The Independent Group
The Independent Group is a British pro-EU group of Members of Parliament founded in February 2019. Its seven founding members resigned from the Labour Party, citing their dissatisfaction with the Labour leadership's approach to Brexit and its handling of allegations of antisemitism in the party, they have since been joined by another MP who resigned from Labour, citing similar reasons, by three MPs who resigned from the Conservative Party, citing their opposition to that party's Brexit policies, a lack of concern within the party for the "most vulnerable in society", what they see as a right-wing takeover of the Conservatives. All members of the group support a second EU referendum, the group is considered to be centrist. In March 2019, the group announced that it had applied to the Electoral Commission to become a political party under the name Change UK – The Independent Group, with Heidi Allen as interim leader, in order to be able to stand candidates in the upcoming May 2019 European elections.
The group does not formally have a membership beyond the MPs themselves nor representation in other levels of government of the UK. However, several local councillors declared support for the group; the group was founded by Luciana Berger, Ann Coffey, Mike Gapes, Chris Leslie, Gavin Shuker, Angela Smith and Chuka Umunna, who announced their resignations from the Labour Party on 18 February 2019. These founding members have been referred to as the "Gang of Seven" by some British commentators, in reference to the Gang of Four who split from the Labour Party to found the Social Democratic Party in 1981. Four of the number – Berger, Gapes and Leslie – were Labour and Co-operative Party MPs: they exited both parties. Announcing the resignations, Berger described Labour as having become "institutionally antisemitic", while Leslie said Labour had been "hijacked by the machine politics of the hard left" and Gapes said he was "furious that the Labour leadership is complicit in facilitating Brexit". Shuker and Leslie, as well as Joan Ryan who would join the following day, had lost votes of no-confidence brought by their constituency parties, while two motions of no-confidence against Berger had been withdrawn.
Umunna rejected the notion of any merger with the Liberal Democrats. On 20 February the Independent Group urged other MPs to join them. On the day of the group's launch, founding member Angela Smith appeared on the BBC's Politics Live programme, where she said, in a discussion about racism, that: "The recent history of the party I've just left suggested it's not just about being black or a funny tin... you know, a different... from the BAME community". The offending phrase was uttered, but was reported to be "funny tinge". Smith apologised shortly afterwards, saying, "I'm upset that I misspoke so badly." Commentators noted an irony given. On 19 February Joan Ryan announced her departure from the Labour Party, becoming the first MP to join after the group's formation. On 20 February 2019, three Conservative MPs left their party to join the group: Sarah Wollaston, Heidi Allen, Anna Soubry, citing the handling of Brexit by the Prime Minister. In April 2019, former MPs Stephen Dorrell and Neil Carmichael left the Conservatives to support the Independent Group.
In February 2019, Labour councillors in over ten councils left the party and intend to align with The Independent Group. Two former Labour councillors in Brighton and Hove Council left the party to form their own independent group on 25 February, aligning with the Parliamentary group. There have been further resignations from the party by Labour councillors in Barnet, Derby, Salford and Stafford. With the Independent Group not a registered political party, it is unclear how many councillors support them, but many give the same reasons as the Labour MPs who left the party: alleged antisemitism in Labour, Corbyn's leadership and Brexit. In March 2019, the group announced that it had applied to the Electoral Commission to register as a political party under the name "Change UK – The Independent Group", in order to be able to stand candidates if the UK participates in the May 2019 European elections; the name has to be approved by the Commission. Heidi Allen was appointed interim leader, pending an inaugural party conference planned for September 2019.
Petitions website Change.org announced that it would challenge the branding, which it regarded as having "hijacked" its identity. On 19 February 2019, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn responded that he was "disappointed" at the MPs' actions. Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said that the Independent Group MPs had a "responsibility" to resign and fight by-elections, as they had been elected as Labour MPs and should seek the approval of the electorate for their new platform. Other Labour Party figures stressed reflection, with deputy leader Tom Watson imploring his party to change in order to stave off further defections. Jon Lansman, the founder of Momentum, said he had "personal sympathy" for Berger because of the "hate and abuse" she had suffered. However, the six other former Labour MPs were, in his opinion, malcontents opposed to Corbyn's leadership. On 19 February, Labour MP Ruth George, asked to respond to a Facebook comment suggesting the group's f
Barrister
A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation, their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching the philosophy and history of law, giving expert legal opinions. Barristers are recognised as legal scholars. Barristers are distinguished from solicitors, who have more direct access to clients, may do transactional-type legal work, it is barristers who are appointed as judges, they are hired by clients directly. In some legal systems, including those of Scotland, South Africa, Pakistan, India and the British Crown dependencies of Jersey and the Isle of Man, the word barrister is regarded as an honorific title. In a few jurisdictions, barristers are forbidden from "conducting" litigation, can only act on the instructions of a solicitor, who performs tasks such as corresponding with parties and the court, drafting court documents. In England and Wales, barristers may seek authorisation from the Bar Standards Board to conduct litigation.
