an award-winning travel writer for both the Sunday Times and the Mail On Sunday. He writes several regular columns for various UK nationals and periodicals including a weekly sports column for The Independent and an eclectic weekly column for the Independent on Sunday.

Joly is currently developing a movie called War Of The Flea in the USA and has just released a Book called The Dark Tourist, published by Simon & Schuster. He has also completed filming a documentary on Tintin for Channel 4 (Back2Back Productions) which was aired on 19 March 2010.

Joly was also a contestant on the tenth series of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! He finished in fourth place.

Early life

Joly was born in Beirut, Lebanon to Lebanese parents and speaks French in addition to English, and has a smattering of Arabic and Czech.

It was revealed on the game show Would I Lie To You? that, while in Lebanon, Joly attended the same school as Osama bin Laden; this was widely received as a joke (as the aim of the TV show is to trick people into guessing whether anecdotes are true or false). However, in a 2007 interview with eyebrow magazine, Joly told more of the story which he insisted was true. The school was the Brummana High School - a Quaker school in Brummana, Lebanon. While having no memory of meeting him, Joly claimed that Bin Laden was 18 - in his last year - while Joly was just entering at six.

Education

Between 1976 and 1980 Joly attended the Dragon School in Oxford, England (where he had his shrapnel collection confiscated); From 1981 to 1985 he was in Bartle Frere house at Haileybury College, an independent boarding school in Hertfordshire, England; and then in 1987 to 1990 at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, where he obtained a degree in International Relations and Politics.

Career

Early career

Following university his work included: A year as an intern in the Prague embassy for the European Commission

A year as a consultant at LEK Consulting, where he formed part of the same intake as Boris Johnson

A year as Political Researcher for Around Westminster (BBC Political Programme)

A year as Political Researcher for the New Statesman and Roth's Parliamentary Profiles

Television

After being recruited to work as a producer on ITN's House to House, a political discussion programme on Channel 4, Joly went on to work for The Mark Thomas Comedy Product because of his political knowledge. He then created his own show for the Paramount Comedy Channel called War of the Flea. Discovering that working in comedy was both easier and more fun than his previous employment, Joly began to develop Trigger Happy TV which had a similar structure to War of the Flea.

Trigger Happy TV

;United Kingdom Joly's anarchic surreal sketches first started appearing as interstitials during advert breaks on the British Paramount Comedy Channel. In 1999, following a successful fifteen minute pilot on the Comedy Lab, Channel 4 commissioned Joly to make a TV series. Trigger Happy TV was born; a hidden camera show that went on to be sold to over seventy countries worldwide. Joly made two series and two Christmas specials before announcing that he wanted to do other things. Joly was nominated for three British Comedy Awards for the show, won the Silver Rose of Montreux, the BBC2 Award for Best Comedy and the Loaded/Goodfella Comedy Newcomer of the Year.

The three DVDs for the shows were best-sellers, as were the soundtrack albums that Joly had personally selected and mixed himself.

;United States A spoof documentary about Joly followed, called Being Dom Joly which was produced and written by Joly himself. This aired prior to screenings of Trigger Happy TV in the USA and earned critical acclaim, with one reviewer Bob Croft, LA Times calling Joly "the funniest man in Britain".

A new series of Trigger Happy TV was made for a US audience in 2003 with an altered format in that it featured a band of different "comedians" who performed skits without Joly. Though Joly did cameo sporadically on the show, he was very unhappy with the programme and called it "Trigger Happy by numbers - take joke, put it in slo-mo, add fluffy animals and random indie soundtrack - it was made by uncaring idiots". He had a producer credit on the show, but disassociated himself with the project.

2003 BBC contract

Following the success of Trigger Happy TV on Channel 4, Joly was secured by the BBC for a rumoured £5 million. However, his first show for the BBC, This is Dom Joly, a spoof chatshow in which Joly played an appallingly egotistical media character who had the same name as him, thereby confusing a lot of the audience as to what was real and what wasn't, did not achieve the same success as Trigger Happy TV, leading to the hidden camera format being revamped on BBC1 as World Shut Your Mouth. Featuring all new material and an increased budget relative to Trigger Happy, allowing for pranks to be performed in different countries. It was later released on DVD.

Dom Joly's Excellent Adventure

In 2005, Joly starred in a one-off documentary as part of a series on Sky One. Dom Joly's Excellent Adventure involved him travelling back to Beirut for the first time since he left in the late 1980s, and embarking on a road trip through the Syrian Desert to find a cave in which he had scrawled his name in as a child, that he re-discovered after much searching.

Dom Joly's Happy Hour

His next project for Sky One was a critically acclaimed spoof travel series supposedly investigating attitudes to alcohol around the world, entitled Dom Joly's Happy Hour, in which Joly teamed up with his friend, Canadian digital artist, Peter Wilkins. Together, they explored drinking habits around the world, travelling to the Southern United States, Russia, Australia, Europe and India. During the first documentary, the pair explored Miami drinking styles, met up with some hillbillies in the Appalachians tasting moonshine, and visited a gay cowboy bar in Atlanta before taking on the Christian right in Alabama's dry counties.

They went on to visit Russia, trying 80% alcohol (by volume) homemade vodka known as Samogon. He explained, "(y)ou have an hour where you feel you can take on the world, then you black out. But because it’s almost pure alcohol, no hangover - sadly because I can’t remember it, I don’t know if it’s worth doing". They then visited Australia, Mexico and Europe before ending the tour in India. It was described in The Guardian as "a brilliantly surreal take on the tired format that is the TV travel show."

The programme included a lot more than just attempting to discover foreign drinking habits, for instance, in Russia Dom received a haircut from a nude woman and both he and Wilkins performed their own version of a morris dance before a bemused dance academy. Another instance found them catching crocodiles in Australia.

"The premise of investigating alcohol is ridiculous," Joly admitted during an interview. "I wanted an excuse to travel the world, but they (Sky TV) wanted a focal point. So I said as a joke: 'Well, I quite like drinking.' And they went, 'Fantastic, that’s brilliant!'"

The DVD was released on the 1st October 2007.

The Complainers

Dom Joly has appeared inThe Complainers for Channel Five in the UK. The show, in Joly's words- "intends to try and get a little revenge for the ordinary Brit on the morons, bureaucrats, health and safety officers, traffic wardens, timewasters that make all our lives a daily hell."

Made In Britain

In 2009, Joly fronted a show titled Made In Britain, shown on the Blighty channel in the UK. In the show Joly goes on a road-trip around the UK looking at what is still made there after his house is emptied of everything not made in Britain.

Journalism

Joly writes for various publications. He was alleged to be the writer of a spoof column in The Independent called "Cooper Brown: He's out there." The column is published as the work of an American character called Cooper Brown and revolves around his putative adventures as "a garrulous American showbiz type".

His real-life eclectic weekly column for the Independent on Sunday covers subjects as varied as Middle East politics and fifty foot chickens. Joly also writes a weekly column on the "Weird World of Sport" for The Independent Sports supplement on Mondays.

He is also a regular travel writer for The Sunday Times and has written about trips to Costa Rica, Dominica, Syria, Northern California, Vietnam, Canada, Miami, Scotland, Italy, Maldives, South Africa, Zanzibar, New Zealand, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Corsica Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Oman, Ukraine, British Columbia, Newfoundland, Quebec, Lebanon, Morocco, Nicaragua, Mexico, Jamaica, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, Russia. At the end of 2006 readers of the paper were asked to vote on where Joly would go every week. He travelled the globe performing various adrenaline sports whilst making a weekly podcast from South Africa, Spain, The Arctic Circle, Paris and Fort William. He has also written for Esquire Magazine, GQ, The Mail on Sunday, The London Evening Standard, FHM, The Observer and The Spectator.

In September 2008 Joly won an award at the 2008 Canada Media Awards for "Best Travel Piece" - the piece was written for the Mail on Sunday about a trip to Muskoka in Canada

Joly wrote a spoof autobiography called Look At Me, Look At Me!, published by Bloomsbury in 2004. Joly's second book, Letters To My Golf Club, is a book of humorous letters and correspondences sent to golf clubs around the world published by Transworld Publishing on 8 October 2007. His travel book The Dark Tourist is to be published by Simon and Schuster in August 2010

Joly recently starred in the ITV2 reality programme Deadline with Janet Street Porter where he had to become a paparazzo. Amongst other highlights he was punched by Lily Allen, hit over the head with a guitar by Pete Doherty, called a "persistent little fat cunt flap" by Pierce Brosnan and snorted vodka with Ingrid Tarrant.

Joly was a "special correspondent" for the Independent at the Beijing Olympics. He says: "it's always been an ambition to be a foreign correspondent and this is as close as I'll ever get." While in Beijing he also appeared daily on the "Drive" programme on Five Live with Peter Allen.

Political career

In the 1997 UK general election Joly formed the Teddy Bear Alliance ("Mr Blair, where do you stand on fleas?") and changed his name to Edward 'Teddy' Bear (a reference to "Edward Bear", better known as Winnie-the-Pooh). He stood in Kensington and Chelsea against Alan Clark. Hiring out hundreds of teddy bear costumes, he staged mock protests at Westminster and came fifth out of nine candidates, receiving 218 votes (0.6%). The Alliance was not registered as a political party under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.

Music

Joly was the singer in an Indie band called Hang David in the early Nineties. He was a Goth and said that he looked more like Robert Smith than Robert Smith. Joly personally selects all the soundtracks for his TV shows. All three soundtracks albums for Trigger Happy TV were huge commercial hits. He has also directed a couple of music videos. Ian Brown - Golden Gaze, in which Joly made the whole video in one take, making Brown run through the streets of London being chased by gorillas, frog-men and ninjas before he took refuge in the Prince Charles Cinema. WigWam, the duo consisting of Betty Boo and Alex James from Blur asked Joly to direct their first single. Joly decided to pay a weird homage to The Beatles concert on a roof and filmed the band performing in cat costumes on the roof of a building opposite the Groucho Club in Soho.

Radio

In June 2008, Joly became the co-star of the Cobra Pubcast, a podcast from British beer company Cobra Beer that he hosted with humorist Danny Wallace.

Joly also frequently sits in for Gabby Logan on her Sunday Five Live show. Joly was also a roving reporter for Five Live at both the Beijing Olympics and Wimbledon 2009.

Future projects

Joly has stated in interviews that his next project is a travel book called The Dark Tourist. In the book Joly is traveling to places like Chernobyl (which he visited on 4 May 2009), Rwanda, Lebanon, North Korea and Hiroshima among others. It has been commissioned by Simon and Schuster and is due for publishing in August 2010.

He is also developing a hidden camera movie with his old sidekick, Sam Cadman - Joly has just been in Los Angeles writing the script - tentatively called War of the Flea as well as having written a screenplay for a movie based on the adventures of Cooper Brown.

Joly has also talked about plans for a television show based on popular social networking site Facebook, visiting random people who have added him as a 'friend'. Joly would only accept friend requests if he has any type of connection with them.

In June 2009, it was reported that Joly had completed a script for "a Trigger Happy movie" set in the US.

In Autumn 2010, Joly entered the jungle in the middle of the tenth series of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! UK. He finished in 4th place, with Stacey Solomon eventually winning.