This allows a barrister to practise in a'dual capacity', fulfilling the role of both barrister and solicitor. In some countries with common law legal systems, such as New Zealand and some regions of Australia, lawyers are entitled to practise both as barristers and solicitors, but it remains a separate system of qualification to practise as a barrister. A barrister, who can be considered as a jurist, is a lawyer who represents a litigant as advocate before a court of appropriate jurisdiction. A barrister presents the case before a judge or jury. In some jurisdictions, a barrister receives additional training in evidence law and court practice and procedure. In contrast, a solicitor meets with clients, does preparatory and administrative work and provides legal advice. In this role, he or she may draft and review legal documents, interact with the client as necessary, prepare evidence, manage the day-to-day administration of a lawsuit. A solicitor can provide a crucial support role to a barrister when in court, such as managing large volumes of documents in the case or negotiating a settlement outside the courtroom while the trial continues inside.
There are other essential differences. A barrister will have rights of audience in the higher courts, whereas other legal professionals will have more limited access, or will need to acquire additional qualifications to have such access; as in common law countries in which there is a split between the roles of barrister and solicitor, the barrister in civil law jurisdictions is responsible for appearing in trials or pleading cases before the courts. Barristers have particular knowledge of case law and the skills to "build" a case; when a solicitor in general practice is confronted with an unusual point of law, they may seek the "opinion of counsel" on the issue. In most countries, barristers operate as sole practitioners, are prohibited from forming partnerships or from working as a barrister as part of a corporation. However, barristers band together into "chambers" to share clerks and operating expenses; some chambers grow to be large and sophisticated, have a distinctly corporate feel. In some jurisdictions, they may be employed by firms of solicitors, banks, or corporations as in-house legal advisers.
In contrast and attorneys work directly with the clients and are responsible for engaging a barrister with the appropriate expertise for the case. Barristers have little or no direct contact with their'lay clients' without the presence or involvement of the solicitor. All correspondence, invoices, so on, will be addressed to the solicitor, responsible for the barrister's fees. In court, barristers are visibly distinguished from solicitors by their apparel. For example, in Ireland and Wales, a barrister wears a horsehair wig, stiff collar, a gown. Since January 2008, solicitor advocates have been entitled to wear wigs, but wear different gowns. In many countries the traditional divisions between barristers and solicitors are breaking down. Barristers once enjoyed a monopoly on appearances before the higher courts, but in Great Britain this has now been abolished, solicitor advocates can appear for clients at trial. Firms of solicitors are keeping the most advanced advisory and litigation work in-house for economic and client relationship reasons.
The prohibition on barristers taking instructions directly from the public has been abolished. But, in practice, direct instruction is still a rarity in most jurisdictions because barristers with narrow specializations, or who are only trained for advocacy, are not prepared to provide general advice to members of the public. Barristers have had a major role in trial preparation, including drafting pleadings and reviewing evidence. In some areas of law, still the case. In other areas, it is common for the barrister to receive the brief from the instructing solicitor to represent a client at trial only a day or two before the proceeding. Part of the reason for this is cost. A barrister is entitled to a'brief fee' when a brief is delivered, this represents the bulk of her/his fee in relation to any trial, they are usually entitled to a'refresher' for each day of the trial after the first. But if a case is settled before the trial, the barrister is not needed and the brief fee would be wast
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom, described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. The party's platform emphasises greater state intervention, social justice and strengthening workers' rights; the Labour Party was founded in 1900, having grown out of the trade union movement and socialist parties of the nineteenth century. It overtook the Liberal Party to become the main opposition to the Conservative Party in the early 1920s, forming two minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in the 1920s and early 1930s. Labour served in the wartime coalition of 1940-1945, after which Clement Attlee's Labour government established the National Health Service and expanded the welfare state from 1945 to 1951. Under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, Labour again governed from 1964 to 1970 and 1974 to 1979. In the 1990s Tony Blair took Labour closer to the centre as part of his "New Labour" project, which governed the UK under Blair and Gordon Brown from 1997 to 2010.