Personal life

Joly is married to Stacey Joly (née MacDougall), a Canadian graphic designer. The couple have a daughter named Parker Joly (2000) and a son named Jackson (2004).

Having lived in Notting Hill before their children were born, Joly and his wife bought a property in the Cotswolds. They sold his flat to Salman Rushdie and the family now live near Cirencester.

While they were on holiday in Canada, the house was affected by sewage from the 2007 UK floods. They also still have a flat in Notting Gate.

References

http://www.thelondonpaper.com/cs/Satellite/london/tv/article/1157141910378?packedargs=suffix%3DSubSectionArticle Retrieved on 20/11/2006

http://www.skyone.co.uk/programme/pgeoverview.aspx?pid=92 Retrieved on 20/11/2006

http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/showcards/T/triggerhappytv.html Retrieved on 20/11/2006

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1055238/ Retrieved on 04/11/2007

Would I Lie To You? (TV series) Episode 1 Sat 16 Jun, 9:55 pm – 10:25 pm

External links

Dom Joly in The Independent

Dom Joly in the Sunday Times

Bluffer's Guide to Gadgets with Dom Joly on Comet.co.uk

List of Cooper Brown columns

Goth Recruitment by Dom Joly on Funnyordie.co.uk.

Agent's site

Dom Joly eyebrow magazine interview

Category:1967 births Category:Living people Category:Pranksters Category:People from Beirut Category:Old Dragons Category:English columnists Category:English journalists Category:English writers Category:English television presenters Category:English television personalities Category:Old Haileyburians Category:Alumni of the School of Oriental and African Studies Category:British comedians Category:I'm a Celebrity…Get Me out of Here! contestants

Dana Timothy Milbank (born April 27, 1968) is an American political reporter and columnist for The Washington Post.

Biography

He is a graduate of Yale University, where he was a member of Trumbull College, the Progressive Party of the Yale Political Union and the secret society Skull and Bones. He is a graduate of Sanford H. Calhoun High School in Merrick, New York. He has been married since 1993 to Dona Lynn DePasquale.

Milbank covered the 2000 US Presidential election and the 2004 US Presidential election. He also covered US President George W. Bush's first term in office. After Bush won the 2000 election, Karl Rove asked the Washington Post not to assign Milbank to cover White House news. In 2001, a pool report penned by Milbank which covered a Bush visit to the US Capitol generated controversy within conservative circles. According to Milbank, the nickname given to him by the president is "not printable in a family publication."

Milbank writes "Washington Sketch" for the Post, an observational column about political theater in the White House, Congress, and elsewhere in the capital. Before coming to the Post as a political writer in 2000, he covered the Clinton White House for The New Republic and Congress for The Wall Street Journal.

Milbank is the author of Smash Mouth: Two Years in the Gutter with Al Gore and George W. Bush—Notes from the 2000 Campaign Trail. A new book, Homo Politicus: The Strange and Scary Tribes that Run Our Government, was published by Random House in January 2008.

Milbank was criticized for a July 30, 2008 article in which, in part by using snippets of quotations, he portrayed Barack Obama as being presumptuous. A few days later MSNBC's Keith Olbermann stated that Milbank would not be allowed back onto his show, which Milbank had appeared on since 2004, until Milbank submitted "a correction or an explanation." However, Milbank had apparently already left Olbermann's show for another show on CNN. Milbank stated that he has been dissatisfied since he was criticized by Olbermann's staff over making a positive comment about Charlie Black, a McCain senior advisor, and as a result had already been negotiating with CNN.

Milbank and Chris Cillizza appeared in a series of humor videos called "Mouthpiece Theater" which appeared on the Washington Post's website. An outcry followed a video in which, during a discussion of the White House "Beer Summit", they chose new brands for a number of people, including "Mad Bitch Beer" for Hillary Clinton. Both men apologized for the video and the series was canceled.

Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America

On October 5, 2010, Doubleday released Milbank's polemic biography of right-wing pundit Glenn Beck: Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America, which a review in the Washington Post said was a "droll, take-no-prisoners account of the nation's most audacious conspiracy-spinner."

References

External links

Dana Milbank's Web site

Dana Milbank discusses his new book - January 2008

Category:American newspaper reporters and correspondents Category:American broadcast news analysts Category:American political writers Category:Washington Post people Category:Yale University alumni Category:1968 births Category:Living people Category:Jewish American writers Category:April 27

Name	Damian Green
Honorific-suffix	MP
Caption	Green during the 2009 Conservative Party Conference
Office	Minister of State for Borders and Immigration
Term start	13 May 2010
Primeminister	David Cameron
Predecessor	Phil Woolas
Successor	Incumbent
Constituency mp2	Ashford
Term start2	1 May 1997
Majority2	17,297 (31.3%)
Predecessor2	Keith Speed
Birth date	January 17, 1956
Birth place	Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales
Nationality	British
Spouse	Alicia Collinson
Party	Conservative
Alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford

Damian Howard Green (born 17 January 1956) is a British politician who has been the Conservative Member of Parliament for Ashford since 1997. He came to national prominence after being arrested and having his parliamentary office raided in November 2008. Before standing for parliament, Damian Green was Channel 4's business editor. On 13 May 2010 he was appointed Immigration Minister in the newly formed Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government under David Cameron.

Early life

Damian Green was born in Barry, Wales. He grew up in Reading, Berkshire and was educated at Reading School and then at Balliol College, Oxford where he was awarded a BA degree in PPE in 1977 followed by a master's degree. He was President of the Oxford Union in 1977 and was the vice chairman of the Federation of Conservative Students (now known as Conservative Future) for two years from 1980.

Career

In 1978 he was appointed by BBC Radio as a financial journalist, before joining Channel 4 News as a business producer in 1982. He joined The Times for a year in 1984 as the business news editor, before returning to television journalism and Channel 4 as the business editor in 1985. He became the City editor and also a television presenter on Channel 4's Business Daily television programme in 1987 until he left television to join Prime Minister John Major's Policy Unit in 1992. Green had acted as an occasional speech writer for Major since 1988. He left 10 Downing Street in 1994 to run his own public affairs consultancy.

Political career

He stood against Labour's Ken Livingstone in Brent East at the 1992 General Election, but lost by 5,971 votes. He was elected to the House of Commons for the Kent seat of Ashford at the 1997 General Election following the retirement of the Tory MP Keith Speed. Green held the seat with a majority of 5,345 and has remained the constituency's MP. He made his maiden speech on 20 May 1997.

In Parliament he was a member of the Culture, Media and Sport select committee from 1997 until his appointment to the frontbench by William Hague in 1998 as a spokesman on education and employment. He spoke on the environment from 1999, and was promoted to the Shadow Cabinet by Iain Duncan Smith in 2001 as the Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills. In 2003, Michael Howard gave him the position of Shadow Secretary of State for Transport. In September 2004, he left the front bench altogether of his own accord and joined the home affairs select committee, and has been a member of the treasury committee since the 2005 General Election. He returned to the frontbench under the leadership of David Cameron in 2005 as a spokesman on home affairs and shadow minister for immigration.

Green is Chairman of Parliamentary Mainstream, a Vice-President of the Tory Reform Group and is a Vice-Chairman of the John Smith Memorial Trust.

2008 arrest

Green was arrested by the Metropolitan Police at his constituency home on 27 November 2008 on suspicion of “aiding and abetting misconduct in public office” and “conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office”, in relation to an investigation into unauthorised disclosure of confidential material from within the Home Office. The material disclosed was claimed by the Daily Mail to have 'severely embarrassed' the Government by highlighting failures over immigration and other matters. Green was later released on bail. In a statement to Parliament on 3 December, Michael Martin Speaker of the House of Commons, responsible for the security of the Palace of Westminster, stated that, although the Police undertaking the search had neither presented a search warrant nor given (what Martin said was) the requisite advice that such a warrant was necessary, the search of the Parliamentary office had been undertaken with express written consent from the Serjeant at Arms, who had signed a consent form without consulting the Clerk of the House. The arrest of a senior opposition politician (and former journalist) on matters connected with that politician's obtaining of confidential information for release to journalists generated much comment, largely from politicians and journalists. The Conservative Party leader David Cameron was said to be 'angry' over the action of the police. The Conservative Party issued a statement, stating that, while no one should be above the law, Green had "a right" to publish information in the public interest.

The constitutional expert Professor Vernon Bogdanor of Oxford University told the BBC that the row was a "storm in a teacup", adding that the “important principle is that MPs - apart from when they're speaking in the chamber and dealing with constituents' correspondence - are as subject to the same laws as the rest of us”. Geoffrey Robertson QC, a noted human rights author and barrister called the arrest “an affront to democracy” and called on the Speaker of the House to resign if it should prove that he had authorised the police search of Green's office. Robertson also pointed out that much of the debate over the police action had missed the point, observing that police have operational independence, and it would have been wrong for them to have told their plans to the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary. A junior Home Office civil servant, Christopher Galley admitted leaking four documents to Green. In the 2004 local elections, Galley stood as a Conservative Party candidate for the Hetton ward of Sunderland City Council and received 676 votes. In mid-2007, Galley had applied to work for Green but was rejected.

The events led to speculation about the apparent coincidence that such a high profile arrest should be authorised on the last day in office of former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair. It was however also reported that there is no legal requirement for any arrest to be authorised by the Commissioner, and that the decision would usually be made by the officer leading the investigation. The investigation and arrest of Green were conducted by the Metropolitan Police Counter-Terrorism Branch headed by Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, who had been appointed in August 2008 as the most senior anti-terrorism officer.

The arrest was criticised by political figures including Conservative Leader David Cameron, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg and veteran left-wing Labour politician Tony Benn. The Prime Minister Gordon Brown made no comment over the arrest other than to say it was a police matter. The Leader of the House of Commons, Harriet Harman, has also expressed her concern, and Justice Secretary Jack Straw was said to be 'surprised' by the arrest of which he knew nothing.

Green is reported to have said he was the subject of a bugging operation which would have required the authorisation of the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith. Smith stated that she was not in a position to confirm or deny such claims, but strongly implied that she had not granted any such order. Green subsequently has requested a sweep of his home and parliamentary offices for bugs.

On 21 December 2008, a row erupted when Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick accused the Conservative Party of trying to undermine his investigation and of endangering the safety of his family by publishing details of his home in the Mail on Sunday: “The Tory machinery and their press friends are mobilised against this investigation. I think it is a very spiteful act, possibly to intimidate me away from investigating Mr Green, and I feel it has put my family at risk.” The Conservative Party stated that it had "played no part whatsoever in the publication of this story", and that “as the officer leading the inquiry into the allegations involving Damian Green, Assistant Commissioner Quick should display objective professionalism and not make baseless, political attacks. He should retract all of his allegations immediately.”

The following day Quick did retract his statements and apologised: “I have now reflected on the comments I made yesterday at a difficult time for me and my family ... I wish to make clear that it was not my intention to make any allegations and retract my comments. I apologise unreservedly for any offence or embarrassment that I have caused.” On 9 April 2009, Quick resigned his position after inadvertently revealing details of a counter-terrorist raid that was unrelated to the Green affair.