After Corbyn took over in 2015, the party has moved leftward. Labour is the Official Opposition in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, having won the second-largest number of seats in the 2017 general election; the Labour Party is the largest party in the Welsh Assembly, forming the main party in the current Welsh government. The party is the third largest in the Scottish Parliament. Labour is a member of the Party of European Socialists and Progressive Alliance, holds observer status in the Socialist International, sits with the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament; the party includes semi-autonomous Scottish and Welsh branches and supports the Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland. As of 2017, Labour had the largest membership of any party in Western Europe; the Labour Party originated in the late 19th century, meeting the demand for a new political party to represent the interests and needs of the urban working class, a demographic which had increased in number, many of whom only gained suffrage with the passage of the Representation of the People Act 1884.
Some members of the trades union movement became interested in moving into the political field, after further extensions of the voting franchise in 1867 and 1885, the Liberal Party endorsed some trade-union sponsored candidates. The first Lib–Lab candidate to stand was George Odger in the Southwark by-election of 1870. In addition, several small socialist groups had formed around this time, with the intention of linking the movement to political policies. Among these were the Independent Labour Party, the intellectual and middle-class Fabian Society, the Marxist Social Democratic Federation and the Scottish Labour Party. At the 1895 general election, the Independent Labour Party put up 28 candidates but won only 44,325 votes. Keir Hardie, the leader of the party, believed that to obtain success in parliamentary elections, it would be necessary to join with other left-wing groups. Hardie's roots as a lay preacher contributed to an ethos in the party which led to the comment by 1950s General Secretary Morgan Phillips that "Socialism in Britain owed more to Methodism than Marx".
In 1899, a Doncaster member of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, Thomas R. Steels, proposed in his union branch that the Trade Union Congress call a special conference to bring together all left-wing organisations and form them into a single body that would sponsor Parliamentary candidates; the motion was passed at all stages by the TUC, the proposed conference was held at the Memorial Hall on Farringdon Street on 26 and 27 February 1900. The meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations—trades unions represented about one third of the membership of the TUC delegates. After a debate, the 129 delegates passed Hardie's motion to establish "a distinct Labour group in Parliament, who shall have their own whips, agree upon their policy, which must embrace a readiness to cooperate with any party which for the time being may be engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interests of labour." This created an association called the Labour Representation Committee, meant to co-ordinate attempts to support MPs sponsored by trade unions and represent the working-class population.
It had no single leader, in the absence of one, the Independent Labour Party nominee Ramsay MacDonald was elected as Secretary. He had the difficult task of keeping the various strands of opinions in the LRC united; the October 1900 "Khaki election" came too soon for the new party to campaign effectively. Only 15 candidatures were sponsored. Support for the LRC was boosted by the 1901 Taff Vale Case, a dispute between strikers and a railway company that ended with the union being ordered to pay £23,000 damages for a strike; the judgement made strikes illegal since employers could recoup the cost of lost business from the unions. The apparent acquiescence of the Conservative Government of Arthur Balfour to industrial and business interests intensified support for the LRC against a government that appeared to have little concern for the industrial proletariat and its problems. In the 1906 election, the LRC won 29 seats—helped by a secret 1903 pact between Ramsay MacDonald and Liberal Chief Whip Herbert Gladstone that aimed to avoid splitting the opposition vote between Labour and Liberal candidates in the interest of removing the Conservatives from office.
In their first meeting after the election the group's Members of Parliament decided to adop
London Borough of Southwark
The London Borough of Southwark in South London, England forms part of Inner London and is connected by bridges across the River Thames to the City of London. It was created in 1965 when three smaller council areas amalgamated under the London Government Act 1963. All districts of the area are within the London postal district, it is governed by Southwark London Borough Council. The part of the South Bank within the borough is home to London Bridge terminus station and the attractions of The Shard, Tate Modern, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Borough Market that are the largest of the venues in Southwark to draw domestic and international tourism. Dulwich is home to the Dulwich Picture Gallery and the Imperial War Museum is in Elephant and Castle; the area was first settled in the Roman period but the name Southwark dates from the 9th century. The London Borough of Southwark was formed in 1965 from the former area of the Metropolitan Borough of Southwark, the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell, the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey.