On 16 April 2009, the Crown Prosecution Service announced that it was not going to bring a case against either Green or Galley, the Home Office civil servant who passed data to Mr Green, as there was "insufficient evidence" for either to face charges. This followed the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee criticizing Home Office civil servants for prompting the investigation by using "exaggerated" claims about the implications for national security that the leaks held.

On 18 April 2009, Damian Green claimed that arresting officers had searched his computer documents and emails for key words "Shami Chakrabarti", fuelling claims that his arrest had been politically motivated. Following a disciplinary hearing, Galley was sacked from the civil service on 24 April 2009 for “gross professional misconduct”.

Personal life

Damian Green married Alicia Collinson, a barrister, in April 1988 in the City of London. They have two daughters, both born in Hammersmith, London. He is a season ticket holder at Reading FC.

Publications

ITN Budget Factbook, by Damian Green, 1984, ITN

ITN Budget Factbook, by Damian Green, 1985, ITN

ITN Budget Factbook, by Damian Green, 1986, ITN

Better BBC: Public Service Broadcasting in the '90s, by Damian Green, 1990, Centre for Policy Studies ISBN 1-870265-77-7

Freedom of the Airwaves by Damian Green, 1990, CPC ISBN 0-85070-806-0

Communities in the Countryside, by Damian Green, 1995. ISBN 1-874097-11-9

The Cross Media Revolution: Ownership and Control, Edited by Damian Green, 1995, University of Luton Press ISBN 0-86196-545-0

Regulating the Media in the Digital Age, by Damian Green, 1997, European Media Forum

21st Century Conservatism, by Damian Green, 1998

The Four Failures of the New Deal, by Damian Green, 1998, Centre for Policy Studies ISBN 1-897969-84-8

References

External links

Damian Green MP official constituency website

Website at ePolitix.com

Ashford Conservatives

Open Rights Group – Damian Green MP

BBC News – Damian Green profile 30 March 2006

Tory risk taker who wants to be the teacher's friend – Jackie Ashley meets Damian Green, 4 February 2002

;News articles

Lecture to Centre for Policy Studies on the British Database State in July 2009

Possibly wanting to be party leader in June 2005

Proposing 80mph motorway speed limit in February 2004

Encouraging vocational skills at school in October 2003

Reducing targets used in education in April 2003

Interviewed on the Politics Show in February 2003

Discussing supply teacher Amy Gehring in February 2002

Visiting the German education system in January 2002

Wanting more faith schools in October 2001

Reviewing the week's news in March 2000

Challenging anti-grammar school campaigners in January 1999

Criticising law to allow ballot on grammar schools in November 1998

Category:1956 births Category:Living people Category:People from Barry, Vale of Glamorgan Category:Conservative Party (UK) MPs Category:Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Category:Ashford, Kent Category:Members of the United Kingdom Parliament for English constituencies Category:Old Redingensians Category:People from Reading, Berkshire Category:Presidents of the Oxford Union Category:UK MPs 1997–2001 Category:UK MPs 2001–2005 Category:UK MPs 2005–2010 Category:UK MPs 2010–

Name	Brian May
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Brian Harold May
Born	July 19, 1947Hampton, London, England, UK
Occupation	Musician, songwriter, producer, astrophysicist, author
Instrument	Guitar, banjo, bass, keyboards, piano, vocals, harp, autoharp, accordion
Genre	Rock
Years active	1965–present
Associated acts	Smile, Queen, Phenomena, G3, Queen + Paul Rodgers
Label	Hollywood, Parlophone
Url	brianmay.com
Notable instruments	Red Special

Brian Harold May, CBE (born 19 July 1947) is an English musician and astrophysicist most widely known as the guitarist and a songwriter of the rock band Queen. As a guitarist he uses his home-built guitar, "Red Special", and has composed hits such as "Now I'm Here", "Tie Your Mother Down", "We Will Rock You", "Who Wants to Live Forever", "Hammer to Fall", "Save Me", "Fat Bottomed Girls", "I Want It All" and "Too Much Love Will Kill You". May earned a PhD in astrophysics from Imperial College in 2007 and is currently the Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University. May lives in Surrey.

He was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 for "services to the music industry".

In 2005, a Planet Rock poll saw May voted the 7th greatest guitarist of all time. He was ranked 39th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".

Life and career

Early life

Brian May, the only child of Harold and Ruth May, was born in Hampton, London and attended Hampton Grammar School (now Hampton School). During this time he formed his first band with vocalist and bassist Tim Staffell, named Nineteen Eighty-Four after George Orwell's novel of the same name. He left Hampton Grammar School with ten GCE Ordinary Levels and three Advanced Levels in Physics, Mathematics and Applied Mathematics. even to the point where he has prohibited smoking indoors at his more recent concerts.

From 1974 to 1988, May was married to Chrissie Mullen, who is the mother of his three children: Jimmy, who was born on 15 June 1978; Louisa, who was born on 22 May 1981 and Emily Ruth, who was born on 17 February 1987. Chrissie and Brian separated in 1988.

He has stated in interviews that he suffered from depression in the late 1980s, even to the point of contemplating suicide, for reasons having to do with his troubled first marriage and his perceived failure as a husband and a dad, his father Harold's death, and Freddie Mercury's illness.

May is now married to former Eastenders actress Anita Dobson, whom he met in 1986, and who gained fame in the 1980s for providing vocals to the theme tune to the aforementioned soap, entitled "Anyone Can Fall in Love". May himself produced the song, which reached #4 in the UK Singles Chart in August 1986.

According to The Sunday Times Rich List he is worth £70 million .

Smile

Smile were formed in 1968 by Brian May. The group included Tim Staffell as singer and bassist, and later, drummer Roger Taylor, who also went on to play for Queen. The band lasted for only two years from 1968 to 1970, as Staffel left in 1970, leaving the band with a catalogue of only nine songs:

"Earth" (Staffell)

"Step On Me" (Staffell/May) originally from May and Staffell's band 1984.

"Doin' Alright" (Staffell/May)

"Blag" (Taylor)

"Polar Bear" (May)

"Silver Salmon" (Staffell)

"See What A Fool I've Been" (May, based on the song "That's How I Feel" by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee)

"If I Were a Carpenter" (Tim Hardin) a cover regularly featuring in their live set.

"April Lady" (Lucas) a song presented to the band by Mercury Records during their second studio session.

Smile would reunite for several songs on 22 December 1992. Taylor's band The Cross were headliners and he brought May and Staffell on to play "Earth" and "If I Were a Carpenter". May also performed several other songs that night.

Queen

In Queen's three-part vocal harmonies, May's was generally the lower-range backing vocal. On some of his songs he sings the lead vocal, most notably the first verse of "Who Wants to Live Forever", the bridge on "I Want It All" and "Flash's Theme", and full lead vocals on "Some Day One Day", "She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettoes)", "'39", "Good Company", "Long Away", "All Dead, All Dead", "Sleeping on the Sidewalk", "Leaving Home Ain't Easy" and "Sail Away Sweet Sister".

Throughout Queen's career May frequently wrote songs for the band and has composed many significant songs such as the worldwide hit "We Will Rock You", as well as "Tie Your Mother Down", "Who Wants to Live Forever", "Hammer to Fall", "Save Me", "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "I Want It All". Typically, either Freddie Mercury or May wrote the most songs on every Queen album.

After the famous Live Aid concert in summer 1985, Mercury rang his bandmates and proposed writing a song together. The result was "One Vision", which was basically May on music (the Magic Years documentary shows how he came up with the opening section and the basic guitar riff) and Roger Taylor on lyrics, with Freddie Mercury being more a producer and arranger than a proper co-writer, and John Deacon mostly absent.

For their 1989 release album, The Miracle, the band had decided that all of the tracks would be credited to the entire band, no matter who had been the main writer. Still, interviews and musical analyses tend to help identify the input of each member on each track.

May composed "I Want It All" for that album, as well as "Scandal" (based on his personal problems with the British press). For the rest of the album he did not contribute so much creatively, although he helped in building the basis of "Party" and "Was It All Worth It" (both being predominantly Mercury's pieces) and created the guitar riff of "Chinese Torture".

Queen's subsequent album was Innuendo, on which May's contributions increased, although more in arrangements than actual writing in most cases; for the title track he did some of the arrangement for the heavy solo, then he added vocal harmonies to "I'm Going Slightly Mad" and composed the solo of "These Are the Days of Our Lives", a song for which the four of them decided the keyboard parts together. He changed the tempo and key of Mercury's song "The Hitman" and took it under his wing, even singing guide vocal in the demo. May also co-wrote some of the guitar lines in "Bijou".

Two songs that May had composed for his first solo album, "Headlong" and "I Can't Live With You", eventually ended up in the Queen project. His other composition was "The Show Must Go On", a group effort in which he was the coordinator and primary composer, but in which they all had input, Deacon and Taylor with the famous chord sequence.

In recent years, he has overseen the remastering of Queen albums and various DVD and greatest hits releases. In 2004, he announced that he and drummer Roger Taylor were going on tour for the first time in 18 years as "Queen", along with Free/Bad Company vocalist Paul Rodgers. Billed as "Queen + Paul Rodgers", the band has played throughout 2005 and 2006 in South Africa, Europe, Aruba, Japan, and North America and released a new album with Paul Rodgers in 2008, entitled The Cosmos Rocks. This album was supported by a major tour.

;Brian May lead vocals in Queen

"Keep Yourself Alive" – Vocal bridge with Taylor, rest sung by Mercury (1973)

"Some Day, One Day" (1974)

"She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettoes)" (1974)

"'39" (1975)

"Good Company" (1975)

"Long Away" (1976)

"All Dead, All Dead" (1977)

"Sleeping on the Sidewalk" (1977)

"Fat Bottomed Girls" – Chorus lead vocals (1978)

"Leaving Home Ain't Easy" (1978)

"Sail Away Sweet Sister" – Mercury sings the bridge (1980)

"Flash" – with Freddie Mercury (1980)

''Put Out the Fire" - lead on falsetto lines.

"Las Palabras de Amor" – Lead harmony vocals on chorus (1982)

"I Go Crazy" – Lead Bridge Vocals (1984)

"Who Wants to Live Forever" – Intro verse, harmony and other lines throughout (1986)

"I Want It All" – with Mercury (1989)

"Lost Opportunity" (1991)

"Mother Love" – Lead vocals on final verse (1995)

"Let Me Live" – Lead vocals on third verse (1995)

"No-One but You (Only the Good Die Young)" – with Taylor (1997)

The Brian May Band

The Brian May Band was officially formed in late October 1992, following the release of his album Back to the Light. An early version of the band was loosely formed for 19 October 1991, when May took part in the Guitar Legends guitar festival in Seville, Spain. The line-up for his performance was May (Lead Vocals & Lead Guitar), Cozy Powell (Drums & Percussion), Mike Moran (Keyboards), Rick Wakeman (Keyboards), Maggie Ryder (Backing vocals), Miriam Stockley (Backing vocals) and Chris Thompson (Backing vocals).

Following the death of Freddie Mercury in November 1991, May chose to deal with his grief by committing himself as fully as possible to work, first by finishing his solo album and then touring worldwide to promote it. He frequently remarked in press interviews that this was the only form of self-prescribed therapy he could think of.

The original line-up was Brian May (Lead Vocals and Lead Guitar), Cozy Powell (Drums and Percussion), Mike Caswell (Guitar), Neil Murray (Bass), Maggie Ryder (Backing vocals), Miriam Stockley (Backing vocals) and Chris Thompson (Backing vocals). This version of the band lasted only during the South American support tour (supporting The B-52's and Joe Cocker) on only five dates. In Spain, a Catalan band called Sweet Sister support the tour.

Afterwards, May made significant changes, feeling the group never quite gelled. Most significantly, May brought guitarist Jamie Moses on board to replace Mike Caswell. May considered Moses a perfect fit to the band. The other change made was in the backing vocal department. Ryder, Stockley and Thompson were replaced with Catherine Porter and Shelley Preston. On 23 February 1993, this new line-up of The Brian May Band began its world tour in the US, both supporting Guns N' Roses and headlining a few dates. The tour would take them through North America, Europe (support act: Valentine) and Japan.

After the tour ended on 18 December 1993, May returned to the studio with fellow surviving Queen band members Roger Taylor and John Deacon to work on tracks that became Made in Heaven, the final Queen studio album. The band took Mercury's solo album demos and last recordings, which he managed to perform in the studio after the album Innuendo was finished, and completed them with their additions both musically and vocally. Work on the album after Mercury's death originally began in 1992 by Deacon and May, but was left until a later date due to other commitments.

In 1995, May began working towards a new solo album of covers tentatively named Heroes, in addition to working on various film and television projects and other collaborations. May subsequently changed the approach of his second album from covers to focus on those collaborations and on new material. The songs recorded for that album, Another World, would feature mainly Spike Edney, Cozy Powell, Neil Murray and Jamie Moses, who had become his core support/collaborative team.

On 5 April 1998, Cozy Powell was killed in a car accident on the M4 motorway near Bristol, England. This caused a huge, unexpected disruption to the upcoming tour for The Brian May Band, with the need for a new drummer on short notice. Steve Ferrone was brought on to help May finish recording drums for the title track "Another World" and to join the band for the early stage promotional tour of five dates in Europe before the world tour.

The line up was then May (Lead Vocals & Lead Guitar), Edney (Keyboards), Murray (Bass), Moses (Guitar), Ferrone (Drums & Percussion), Susie Webb (Backing vocals) and Zoe Nicholas (Backing vocals). Following the early promo tour, Eric Singer replaced Steve Ferrone for the full 1998 world tour.

Later solo work

From his last solo release in 1998 May has been performing as a solo artist, as part of an ensemble, and infrequently as Queen with Roger Taylor.

On 22 October 2000, Brian May made a guest appearance at the Motörhead 25th Anniversary show at Brixton Academy along with Eddie Clarke (former Motörhead guitarist) for the encore song "Overkill".

In the Queen's birthday honours list of 2005, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire "for services to the music industry".

May is a friend of singer and musician Phil Collins and was a special guest at the Genesis reunion concert at Twickenham Stadium in 2007.

On 17 November 2007, Brian May was appointed Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University, taking over from Cherie Blair, and installed in 2008.

May worked extensively with stage actress and singer Kerry Ellis after he cast her in the musical We Will Rock You). He produced and arranged her debut studio album Anthems (2010), a follow-up to her extended play Wicked in Rock (2008), as well as appeared with Ellis at many public performances – playing guitar alongside her.

He also contributed a guitar solo to Meat Loaf's Hang Cool, Teddy Bear album in exchange for the use of drummer John Miceli.

Along with Elena Vidal, Brian May released a historical book in 2009 entitled A Village Lost and Found: Scenes in Our Village. The book is an annotated collection of stereoscopic photographs taken by the Victorian era photographer T. R. Williams and it is sold with a focussing stereoscope. May became an enthusiast of stereoscope photographs as a child, and first encountered the work of Williams during the late 1960s. In 2003 May announced a search in order to identify the actual location of the Scenes in Our Village images. In 2004 May reported that he had identified the location as the village of Hinton Waldrist in Oxfordshire.

In November 2009, May appeared on the popular reality TV show The X Factor with band mate Roger Taylor as Queen mentoring the contestants, then later performing "Bohemian Rhapsody".

In April 2010, May founded the Save Me 2010 project to work against any proposed repeal of the fox-hunting ban.

Queen + Paul Rodgers

At the end of 2004, May and Taylor announced that they would reunite and return to touring in 2005, with Paul Rodgers (founder and former lead singer of Free and Bad Company). Brian May's website also stated that Rodgers would be "featured with" Queen as Queen + Paul Rodgers, not replacing the late Freddie Mercury. The retired John Deacon would not be participating.

Between 2005 and 2006 Queen and Paul Rodgers embarked on a world tour, the first leg being Europe and the second, Japan and the US in 2006. On 15 August 2006, May confirmed through his website and fan club that Queen + Paul Rodgers would begin producing their first studio album beginning in October, to be recorded at a "secret location". The album, titled The Cosmos Rocks, was released in Europe on 12 September 2008 and in the United States on 28 October 2008. Following the album the band again embarked on a tour through Europe and parts of the US, opening on Kharkov's freedom square in front of 350,000 Ukrainian fans. The show in Ukraine was later released on DVD.

Queen and Paul Rodgers officially split up on 12 May 2009. Rodgers does not rule out the possibility of working together again.

Highlights

, USA in November 1978]] Brian May began composing in 1968/1969, and through the years he has collaborated with other songwriters, including Frank Musker, with whom he wrote "Too Much Love Will Kill You", and with Elizabeth Lamers, whose music won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically & Lyrically in 1996. A meticulous arranger, he focuses on multi-part harmonies, often more contrapuntal than parallel—a rarity for rock guitar. Examples are found in Queen's albums A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, where he arranged a jazz band for guitar mini-orchestra ("Good Company"), a vocal canon ("The Prophet's Song") and guitar and vocal counterpoints ("Teo Torriatte").

May explored a wide variety of styles in guitar, including sweep picking ("Was It All Worth It", "Chinese Torture"), tremolo ("Brighton Rock", "Stone Cold Crazy", "Death on two Legs", "Sweet Lady", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Get Down Make Love", "Dragon Attack"), tapping ("Bijou","It's Late","Resurrection", "Cyborg", "Rain Must Fall", "Business", "China Belle", "I Was Born To Love You"), slide guitar ("Drowse", "Tie Your Mother Down", "Radio Ga Ga"), Hendrix sounding licks ("Liar", "Brighton Rock"), tape-delay ("Brighton Rock", "White Man") and melodic parts ("Bohemian Rhapsody", "Killer Queen", "These Are the Days of Our Lives"). Some of his solos and orchestral parts were composed by Freddie Mercury, who then asked May to bring them to life ("Bicycle Race", "Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon", "Killer Queen", "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy"). May also performed notable acoustic works, including the acoustic guitar live version of "Love of My Life" from 1975's A Night at the Opera, the finger-picked solo of "White Queen" and the skiffle-influenced "'39".

In January 2007, the readers of Guitar World voted May's guitar solos "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Brighton Rock" into the top 100 Greatest Guitar Solos of all time ("Bohemian Rhapsody" was voted #20 and "Brighton Rock" was voted #41).

Aided by the uniqueness of his guitar—the Red Special—May was often able to create strange and unusual sound effects. For example, he was able to imitate an orchestra in the song "Procession"; in "Get Down, Make Love" he was able to create sound effects with his guitar that were so unusual that many thought a synthesiser was being used; in "Good Company" he used his guitar to mimic a trombone, a piccolo and several other instruments for the song's Dixieland jazz band feel. Queen used a "No synthesizers were used on this album" sleeve note on their early albums to make this clear to the listeners.

Other Instruments

The first instrument Brian May learnt to play was the banjolele, which he then played on Queen's song "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" (live and in the studio). For "Good Company", he used a regular baritone ukelele which he had bought in Hawaii on a holiday. Occasionally, May would also record on other string instruments such as harp (one chord per take, then copied and pasted by the engineer to make it sound like a continuous performance) and bass (on some demos and many songs in his solo career, and the Queen + Paul Rodgers album).

As a child, he was also trained on classical piano. Although Freddie Mercury was the band's main pianist, Brian would occasionally step in (once per album, on average). From 1979 onwards, he also played synthesizers, organ ("Wedding March") and programmed drum-machines for both Queen and outside projects (such as producing other artists and his own solo records).

May is also an accomplished singer. His wide vocal range went from notes around low F (87 Hz) to very high tenor Ds and Es (mostly in his solo career). Occasionally he contributed falsetto parts as well ("Ogre Battle", "Why Don't We Try Again"). From Queen's Queen II to The Game, May contributed lead vocals to at least one song per album.

May co-composed a mini-opera with Lee Holdridge, Il Colosso, for Steve Barron's 1996 film, The Adventures of Pinocchio. May performed the opera with Jerry Hadley, Sissel Kyrkjebo, and Just William. On-screen, it was performed entirely by puppets.

As a musician

.]] Brian May has been referred to as a virtuoso guitarist by many publications. He has used a range of guitars, most often the "Red Special", which he designed when he was only 16 years old. His choice is the model AC30TBX, the top-boost version with Blue Alnico speakers, and he runs the amp at full volume on the Normal channel. He also customises his amps by removing the circuitry for the Brilliant and Vib-trem channels (leaving only the circuitry for the Normal), and this alters the tone slightly, with a gain addition of 6–7 dB. He always used a 'treble booster' of some kind which, along with the AC30, went a long way in helping to create many of his signature guitar tones. He used the Dallas Rangemaster for the first Queen albums, up to A Day at the Races. Then, effects guru Pete Cornish built for him the TB-83 (32 dB of gain) that was used for all the remaining Queen albums. He switched in 2000 to the Fryer's booster, which actually gives less boost than the TB-83.

Live, he uses banks of AC30 amplifiers keeping some amps with only guitar and others with all effects such as delay, flanger and chorus. He has a rack of 14 AC30s, which are grouped as Normal, Chorus, Delay 1, Delay 2. On his pedal board, May has a custom switch unit made by Cornish and subsequently modified by Fryer that allows him to choose which amps are active. He uses a BOSS pedal from the '70s, the Chorus Ensemble CE-1, which can be heard in In The Lap of The Gods (Live at Wembley '86) or Hammer to Fall (slow version played live with P. Rodgers). Next in the chain, he uses a Foxx Foot Phaser (We Will Rock You, We Are the Champions, Keep Yourself Alive, etc.), and two delay machines to play his trademark Brighton Rock solo.