The borough borders the City of London and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets to the north, the London Borough of Lambeth to the west and the London Borough of Lewisham to the east. To the south are the London Borough of Bromley and the London Borough of Croydon. At the 2001 census Southwark had a population of 244,866. Southwark is ethnically 16 % black African and 8 % black Caribbean. 31% of householders are owner–occupiers. The area is the home of many Nigerian, South African and French immigrants. Tower Bridge, the Millennium Bridge, Blackfriars Bridge, Southwark Bridge and London Bridge all connect the City of London to the borough; the skyscraper Shard London Bridge is the tallest building in the EU. The Tate Modern art gallery, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, the Imperial War Museum and Borough Market are within the borough. At one mile wide, Burgess Park is Southwark's largest green space. Southwark has many notable places of Christian worship, Roman Catholic and independent non-conformist.
These include Charles Spurgeon's Metropolitan Tabernacle, Southwark Cathedral, St George's Cathedral, St Mary's Cathedral. London's Norwegian Church and Finnish Church and the Swedish Seamen's Church are all in Rotherhithe. St George the Martyr is the oldest church in Greater London dedicated to England's Patron Saint, the redundant St Thomas Church is now the Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret; the other redundant church is Francis Bedford's in Trinity Church Square, now a recording studio, Henry Wood Hall. Whilst Christianity is the dominant religion of the borough, several religious minorities are active, places of worship for Sikhs, Muslims and Jews may be found. According to the 2001 Census 28% of Southwark identified as non-religious, or chose not to state their faith. Southwark has many literary associations. Charles Dickens set several of his novels in the old borough; the site of The Tabard inn, the White Hart inn and the George Inn which survives. The rebuilt Globe Theatre and its exhibition on the Bankside remind us of the area's being the birthplace of classical theatre.
There is the remains of the Rose Theatre. In 2007 the Unicorn Theatre for Children was opened on Tooley Street with both the Southwark Playhouse and the Union Theatre having premises in Bermondsey Street; the Menier Chocolate Factory combines a theatre and exhibition space, whilst in October 2017 the Bridge Theatre will open near Tower Bridge. The borough is the location of international-standard galleries; the Bankside Gallery is the headquarters of the Royal Watercolour Society and the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers. Specialist and local collections are represented at the London Fire Brigade Museum, the Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret, The Clink, the Cuming Museum and the London Bridge Experience and London Tombs under London Bridge; the Golden Hinde replica is at St Mary Overie Dock and nearby are the remains of the medieval Winchester Palace, a scheduled ancient monument. Peckham Library, designed by Will Alsop won the Stirling Prize for modern architecture. Another architecturally innovative library designed by Piers Gough opened in Canada Water in 2011.
The Livesey Museum for Children was a free children's museum housed in the former Camberwell Public Library No.1, given to the people of Southwark by the great industrialist Sir George Livesey of the Metropolitan Gas Works in 1890. The museum was closed by Southwark council in 2008. MOCA, London, as curated by the artist Michael Petry, is a free museum located in Peckham Rye dedicated to exposing and showcasing new cutting-edge artists and their work; the northern end of the borough opposite the Square Mile includes the More London and London Bridge City developments accommodating the offices of major professional service firms. Notable such businesses include PricewaterhouseCoopers, Norton Rose, Ernst & Young, Lawrence Graham and Actis; the Greater London Authority is based at City Hall. The press and publishing industry is well represented in Southwark. Campus Living Villages UK has its head office in the borough; some of the old industrial and wharfside heritage remains at the now
The London Gazette
The London Gazette is one of the official journals of record of the British government, the most important among such official journals in the United Kingdom, in which certain statutory notices are required to be published. The London Gazette claims to be the oldest surviving English newspaper and the oldest continuously published newspaper in the UK, having been first published on 7 November 1665 as The Oxford Gazette; this claim is made by the Stamford Mercury and Berrow's Worcester Journal, because The Gazette is not a conventional newspaper offering general news coverage. It does not have a large circulation. Other official newspapers of the UK government are The Edinburgh Gazette and The Belfast Gazette, apart from reproducing certain materials of nationwide interest published in The London Gazette contain publications specific to Scotland and Northern Ireland, respectively. In turn, The London Gazette carries not only notices of UK-wide interest, but those relating to entities or people in England and Wales.