As an astrophysicist

May studied physics and mathematics at Imperial College London, graduating with a BSc (Hons) degree and ARCS in physics with Upper Second-Class Honours. He then proceeded to study for a PhD degree, also at the Imperial College London departments of Physics and Mathematics, and was part way through this PhD programme, studying reflected light from interplanetary dust and the velocity of dust in the plane of the Solar System. When Queen became successful he abandoned his physics doctorate but did co-author two scientific research papers: MgI Emission in the Night-Sky Spectrum (1972) and An Investigation of the Motion of Zodiacal Dust Particles (Part I) (1973), which were based on his observations at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife. He is the co-author of Bang! – The Complete History of the Universe with Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott, which was published in October 2006. More than 30 years after he started his research, in October 2007 he completed his PhD thesis in astrophysics, entitled A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud, passed his viva voce, and performed the required corrections. He officially graduated at the postgraduate awards ceremony held in the Royal Albert Hall, on the afternoon of Wednesday 14 May 2008.

On 17 November 2007, May was appointed Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University,

As an activist

Brian May has formed a group to promote decent treatment for animals. Though a Conservative party voter most of his life, he has stated that their policy on fox hunting and the culling of badgers turned him off voting for them. His group, Save Me, is a campaign group for the protection of all animals against unnecessary, cruel and degrading treatment; with a particular emphasis on preventing hunting of foxes and the culling of badgers.

The group's primary concern is to ensure that the Hunting Act 2004 and other laws protecting animals are kept in place.

Discography

Albums

Studio albums

Live albums

Bibliography

References

External links

Brian May's official homepage

Brian May World

Brian Interviews

Queenpedia – Brian May Complete Song List

Scientific paper with Brian May as co-author

Brian May's astronomy book

Five interview clips with Brian May

Brian May's Ph.D thesis

Brian May interview with Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air, 3 August 2010

Brian May: the interview, by Rachel Cooke, The Observer, Sunday 5 September 2010

Category:Brian May Category:1947 births Category:Living people Category:English singer-songwriters Category:English male singers Category:English rock guitarists Category:English heavy metal guitarists Category:English tenors Category:English pianists Category:English multi-instrumentalists Category:Old Hamptonians Category:Musicians from London Category:Queen (band) members Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:Alumni of Imperial College London Category:People associated with Imperial College London Category:Hollywood Records artists Category:People from Hampton, London Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:English astronomers Category:People associated with Liverpool John Moores University Category:Lead guitarists Category:Backing vocalists

Name	Boris Johnson
Caption	Prior to ringing the opening bell at NASDAQon 14 September 2009
Office	Mayor of London
Term start	4 May 2008
Deputy	Richard Barnes
Predecessor	Ken Livingstone
Office2	Shadow Minister for Higher Education
Term start2	6 December 2005
Term end2	16 July 2007
Leader2	David Cameron
Predecessor2	David Cameron
Successor2	Adam Afriyie
Office3	Shadow Minister for the Arts
Term start3	14 April 2004
Term end3	17 November 2004
Leader3	Michael Howard
Predecessor3	Gerald Howarth
Successor3	Tony Baldry
Constituency mp4	Henley
Term start4	9 June 2001
Term end4	4 June 2008
Predecessor4	Michael Heseltine
Successor4	John Howell
Birth date	June 19, 1964
Birth place	New York City, New York, United States
Nationality	British
Party	Conservative
Spouse	Allegra Mostyn-Owen (1987–1993)Marina Wheeler (1993–Present)
Relations	Stanley Johnson (father)Rachel Johnson (sister)Jo Johnson (brother)Leo Johnson (brother)
Children	Lara Lettice JohnsonMilo Arthur JohnsonCassia Peaches JohnsonTheodore Apollo Johnson
Alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford
Profession	Politician and journalist
Religion	Christian (Church of England) Camden, European School of Brussels, Ashdown House School, Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Literae Humaniores. He began his career in journalism with The Times, and later moved on to The Daily Telegraph where he became assistant editor. He was appointed editor of The Spectator in 1999. In the 2001 general election he was elected to the House of Commons and became one of the most high profile politicians in the country. He has also written several books.

;Business 2008 manifesto: "Backing London Business"...

;Environment 2008 manifesto: "Protecting Our Local Environment"...

;Crime 2008 manifesto: "Making London Safer"'... He included a pledge to remove red tape in the Metropolitan Police Service.

;Housing ''2008 manifesto: "Building A Better London"...

;Pensioners ''2008 manifesto: "Appreciating Our Seniors"...

;Transport ''2008 manifesto: "Getting Londoners Moving"... He promised:

better orbital public transport: "One of the limitations of the public transport network in outer London is the lack of direct and convenient orbital routes."

cutting crime by increasing police presence on public transport

to scrap controversial articulated "bendy" buses and replace them with modern designs of the iconic Routemaster bus.

Johnson's candidature received opposition from across the political spectrum. Right-wing journalists Simon Heffer and Peregrine Worsthorne described Johnson as not being serious enough to hold the role of Mayor of London, Worsthorne noting that the "harder he tried [to be serious], the more insincere, incoherent, evasive and even puerile he looked and sounded". Ken Livingstone described Johnson as "a joke". Left of centre commentators claimed that Johnson was not suited to be Mayor of such an ethnically diverse city because he had previously made comments which they interpreted as racist, a situation exacerbated when the British National Party urged its supporters to give their second preference votes to Johnson. Johnson denied allegations of racism and stated that he did not want any BNP supporters to vote for him.

Johnson's candidacy was the subject of international interest. Germany's Der Spiegel and America's National Public Radio reported the race, both quoting Johnson as saying "if you vote for the Conservatives, your wife will get bigger breasts, and your chances of driving a BMW M3 will increase", without however giving a source for this; the BBC has quoted the same statement by him from his 2004 campaign trail.

Though most pollsters—with the exception of YouGov which accurately forecast the final result—predicted either a close result or narrow win for Livingstone, it was announced on 2 May 2008 Johnson had garnered a total of 1,168,738 first and second preference votes to Livingstone's 1,028,966. Johnson benefited from a large voter turnout in Conservative strongholds, in particular Bexley and Bromley where he amassed a majority of over 80,000 over Livingstone. Following his victory, he praised Livingstone as a "very considerable public servant" and added that he hoped to "discover a way in which the mayoralty can continue to benefit from your transparent love of London".

He celebrated his election victory at Altitude 360 located in Millbank Tower. It was here that David Cameron and all his supporters gathered to congratulate him on becoming Mayor of London.

Mayor of London

after being elected Mayor of London.]]

Staff appointments

Johnson assumed control at City Hall on 4 May 2008. He appointed Richard Barnes as his Deputy Mayor on 6 May 2008, as well as appointing the following to newly devolved offices; Ian Clement as Deputy Mayor for Government Relations, Kit Malthouse as Deputy Mayor for Policing and Ray Lewis as Deputy Mayor for Young People.

The Mayor also appointed Munira Mirza as his cultural adviser and Nick Boles, the founder of Policy Exchange, as Chief of Staff. Sir Simon Milton has become Deputy Mayor for Policy and Planning, as well as Chief of Staff. Hazel Blears, the UK Communities Secretary, said that "People across the country will note that after just two months, the new Tory administration in London is in complete disarray. Londoners need to know what Boris knew and why the situation has changed." Kit Malthouse however, London's Deputy Mayor for Policing, defended Lewis and said that he had "dedicated himself to saving young lives in London", regarding his policies on tackling knife crime, and called the Labour Party "ungracious" and accused them of "dancing on his political grave". Johnson himself said that he was "misled" by Lewis. On 22 June 2009, Ian Clement resigned after breaking rules by paying for personal items using a corporate credit card.

Alcohol use ban on public transport

On 7 May 2008, Johnson announced plans to ban the consumption of alcohol on the London transport network, effective from 1 June, a policy described by Jeroen Weimar, Transport for London's director of transport policing and enforcement, as reasonable, saying people should be more considerate on the trains. The ban initially applied on the London Underground, Buses, DLR and Croydon Trams. The London Overground was added later in June 2008. Press releases said that the ban would apply to "stations across the capital", but did not specify whether this included National Rail stations - especially those stations not served by the TfL lines on which alcohol is banned.

On the final evening on which alcohol was to be permitted on London transport, thousands of drinkers descended on the Underground system to mark the event. Six London Underground stations were closed as trouble began, and a number of staff and police were assaulted. Police made 17 arrests as several trains were damaged and withdrawn from service. It is headed by Patience Wheatcroft, former editor of The Sunday Telegraph. Previously the GLA investigated allegations of financial mismanagement itself.

Johnson's announcement was criticised by Labour for the perceived politicisation of this nominally independent panel, who asked if the appointment of these key Johnson allies to the panel - "to dig dirt on Ken Livingstone" - was "an appropriate use of public funds". Wheatcroft is married to a Conservative councilor and three of the four remaining panel members also have close links to the Conservatives: Stephen Greenhalgh (Conservative Leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council), Patrick Frederick (Chairman of Conservative Business Relations for South East England and Southern London) and Edward Lister (Conservative Leader of Wandsworth Council).

The panel reported in July 2008. Its findings included that it had "identified failings in the LDA’s leadership, governance and basic controls which have led to our overall conclusion that the former LDA board was ineffective" and also raised a number of concerns about the value for money achieved on projects that the LDA had funded. However, on the central allegations that the previous administration had misused their powers, the Panel found "their attempts to influence LDA project decisions did not breach any rules or protocols".

2008 Olympics

Johnson was present at the closing ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing as London's representative to receive the Olympic flag from Guo Jinlong, the Mayor of Beijing in order to announce formally London as Olympic host city. At the subsequent handover party held at London House in Beijing, he gave a speech in which he declared 'ping pong is coming home'.

U.S. presidential election

In August 2008, Johnson broke from the traditional procedure of those in public office not publicly commenting on other nations' elections when he openly endorsed then-Senator Barack Obama for the presidency of the United States. He later wrote an editorial in The Telegraph explaining his decision.

Resignation of Sir Ian Blair

In October 2008, Boris Johnson forced the resignation of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis Ian Blair, hours after taking control of London’s police authority. Those in support of this measure claimed that Blair's handling of certain events, such as the death of Jean-Charles de Menezes, bonus payments and bias in favour of a piece of Government legislation left his position untenable, but critics have argued that the forced resignation makes the role of the commissioner more political.

Expenses controversy

In June 2009, it was revealed that Mayoral expenditure on taxi fares had risen by 540% under Boris Johnson's administration, from £729 in 2007/08 to £4,698 in 2008/09.

Several expense claims for very short taxi journeys were submitted by the Mayor, many which included charges for taxis to wait several hours for the Mayor to use them with the meter running (for example, a return journey from City Hall to Elephant and Castle - a journey of 3 miles - which cost £99.50).

There are questions about whether some of this expenditure was allowed under GLA rules, which state taxis should only be used when there is no feasible public transport alternative and which ban paying taxis to wait more than 20 minutes.

Mugging intervention

On 2 November 2009, Johnson intervened in the attempted mugging of a London resident as she was walking home. The victim, documentary film maker and Ken Livingstone supporter, Franny Armstrong, was pushed against a car by a "group of young girls", one wielding an iron bar. Johnson, who rides a bicycle to work, was cycling past when he responded to Armstrong's call for help. Johnson "picked up the iron bar, called after the girls and cycled after them." He also reportedly called the girls "Oiks". Johnson then returned to Armstrong and walked her home. Armstrong described Boris as her 'knight on a shining bicycle'. The Mayor's office has, however, declined to comment on the incident.