However, certain notices that are only of specific interest to Scotland or Northern Ireland are required to be published in The London Gazette. The London and Belfast Gazettes are published by TSO on behalf of Her Majesty's Stationery Office, they are subject to Crown copyright. The London Gazette is published each weekday, except for bank holidays. Notices for the following, among others, are published: Granting of royal assent to bills of the Parliament of the United Kingdom or of the Scottish Parliament The issuance of writs of election when a vacancy occurs in the House of Commons Appointments to certain public offices Commissions in the Armed Forces and subsequent promotion of officers Corporate and personal insolvency Granting of awards of honours and military medals Changes of names or of coats of arms Royal Proclamations and other DeclarationsHer Majesty's Stationery Office has digitised all issues of the Gazette, these are available online; the official Gazettes are published by The Stationery Office.
The content, apart from insolvency notices, is available in a number of machine-readable formats, including XML and XML/RDFa via Atom feed. The London Gazette was first published as The Oxford Gazette on 7 November 1665. Charles II and the Royal Court had moved to Oxford to escape the Great Plague of London, courtiers were unwilling to touch London newspapers for fear of contagion; the Gazette was "Published by Authority" by Henry Muddiman, its first publication is noted by Samuel Pepys in his diary. The King returned to London as the plague dissipated, the Gazette moved too, with the first issue of The London Gazette being published on 5 February 1666; the Gazette was not a newspaper in the modern sense: it was sent by post to subscribers, not printed for sale to the general public. Her Majesty's Stationery Office took over the publication of the Gazette in 1889. Publication of the Gazette was transferred to the private sector, under government supervision, in the 1990s, when HMSO was sold and renamed The Stationery Office.
In time of war, despatches from the various conflicts are published in The London Gazette. People referred to are said to have been mentioned in despatches; when members of the armed forces are promoted, these promotions are published here, the person is said to have been "gazetted". Being "gazetted" sometimes meant having official notice of one's bankruptcy published, as in the classic ten-line poem comparing the stolid tenant farmer of 1722 to the lavishly spending faux-genteel farmers of 1822: Notices of engagement and marriage were formerly published in the Gazette. Gazettes, modelled on The London Gazette, were issued for most British colonial possessions. History of British newspapers Iris Oifigiúil The Dublin Gazette – in Ireland London Gazette index Official Journal of the European Union List of government gazettes London and Belfast Gazettes official site Great Fire of London 1666 – Facsimile and transcript of London Gazette report
Roy Jenkins
Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead, was a British Labour Party, SDP and Liberal Democrat politician, biographer of British political leaders. The son of a Welsh coal-miner and trade unionist, Roy Jenkins was educated at the University of Oxford and served as an intelligence officer in the Second World War. Elected to Parliament as a Labour MP in 1948, he went on to serve in two major posts in Harold Wilson's first government; as Home Secretary from 1965 to 1967, he sought to build what he described as "a civilised society", with measures such as the effective abolition in Britain of both capital punishment and theatre censorship, the decriminalisation of homosexuality, relaxing of divorce law, suspension of birching and the liberalisation of abortion law. As Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1967 and 1970, he pursued a tight fiscal policy, he was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party on 8 July 1970, but resigned in 1972 because he supported entry to the European Communities, while the party opposed it.
When Wilson re-entered government in 1974, Jenkins returned to the Home Office. However disenchanted by the leftward swing of the Labour Party, he chose to leave British politics in 1976, he was the first British holder of this office, is to be the only such. He returned to British politics in 1981. In 1982, Jenkins returned to parliament. However, after disappointment with the performance of the SDP, he resigned as its leader. In 1987, he was elected to succeed Harold Macmillan as Chancellor of the University of Oxford following the latter's death. A few months after becoming Chancellor, he was defeated in his Hillhead constituency by the Labour candidate, George Galloway. Jenkins sat as a Liberal Democrat. In the late 1990s, he was an adviser to Tony Blair and chaired the Jenkins Commission on electoral reform. Jenkins died in 2003, aged 82. In addition to his political career, he was a noted historian and writer, his A Life at the Centre is regarded as one of the best autobiographies of the 20th century, which "will be read with pleasure long after most examples of the genre have been forgotten".