Television appearances

Have I Got News for You

Johnson has appeared on the British television programme Have I Got News for You four times as a guest presenter and three times as a panellist. The tabloid press, before he became an MP, tagged him as the show's star, even though he had then appeared only twice on a programme that had run for ten years. He has also taken part in the similar Radio 4 programme, The News Quiz.

On his first HIGNFY appearance, in 1998, Ian Hislop chided Johnson over his previous association with fraudster Darius Guppy (see below). Johnson later claimed the show was "fixed", though he retracted the comment when invited back a year later. When asked why he had come back, Johnson replied to the delight of the audience that it was "basically for the money."

By his third appearance, Johnson had been elected to Parliament. He was subjected to a surprise Mastermind parody round, where he began by getting his own name "wrong", saying "my name is Boris Johnson" and then being corrected by the host, Angus Deayton, who proceeded to quote his full birth name, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. He was then given questions about his party's leader, Iain Duncan Smith. Despite claiming to be an admirer and supporter of his leader, Johnson proceeded to get no questions correct, whilst constantly questioning the need for such a round. He also admitted during this show he had forgotten the title of his own book as he was writing it.

Johnson later became one of the first guest hosts for the show, his opening remarks being: He initially promised Paul Merton a coconut instead of a point; Johnson then retracted the offer but Merton insisted on a coconut. At the end, a stage hand brought in a bag of them, giving Johnson a chance to say, "Coconuts, from the party that keeps its promises!" Johnson kept a chaotic show, frequently forgetting panellists' names, positions and losing answers, which caused the usually deadpan Merton to laugh out of pure disbelief. He also opined his becoming leader of the Conservative Party was as likely as his "...being locked in a disused fridge." Merton cheerfully told him "These things do happen!"

In 2004, Johnson was nominated for a BAFTA Television Award in the entertainment category for his performance on the show in 2003. Johnson returned to front Have I Got News for You in November 2005. He admitted on the show that he once tried to snort cocaine, but sneezed and failed. He also hosted Have I Got News for You's Christmas special on 15 December 2006, his fourth appearance as host.

On the DVD commentary (recorded before Johnson's appearances as guest host) of The Very Best of Have I Got News for You, Merton and Hislop affectionately refer to Johnson as "a Wodehousian character", and stated that "he gets better every time".

Top Gear

Johnson has appeared on television motoring show Top Gear as a "star in a reasonably priced car" (one of the show's features). He set a time of 1m 56s in the Suzuki Liana, finishing nine places from the bottom before they changed car. While nearing the end of his timed lap, he failed to realise that he had accidentally pressed the horn with his arm. After hearing the noise he looked around puzzled and said, "Who hooted at me?" He returned to the show on 7 December 2008, spinning out on every corner during test runs, before setting a lap time of 1m 57.4s in the Chevrolet Lacetti. His potentially "disastrous" time was due to the "very wet" conditions.

Room 101

Appearing in 2003, Johnson nominated boiled eggs, Lynda Lee Potter, smoking bans, Richard Clayderman and people who shout things like "you Tory tosser" at him whilst he's cycling as his selections to put into Room 101, with only the last of the five being rejected. He claimed that his refusal to eat eggs from the age of 6 months was his "first major policy decision".

The Dream of Rome

Johnson presented a BBC TV series titled The Dream of Rome, which described how ancient Rome united Europe in a way which the modern European Union has failed to do. A book published by HarperCollins followed the series.

The Dame Edna Treatment

Originally broadcast on ITV1 on 28 April 2007, Johnson was a guest on The Dame Edna Treatment. He rode a bicycle onto the stage and sat alongside Shane Warne, Alan Alda and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

Who Do You Think You Are?

On 20 August 2008 Johnson was the subject of the BBC family history programme Who Do You Think You Are?. He was revealed to be a direct, if illegitimate, descendant of George II of Great Britain through his eight times grandmother Augusta of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, granddaughter of George II and wife of Friedrich I of Württemberg, and thence through their son Prince Paul of Württemberg and Paul's illegitimate daughter, Adelheid von Rothenburg. Adelheid (known as Caroline) married Baron de Pfeffel, from whom Boris takes one of his middle names. By his descent from George II of Great Britain he is also descendant of all the other major European royal houses. His Turkish great grandfather, Ali Kemal Bey, who was also, like Johnson, a politician and journalist, was assassinated in the 1920s, following political conflict in Turkey.

After Rome

In December 2008 BBC2 aired a two-part documentary written and presented by Johnson, called After Rome, in which he looks at the impact Muslims have made in the world, especially in the European sector during the peak of the Islamic Empire (specifically drawn from the Islamic Golden Age). In this he investigated the current crisis of the "clash of civilisations" between Christianity and Islam, searching for a viable reason on why Islam is hated in the West, and vice versa.

EastEnders

On 17 July 2009, Johnson filmed a short scene in the British soap opera EastEnders, appearing as himself in a scene with Peggy Mitchell (played by Barbara Windsor). The episode was broadcast on 1 October. Ken Livingstone accused the BBC of political bias for allowing Johnson to appear in the programme.

Documentaries

Johnson's period in the Bullingdon Club alongside David Cameron, and his campaign to become President of the Oxford Union, were examined in the Channel 4 docu-drama, When Boris Met Dave, which was broadcast on 7 October 2009.

Persona

(left) and Conservative MP Graham Stuart (centre) on 28 March 2006.]]

Johnson is one of the most recognisable figures in British politics — partly attributable to his trademark unruly hairstyle (one exception to this trademark was during the 2008 Olympics). He is one of few British politicians identifiable by his first name alone. Reportedly, fearing that this familiarity made him more likeable and was helping his chances during the London Mayoral Campaign, Labour MP Tessa Jowell set up a 'swearbox' where any campaign member referring to him as 'Boris' would pay a fine. Jowell herself denied these claims. Johnson has since attracted a variety of irreverent names, including "BoJo" (a portmanteau of his Christian- and surnames).

Johnson has been a frequent target for satirists. The magazine Private Eye pictured him on the front cover of issues 1120 (26 November 2004), 1156 (14 April 2006), and 1214 (11 July 2008). He has featured regularly in its cartoon strip (currently called Dave Snooty and his Pals) as "Boris the Menace" (cf. Dennis the Menace).

He has shown himself to be outspoken on issues which are treated by some as belonging to the realms of political correctness. In Friends, Voters, Countrymen (2001), Johnson wrote that "if gay marriage was OK - and I was uncertain on the issue - then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men, or indeed three men and a dog." In recent years Johnson has played down his previous support for Section 28. and has expressed more moderate views on the issue.

Shortly after the 7 July bombings in 2005, Johnson made the following comments: }}

Johnson is known for his love of cycling and regularly cycles to work. He has been the victim of several bike thefts and has expressed his desire to plant "decoy bicycles throughout Islington and send Navy Seals in through the windows of thieves". He introduced a bicycle sharing system modelled on Velib in London in July 2010. However, since becoming Mayor of London he has cut £10m off the budget for new cycle lanes in London. A spokesman for Johnson said that the overall investment in cycling in London had been increased to a record £55m in 2008, up from £36m the year prior. Collier was not attacked, but Johnson did not alert the police and the incident only became public knowledge when a transcript of the conversation was published in the Mail on Sunday. Johnson retained his job at the Telegraph but was reprimanded by its editor Max Hastings. Despite this admission in 2003, Johnson received no indication from the police that he was being investigated for theft until 2008, leading supporters of Johnson to express suspicion that the investigation coincided with his candidacy for the position of London Mayor. "This is a monumental waste of time," said Johnson. On 24 June 2008, Johnson was forced to hand the cigar case over to police while they carried out enquiries into whether the Iraq (UN Sanctions) Order 2003 had been breached.

People of Liverpool

On 16 October 2004, The Spectator carried an unsigned editorial comment criticising a perceived trend to mawkish sentimentality by the public. Using British hostage Kenneth Bigley as an example, the editorial claimed the inhabitants of Bigley's home city of Liverpool were wallowing in a "vicarious victimhood"; that many Liverpudlians had a "deeply unattractive psyche"; and that they refused to accept responsibility for "drunken fans at the back of the crowd who mindlessly tried to fight their way into the ground" during the Hillsborough disaster, a contention at odds with the findings of the Taylor Report. The editorial closed with: "In our maturity as a civilisation, we should accept that we can cut out the cancer of ignorant sentimentality without diminishing, as in this case, our utter disgust at a foul and barbaric act of murder."

Although Johnson had not written the piece (journalist Simon Heffer later said he "had a hand" in it), he accepted responsibility for its publication. The Conservative leader at the time, Michael Howard (a supporter of Liverpool FC), condemned the editorial, saying "I think what was said in The Spectator'' was nonsense from beginning to end", and sent Johnson on a tour of contrition to the city. There, in numerous interviews and public appearances, Johnson defended the editorial's thesis (that the deaths of figures such as Bigley and Diana, Princess of Wales, were over-sentimentalised); but he apologised for the article's wording and for using Liverpool and Bigley's death as examples, saying "I think the article was too trenchantly expressed but we were trying to make a point about sentimentality". Michael Howard resisted calls to dismiss Johnson over the Bigley affair, but dismissed him the next month over the Wyatt revelations.

Petronella Wyatt affair

In 2004, British newspapers reported that Boris Johnson had had a four-year affair with Petronella Wyatt. The affair, which had been well hinted at in UK newspaper gossip columns, included passionate London taxi cab rides around St John's Wood during which they would ask the cab driver to insert cassette tapes of Wyatt singing Puccini. Although Johnson had promised to leave his wife, after a break-up, they had rekindled their relationship during which Wyatt had become pregnant and then had an abortion; resulting in her mother discovering the affair and reporting it to the press. Johnson suggested he would add Papua New Guinea to his global apology itinerary, and said he was sure the people there "lived lives of blameless bourgeois domesticity like the rest of us". In his defence, he stated "My remarks were inspired by a Time Life book I have which does indeed show relatively recent photos of Papua New Guinean tribes engaged in warfare, and I'm fairly certain that cannibalism was involved."

Portsmouth

In April 2007 Johnson was called upon to resign by the MPs for the city of Portsmouth after claiming in a column for GQ that the city was "one of the most depressed towns in Southern England, a place that is arguably too full of drugs, obesity, underachievement and Labour MPs".

Allegations of racism

Two days after Boris Johnson's candidacy for Mayor of London took a six point poll lead over Ken Livingstone in a YouGov survey published by the Daily Telegraph, Doreen Lawrence, mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, said that he would 'destroy London's unity', adding that 'once people read his views, there is no way he is going to get the support of any people in the black community'. She was referring especially to the occasion on which Johnson, as a journalist in 1999, accused the Macpherson Inquiry, which reported on police racism following the Lawrence murder, of 'hysteria', adding that the "recommendation that the law might be changed so as to allow prosecution for racist language or behaviour 'other than in a public place'" was akin to "Ceausescu's Romania".

The Conservative London Assembly candidate for Bexley and Bromley and former Conservative candidate for mayor of Lewisham, James Cleverly, another black Londoner, rejected Lawrence's criticisms.