Born in Abersychan, Monmouthshire, in south-eastern Wales, as an only child, Roy Jenkins was the son of a National Union of Mineworkers official, Arthur Jenkins. His father was imprisoned during the 1926 General Strike for his alleged involvement in disturbances. Arthur Jenkins became President of the South Wales Miners' Federation and Member of Parliament for Pontypool, Parliamentary Private Secretary to Clement Attlee, a minister in the 1945 Labour government. Roy Jenkins' mother, Hattie Harris, was the daughter of a steelworks manager. Jenkins was educated at Pentwyn Primary School, Abersychan County Grammar School, University College, at Balliol College, where he was twice defeated for the Presidency of the Oxford Union but took First-Class Honours in Politics and Economics, his university colleagues included Tony Crosland, Denis Healey and Edward Heath, he became friends with all three, although he was never close to Healey. In John Campbell's book A Well-Rounded Life a romantic relationship between Jenkins and Crosland was detailed.
During the Second World War, Jenkins served with the Royal Artillery and as a Bletchley Park codebreaker, reaching the rank of captain. Having failed to win Solihull in 1945, he was elected to the House of Commons in a 1948 by-election as the Member of Parliament for Southwark Central, becoming the "Baby of the House", his constituency was abolished in boundary changes for the 1950 general election, when he stood instead in the new Birmingham Stechford constituency. He won the seat, represented the constituency until 1977. Jenkins was principal sponsor, in 1959, of the bill which became the liberalising Obscene Publications Act, responsible for establishing the "liable to deprave and corrupt" criterion as a basis for a prosecution of suspect material and for specifying literary merit as a possible defence. Like Healey and Crosland, he had been a close friend of Hugh Gaitskell and for them Gaitskell's death and the elevation of Harold Wilson as Labour Party leader was a setback. After the 1964 general election Jenkins was appointed Minister of Aviation and was sworn of the Privy Council.
While at Aviation he oversaw the high-profile cancellations of the BAC TSR-2 and Concorde projects. In January 1965 Patrick Gordon Walker resigned as Foreign Secretary and in the ensuing reshuffle Wilson offered Jenkins the Department for Education and Science, he declined it. In the summer of 1965 Jenkins eagerly accepted an offer to replace Frank Soskice as Home Secretary; however Wilson, dismayed by a sudden bout of press speculation about the potential move, delayed Jenkins' appointment until December. Once Jenkins took office – the youngest Home Secretary since Churchill – he set about reforming the operation and organisation of the Home Office; the Principal Private Secretary, Head of the Press and Publicity Department
Secretary of State for Justice
Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Justice is a senior position in the cabinet of the United Kingdom, held in conjunction with the office of Lord Chancellor since it was created in 2007, replacing the former post of Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs. On 9 May 2007, the Department for Constitutional Affairs was abolished, a Ministry of Justice was created in its place; the Ministry of Justice is responsible for certain functions transferred from the Home Office. The Lord Chancellor, Charlie Falconer, was appointed to the post of Secretary of State for Justice on the abolition of his position as Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs; the Home Secretary, John Reid, told Parliament that future Secretaries of State for Justice would be MPs rather than peers. Jack Straw took over this department on 28 June 2007, following the selection of Gordon Brown as leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister and left office on the resignation of Gordon Brown after the General Election of 11 May 2010.
He was replaced by Conservative MP Ken Clarke. In the Cabinet reshuffle of August 2012 Chris Grayling was promoted to Lord Chancellor, and, by convention, Secretary of State for Justice, he was the first Lord Chancellor to have expertise. After the 2015 UK General election, the position was given to former Government Chief Whip Michael Gove. Michael Gove was replaced after Theresa May became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on 14 July 2016 and succeeded by Liz Truss. Following the 2017 General Election which resulted in a minority Conservative government, David Lidington was appointed Secretary of State for Justice, who in turn was succeeded by David Gauke on 8 January 2018. For Lord Chancellors before 2003, see List of Lord Chancellors and Lord Keepers For Secretaries between 2003 and 2007, see Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs Constitutional Reform Act 2005 Lord Chancellor The Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs Order 2003 from HMSO The Ministry of Justice official website