In a piece in the Evening Standard on 6 August 2007, the journalist Andrew Gilligan responded to the allegations saying how 'outrageous – indeed Orwellian – it is to attack a man as a destroyer of racial harmony, one of the most serious charges you can lay, simply on the basis that he refuses to sign up for every dot and comma of a report of which she approves. While condemning the "grotesque failures" in the Lawrence case which "may well have originated in racism," Boris was far from the only person to oppose that particular Macpherson recommendation. Labour MPs opposed it, too. So did the Government, clearly, because they didn’t implement it.'

These remarks were followed by criticism from two black Labour London MPs, Diane Abbott and Dawn Butler, who criticised a column written by Johnson in 2002, saying he had used "most offensive language of the colonial past", showing "that the Tory party is riddled with racial prejudice". In the article in question, written to satirise the Prime Minister's visit to Congo, Johnson mocked "Supertone" (Tony Blair) for his brief visits to world trouble spots, bringing peace to the world while the UK deteriorated; Blair would arrive as "the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief", just as "it is said the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies". Although these remarks were intended as a satirical dig at the patronising attitude of Blair and the Queen towards foreigners, the choice of language left Johnson exposed to allegations of racism.

Johnson's campaign team rejected suggestions that their candidate might be prejudiced, insisting that he "loathes racism in all its forms". However, journalist Rod Liddle said that Johnson has used the word "piccaninnies" on another occasion to refer to black Africans. Greater London analyst and director of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics, Dr. Tony Travers, has written that "There is no way to dress up expressions such as "piccaninnies'" and "watermelon smiles" to take them within a million miles of acceptable."

At an Evening Standard debate on 21 January 2008, Johnson apologised for these remarks, while insisting that, as parodies of the attitudes of others, they were taken out of context:

I do feel very sad that people have been so offended by these words and I'm sorry that I've caused this offence. But if you look at the article as written they really do not bear the construction that you're putting on them. I feel very strongly that this is something which is simply not in my heart. I'm absolutely 100 per cent anti-racist, I despise and loathe racism"

Damian Green arrest

Boris Johnson was informed in advance of the arrest of fellow Conservative MP Damian Green and told acting Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson that he did not regard the arrest as 'common sense policing'. A spokesman for Johnson says he told Stephenson he would need to see "convincing evidence that this action was necessary and proportionate," and that it would be better for police to spend their time preventing gun and knife crimes. As chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority Johnson's position means he is not permitted to be involved in operational matters. Additionally Johnson is prohibited by Section 3, Paragraph 2(d) of the London Assembly Code of Conduct from doing anything that compromises the impartiality of a police officer. Andy Hayman, former Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner, commented that Johnson "was informed of the Green arrest in his position as chairman of the police authority but chose to react in the role of prominent Tory politician" and called Johnson's actions "political interference in operational policing."

A formal complaint against Johnson was filed on 6 December by Len Duvall, alleging that Johnson "is guilty of four 'clear and serious' code of conduct breaches by speaking to Green, an arrested suspect in an ongoing criminal investigation, and publicly prejudging the outcome of the police inquiry following a private briefing by senior officers" and that Johnson has brought the office of Mayor "into disrepute". Johnson admitted to telephoning Green after he had been bailed, an action which Duvall, a former Metropolitan Police Authority chairman, described as "absolutely astonishing and inappropriate," while Stephenson said it would be "entirely inappropriate" to prejudge an inquiry. Johnson had stated that he "had a 'hunch'" that Green would not be charged. The formal complaint gave investigators ten days to decide whether to submit Johnson to formal inquiry by the Standards Board for England, where a guilty verdict could have seen him suspended or removed as Mayor of London, or banned from public office for up to five years. The GLA can impose a maximum penalty of three months suspension from office if it finds Johnson guilty. However, despite clearing Johnson of any charges, investigator Jonathan Goolden said Johnson had been "extraordinary and unwise" in his actions and should be more careful in the future.

On 16 April 2009, the Crown Prosecution Service announced that it was not going to bring a case against either Damian Green or Galley, the Home Office civil servant who passed data to Mr Green, as there was "insufficient evidence" for either to face charges. This followed the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee criticising Home Office civil servants for prompting the investigation by using "exaggerated" claims about the implications for national security that the leaks held.

Walkout over snow inquiry

On 2 April 2009, Boris Johnson walked out of a House of Commons inquiry midway through giving an answer. He was asked by the Transport Select Committee if he had enquired as to whether there might be problems in the capital due to heavy snowfall. He refused to answer, stood up and left the room. The Greater London Authority transport committee chair Val Shawcross has said that he was not proactive and "entirely out of things". When he moved to leave, the Chair accepted that Johnson had already used the 40 minutes of time he agreed to give the inquiry. Johnson resumed his seat to answer further questions, revealing that he had spoken to Peter (Hendy, head of Transport for London) before 7am on the morning of the heavy snowfall. He also told the inquiry there had been a "staggering quantity of snow" and that his further intervention "would not have made the slightest difference to the difficulties we encountered".

"Chicken feed" remark

In a July 2009 interview with Stephen Sackur on the BBC programme HARDtalk, Johnson referred to the £250,000 per annum income he receives from his side job as a columnist for The Daily Telegraph as "chicken feed," suggesting that he wrote the columns "as a way of relaxation ... on a Sunday morning," and that he wrote "very fast" so the columns did not take time away from his duties as Mayor. These comments were widely criticised due to the fact that the UK was at the time in economic recession and £250,000 is roughly 10 times the current average yearly wage for a worker in the UK.

Responding to these comments, and in reaction to an upcoming restructuring exercise in which more than 100 jobs are expected to be eliminated at City Hall, the trade union UNISON, which represents 350 GLA staff, staged a protest featuring a "penned-up chicken man" being pelted with chicken feed by a Johnson lookalike in a pig mask.

Veronica Wadley

In October 2009, it was alleged that Johnson had selected former Evening Standard editor Veronica Wadley as head of the Arts Council For London because of her support for him during his 2008 mayoral campaign. Wadley was described by Liz Forgan, head of the Arts Council, as being "manifestly less qualified than three of her competitors," adding that she had "almost no arts credibility" and that she had been rejected in the first round of interviews by both Forgan and David Durie, being favoured only by Johnson's Cultural Advisor Munira Mirza. Johnson wrote to Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw that he felt Wadley's "fundraising skills and views on music education made her the obvious candidate."

Charitable activity

Johnson is a supporter of many causes, particularly the teaching of Classics in inner city schools, and is a patron of The Iris Project. He has promised to donate £25,000 of his income from his Daily Telegraph column to such activities.

He has also listed his activities in the Register of Interest at City Hall as:

King’s Head Theatre in Education, Islington, (Patron);

Downside Up, British-Russian Charity in support of children with Downs Syndrome, (Patron);

Henley & District Agricultural Assn., (Member);

Henley 100 Club, (Member).

Johnson has also supported Book Aid International amongst other charities.

In 2006, he took part in a charity football match between England and Germany, consisting of celebrities and former players. He came on as a substitute for England in the 80th minute and infamously rugby tackled former German international Maurizio Gaudino, in a vain attempt to head the ball.

References

Bibliography

Johnson's Column (Continuum International — Academi) ISBN 0-8264-6855-1

Friends, Voters, Countrymen (HarperCollins, 2001) ISBN 0-00-711913-5

Lend Me Your Ears (HarperCollins, 2003) ISBN 0-00-717224-9

Seventy-Two Virgins (HarperCollins, 2004) ISBN 0-00-719590-7

Aspire Ever Higher / University Policy for the 21st Century (Politeia, 2006)

The Dream of Rome (HarperCollins, 2006) ISBN 0-00-722441-9

Have I Got Views For You (HarperPerennial, 2006) ISBN 0-00-724220-4

Life in the Fast Lane: The Johnson Guide to Cars (HarperPerennial, 2007) ISBN 0-00-726020-2

(HarperPress 2007) ISBN 0-00-726339-2

Further reading

Andrew Gimson (Simon & Schuster, 2006) ISBN 0-7432-7584-5

Iain Dale The Little Book of Boris (Harriman House Ltd., 2007) ISBN 978-1905641-64-2

Giles Edwards Boris v. Ken: How Boris Johnson won London (Politico's Publishing Ltd., 2008) ISBN 978-184275-225-8

A. Vasudevan The thinking man's idiot. The Wit and Wisdom of Boris Johnson (New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd., 2008) ISBN 978 184773-359-7

External links

Mayor of London official London government website, includes biography

Boris Johnson column archives at The Telegraph

Who do you think you are? Boris Johnson, BBC

;News articles

The Boris Johnson story, Brian Wheeler, BBC News, 4 May 2008

Boris Johnson address about the economic downturn at the Movers & Shakers Property Breakfast, Gleeds TV, March 2009 (video)

Students interview Boris Johnson at the Beyond Sport conference, Radiowaves, 9 July 2009

The NS Interview: Boris Johnson, Jon Bernstein, The New Statesman, 26 February 2010

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Category:Mayors of London Category:Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Category:British journalists Category:Conservative Party (UK) MPs Category:English Anglicans Category:English magazine editors Category:English people of American descent Category:English people of French descent Category:English people of German descent Category:English people of Russian descent Category:English people of Turkish descent Category:English political writers Category:Henley-on-Thames Category:Members of the United Kingdom Parliament for English constituencies Category:Old Etonians Category:People from New York City Category:Presidents of the Oxford Union Category:UK MPs 2001–2005 Category:UK MPs 2005–2010 Category:1964 births Category:Living people Category:Critics of the European Union

Honorific-prefix	The Right Honourable
Name	Alex Salmond
Honorific-suffix	MSP
Office	First Minister of Scotland
Term start	16 May 2007
Term end
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Deputy	Nicola Sturgeon
Predecessor	Jack McConnell
Office2	Leader of the Scottish National Party
Term start2	3 September 2004
Predecessor2	John Swinney
Term start3	22 September 1990
Term end3	26 September 2000
Predecessor3	Gordon Wilson
Successor3	John Swinney
Constituency mp4	Gordon
Parliament4	Scottish
Majority4	2,062 (5.8%)
Term start4	3 May 2007
Predecessor4	Nora Radcliffe
Constituency mp5	Banff and Buchan
Parliament5	Scottish
Majority5	11,292 (35.58%)
Term start5	6 May 1999
Term end5	7 June 2001
Predecessor5	constituency created
Successor5	Stewart Stevenson
Constituency mp6	Banff and Buchan
Successor6	Dr Eilidh Whiteford
Term start6	11 June 1987
Term end6	6 May 2010
Predecessor6	Albert McQuarrie
Birth date	December 31, 1954
Birth place	Linlithgow, West Lothian, Scotland
Nationality
Party	Scottish National Party
Spouse	Moira Salmond
Residence	Bute House (official)Strichen, Buchan (private)
Alma mater	University of St Andrews
Occupation	Economist
Religion	Church of Scotland
Website	Scottish National Party

Alexander Elliot Anderson "Alex" Salmond MSP (; born 31 December 1954) is a Scottish politician and the current First Minister of Scotland. He is leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the serving Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Gordon. From 1987 to 2010 he served as Member of Parliament for Banff and Buchan in the United Kingdom's House of Commons. Salmond previously held the position of leader of the SNP from September 1990 until he stepped down in September 2000. He became Scotland's fourth First Minister in May 2007.

Originally from Linlithgow, West Lothian, Salmond is a graduate of the University of St Andrews, where he achieved a Joint Honours MA in Economics and History. After earning his degree he was employed in the Government Economic Service. He later joined the Royal Bank of Scotland as an economist. While there he wrote and broadcast extensively for both domestic and international media outlets.

Following the establishment of the devolved Scottish Parliament in 1999, he was elected MSP for Banff and Buchan, thus simultaneously representing the area as both Member of Parliament (MP) and MSP. Salmond resigned as SNP leader in 2000 and did not seek re-election to the Scottish Parliament. He did however retain his Westminster seat in the 2001 general election. Salmond was once again elected SNP leader in 2004 and the following year held his Banff and Buchan seat in the 2005 general election. In 2006 he announced his intention to contest the Gordon constituency in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election, an election in which Salmond defeated the incumbent MSP and in which nationally, the SNP emerged as the largest single party. Salmond was voted First Minister by the Scottish Parliament on 16 May 2007.

As First Minister, Salmond heads a minority Scottish Government. Politically, Salmond is one of the foremost proponents of Scottish independence, repeatedly calling for a referendum on the issue. Salmond has campaigned on Global warming and in government has committed Scotland to world-leading legislation on emission reduction and the generation of renewable energy. Other recurring campaign themes include nuclear disarmament and Salmond's strong opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Early life and career

Salmond was born in Linlithgow, a town in West Lothian, Scotland on 31 December, (Hogmanay) 1954. He is the second of four children born to Robert Fyfe Findlay Salmond and Mary Stewart Salmond (née Milne), both of whom were civil servants. Salmond attended the local Linlithgow Academy before studying at the University of St Andrews, where he graduated with a Joint Honours MA in economics and history.

In 1978 he entered the Government Economic Service as an Assistant Economist in the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland, part of the now defunct Scottish Office. Two years later he joined the Royal Bank of Scotland where he worked for seven years: first as an Assistant Economist before being appointed Oil Economist in 1982, and from 1984 combining that role with duties as a bank economist. He supports Scotland and Heart of Midlothian F.C. and sometimes attends matches. He also attended the 2008 UEFA Cup Final between Rangers FC and Zenit St Petersburg.

He takes an interest in Scottish cultural life, as well as watching Star Trek and listening to country and western music. For Children in Need in 2008, Salmond performed an impersonation of the Rikki Fulton character, the Reverend I M Jolly.

He has also been a visiting Professor of Economics at Strathclyde University. He and his wife Moira live in Strichen in Aberdeenshire.

Early political career

Salmond became active in the SNP when he joined the Federation of Student Nationalists at St Andrews University in 1973 while a student at St. Andrews. As a left-winger at the time he joined, he had considerable doubts as to whether or not the Labour Government would legislate for a devolved Scottish Assembly.

Salmond started his political life as a committed left-winger inside the SNP and was a leading member of the socialist republican organisation within it, the 79 Group. He was, along with other group leaders, suspended from membership of the SNP when the 79 Group was banned within the larger party. In 1981, he married Moira French McGlashan, then a senior civil servant with the Scottish Office.

Following the SNP's National Council narrowly voting to uphold the expulsion, Salmond and the others were allowed back into the party a month later, and in 1985 he was elected as the SNP's Vice Convener for Publicity.

In 1987 he stood for Parliament in Banff and Buchan and defeated the incumbent Conservative MP, Albert McQuarrie. Later that year Salmond became Senior Vice Convener (Deputy Leader) of the SNP. He was at this time still viewed as being firmly on the left of the party and had become a key ally of Jim Sillars, who joined him in the British House of Commons when he won a by-election for the seat of Glasgow Govan in 1988. Salmond served as a member of the House of Commons Energy Select Committee from 1987 to 1992.

First time as SNP leader

When Gordon Wilson stood down as SNP leader in 1990, Salmond decided to contest the leadership. His only opponent was Margaret Ewing, whom Sillars decided to support. This caused considerable consternation amongst the SNP left as the two main left leaders were opposing each other in the contest. Salmond went on to win the leadership election by 486 votes to Ewing's 146. ]]

His first test as leader was the general election in 1992, with the SNP having high hopes of making an electoral breakthrough. Whilst considerably increased its share of the vote, it failed to win a large number of seats. Sillars lost his, causing him to describe the Scottish people as '90 minute patriots'. This comment ended the political friendship between Salmond and Sillars, and Sillars would soon become a vocal critic of Salmond's style of leadership.

The SNP increased its number of MPs from four to six in the 1997 General Election, which saw a landslide victory for the Labour Party. After election, Labour legislated for a devolved Scottish parliament in Edinburgh.

Although still committed to a fully independent Scotland, Salmond signed the SNP up to supporting the campaign for devolution, and, along with Scottish Labour leader Donald Dewar and Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Jim Wallace, played an active part in securing the victory for devolution in the Scotland referendum of 1997. However, many hard line fundamentalists in the SNP objected to committing the party to devolution, as it was short of full political Scottish independence.

Salmond's first spell as leader was characterised by a moderation of his earlier left-wing views and by his firmly placing the SNP into a gradualist, but still pro-independence, strategy.

Salmond was one of the few British politicians to oppose the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999. He was opposed to the conflict because it was not authorised by a United Nations Security Council resolution, which was a controversial subject at the time. Despite this, Salmond was heavily criticised in the media for describing Tony Blair's decision to intervene militarily as an "unpardonable folly".

Several years as party leader earned Salmond an unusually high profile for an SNP politician in the London-based media. In 1998, Salmond won the Spectator Award for Political strategist of the Year. Following an appearance on the entertainment programme Call My Bluff, Salmond used one of the 'bluff' cards that are used as props in the show in the run-up to the first elections to the Scottish Parliament. To counter his frustration at having to sit in silence through what he claimed was an inappropriately political speech by Tony Blair at a charity lunch, he held up the bluff card as the Prime Minister began querying Scotland's economic prospects should independence occur. Throughout his time in politics, Salmond has maintained his interest in horse racing, writing a weekly column for The Scotsman and appearing a number of times on Channel 4's The Morning Line.

launch.]]

Resignation and time in Westminster

Salmond was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and was one of its highest profile members. He stood down as SNP leader in 2000, and was replaced by his preferred successor John Swinney, who defeated Alex Neil for the post. He left the Scottish Parliament in 2001 to lead the SNP group in the House of Commons.

2003 Invasion of Iraq

During the prolonged parliamentary debates in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq he voiced strong opposition to Britain's participation. In the aftermath of the war, he lent support to the attempt of Adam Price, a Plaid Cymru MP, to impeach Tony Blair over the Iraq issue. Salmond has gone further than many anti-war politicians in claiming that Blair's statements on the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were consciously intended to deceive the public.

Return as leader

On 15 July 2004, Alex Salmond said that he would be a candidate in the forthcoming election for the leadership of the SNP. This came as a surprise because Salmond had previously declared that he would definitely not be a leadership candidate. Although he was re-elected in the 2005 general election, he made clear his intention to return to the Scottish Parliament at the 2007 Scottish parliamentary election in an attempt to win power for the first time. Salmond won the seat with 41% of the vote, and a majority of 2,062, returning to the Scottish Parliament after six years' absence. In the election the SNP emerged as the largest party, winning 47 seats to Labour's 46.

First Minister

Nicola Sturgeon at the launch of the National Conversation.]] Having won more seats than any other party in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election, the SNP initially approached the Scottish Liberal Democrats to form a coalition, but they declined to take part in negotiations. This left the SNP without any possibility to form a coalition with an overall majority. The Scottish Green Party agreed to support an SNP minority administration on a confidence and supply basis.

(centre) and Martin McGuinness (left).]] Salmond was elected by the Scottish Parliament as First Minister on 16 May 2007, and was sworn in on 17 May after receiving the Royal Warrant from the Queen and taking the official oath of allegiance before judges at the Court of Session. Salmond became the first nationalist politician to hold the office. He reduced the size of the Cabinet from nine members to six, and said he would seek to govern on a "policy by policy" basis.

The Guardian reported in November 2007 that Salmond believed Scotland would be independent within "the next decade".

In November 2007, Salmond received the The Spectator's Parliamentarian of the Year Award for his "brilliant campaign" and "extraordinary victory" in the Scottish Parliament elections, thereby ending eight years of Labour rule.

2010 TV election debate

Salmond said it would be "unacceptable" for the SNP to be excluded from the 2010 UK election televised debate and has sought "guarantees of inclusion from the broadcasters, given their inescapable duty to ensure fairness and impartiality in election-related coverage in Scotland" in the build up to the 2010 UK General Election. The party used the Freedom of Information Act to see if the BBC could have broken its own rules. Salmond said it was entirely unacceptable to Scotland as well as to the SNP for the broadcasters to exclude the party that forms the Scottish Government and leading in Westminster election polls. He emphasised, however, that he was not trying to stop any debates from being broadcast. After having failed to change the BBC's decision to not include the SNP in the final UK debate, in line with the decision by ITV and Sky News, the SNP mounted a legal challenge to the BBC at the Court of Session in Edinburgh. Despite earlier reassurances by the SNP that it was not trying to stop the broadcast, it sought an 'interim interdict' to prevent the debate being broadcast without the participation of the SNP. However, the Court of Session dismissed the SNP's complaint, and refused to ban the BBC from broadcasting the third debate in Scotland, on the grounds that the SNP had left the bringing of the case "far too late", had not contested the broadcasting of the first two debates by ITV and Sky Television, and that the third debate would in any case be broadcast by Sky on satellite across the UK, which a Scottish court had no power to block. The judge, Lady Smith, further ordered the SNP to pay the BBC's legal expenses. The SNP's political opponents described the SNP's contesting of the case as a "stunt".

However there were Scottish debates dealing with specifically devolved issues which Salmond had accepted the invitation to attend along the other parties within the Scottish Parliament on Sky TV. Whilst Salmond declining to attend those held on the BBC and ITV, Angus Robertson agreed to take his place in these debates.

Renewable energy

Alex Salmond in his 2010 New Year message highlighted the importance of sustainable development and renewable energy in Scotland and the required increase in powers of the Scottish Parliament needed to help harness Scotland's green energy potential and therefore take full advantage of the "renewable revolution".

Earlier in December 2009, he campaigned for climate change legislation at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen to promote Scotland's role in tackling and mitigating climate change. This included signing a Partnership Agreement with the Maldives, one of the most exposed countries to the consequences of rising sea levels.

See also

Referendum (Scotland) Bill, 2010

Further reading

Biographies

David Torrance, Salmond: Against All Odds, Birlinn, 2010

Other

References

External links

Rt Hon Alex Salmond MSP (alexsalmond.org)

Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) (Scottish.parliament.uk)

First Minister (Scotland.gov.uk)

Official biography (www.snp.org)

Guardian profile, Electoral history and profile (guardian.co.uk)

TheyWorkForYou.com

Voting Record — Alex Salmond MP, Banff & Buchan (10525) (The Public Whip)

BBC News profile

Offices held

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