1.
Order of the Companions of Honour
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The Order of the Companions of Honour is an order of the Commonwealth realms. Founded on the date as the Order of the British Empire. The order consists of the Sovereign plus no more than 65 members, additionally, foreigners from outside the realms may be added as honorary members. Membership confers no title or precedence, but those inducted into the order are entitled to use the post-nominal letters CH. Appointments can be made on the advice of Commonwealth realm prime ministers, for Canadians, the advice to the Sovereign can come from a variety of officials. The quota numbers were altered in 1970 to 47 for the United Kingdom,7 for Australia,2 for New Zealand, the quota was adjusted again in 1975 by adding 2 places to the New Zealand quota and reducing the 9 for the other countries to 7. While able to nominate candidates to the Order, New Zealand, as of 2016 those countries have nominated only politicians who have served as Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister. Men wear the badge on a ribbon and women on a bow at the left shoulder. Sovereign Queen Elizabeth II List of Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour List of honorary British Knights List of people who have declined a British honour
2.
Queen's Counsel
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A Queens Counsel, or Kings Counsel during the reign of a king, is an eminent lawyer who is appointed by the Queen to be one of Her Majestys Counsel learned in the law. The term is recognised as an honorific. Queens Counsel is a status, conferred by the Crown, that is recognised by courts, members have the privilege of sitting within the Bar of court. As members wear silk gowns of a design, the award of Queens Counsel is known informally as taking silk. Appointments are made from within the profession on the basis of merit rather than a particular level of experience. However, successful applicants tend to be barristers, or advocates with 15 years of experience or more, the Attorney-General, Solicitor-General, and Kings Serjeants were Kings Counsel in Ordinary in the Kingdom of England. The first Queens Counsel Extraordinary was Sir Francis Bacon, who was given a patent giving him precedence at the Bar in 1597, the new rank of Kings Counsel contributed to the gradual obsolescence of the formerly more senior serjeant-at-law by superseding it. The Attorney-General and Solicitor-General had similarly succeeded the Kings Serjeants as leaders of the Bar in Tudor times, but the Kings Counsel emerged into eminence only in the early 1830s, prior to when they were relatively few in number. It became the means to recognise a barrister as a senior member of the profession. It became of greater importance to become a KC. The KCs inherited the prestige of the serjeants and their priority before the courts, the earliest English law list, published in 1775, lists 165 members of the Bar, of whom 14 were Kings Counsel, a proportion of about 8. 5%. As of 2010 roughly the same proportion existed, though the number of barristers had increased to about 12,250 in independent practice, in 1839 the number of Queens Counsel was seventy. In 1882, the number of Queens Counsel was 187, the list of Queens Counsel in the Law List of 1897 gave the names of 238, of whom hardly one-third appeared to be in actual practice. In 1959, the number of practising Queens Counsel was 181, in each of the five years up to 1970, the number of practising Queens Counsel was 208,209,221,236 and 262, respectively. In each of the years 1973 to 1978, the number of practising Queens Counsel was 329,345,370,372,384 and 404, in 1989, the number of practising Queens Counsel was 601. In each of the years 1991 to 2000, the number of practising Queens Counsel was 736,760,797,845,891,925,974,1006,1043, the title traditionally depends on the sex of the sovereign. The current Queen, Elizabeth II has had a long reign and it can be assumed that, should the Queen die and the title pass to a descendant, the title will again become KC, as the next three in line to the throne are male heirs. Queens Counsel and serjeants were prohibited, at least from the century, from drafting pleadings alone
3.
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
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The House of Commons of the United Kingdom is the lower house of the countrys parliament. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster, officially, the full name of the house is, The Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. The House is a body consisting of 650 members known as Members of Parliament. Members are elected to represent constituencies by first-past-the-post and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved, under the Parliament Act 1911, the Lords power to reject legislation was reduced to a delaying power. The Government is primarily responsible to the House of Commons and the prime minister stays in office only as long as he or she retains the support of a majority of its members. Although it does not formally elect the prime minister, the position of the parties in the House of Commons is of overriding importance, by convention, the prime minister is answerable to, and must maintain the support of, the House of Commons. Since 1963, by convention, the minister is always a member of the House of Commons. The Commons may indicate its lack of support for the Government by rejecting a motion of confidence or by passing a motion of no confidence, confidence and no confidence motions are sometimes phrased explicitly, for instance, That this House has no confidence in Her Majestys Government. Many other motions were considered confidence issues, even though not explicitly phrased as such, in particular, important bills that form a part of the Governments agenda were formerly considered matters of confidence, as is the annual Budget. Parliament normally sits for a term of five years. Subject to that limit, the minister could formerly choose the timing of the dissolution of parliament. By this second mechanism, the government of the United Kingdom can change without a general election. In such circumstances there may not even have been a party leadership election, as the new leader may be chosen by acclaim. A prime minister may resign if he or she is not defeated at the polls. In such a case, the premiership goes to whoever can command a majority in the House of Commons, in practice this is usually the new leader of the outgoing prime ministers party. Until 1965, the Conservative Party had no mechanism for electing a new leader, when Anthony Eden resigned as PM in 1957 without recommending a successor and it fell to the Queen to appoint Harold Macmillan as the new prime minister, after taking the advice of ministers. By convention, all ministers must be members of the House of Commons or of the House of Lords, a handful have been appointed who were outside Parliament, but in most cases they then entered Parliament either in a by-election or by receiving a peerage. Since 1902, all ministers have been members of the Commons
4.
Father of the House
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Father of the House is a term that has by tradition been unofficially bestowed on certain members of some legislatures, most notably the House of Commons in the United Kingdom. In some legislatures the term refers to the oldest member, the term Mother of the House or Mother of Parliament is also found, although the usage varies between countries. It is used simply as the alternative to Father of the House. The Father of the House is a title that is by tradition bestowed on the member of the House of Commons who has the longest unbroken service. If two or more members have the length of current uninterrupted service, then whoever was sworn in earliest. In the House of Commons, the only conventional leadership required of the Father of the House is to preside over the election of a new Speaker whenever that office becomes vacant. The relevant Standing Order does not refer to this member by the title of Father of the House, the current Father of the House of Commons is Kenneth Clarke, Conservative MP for Rushcliffe, who began his continuous service at the 1970 general election. Dennis Skinner, Labour MP for Bolsover, also began service at the 1970 general election. Should Clarkes service conclude before Skinners, Skinner would be next in line to serve as Father of the House, however Skinner has stated he would refuse. Michael Foot was the remaining member from the 1945 election between 1987 and 1992, but was never Father of the House because he had been out of Parliament between 1955 and a 1960 by-election. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was simultaneously Father of the House and Prime Minister from May 1907 until shortly before his death in April 1908. The current Father of the House of Lords is Lord Carrington, after the House of Lords Act 1999 removed the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords, Carrington was given a life peerage to enable him to continue to sit. Should Carrington cease to be a Member of the House of Lords, Lord Denham who sat first on 13 December 1949 and he is a hereditary peer who was elected to remain in the House under the provisions of the 1999 Act. The senior sitting life peer by date of creation is Baroness Masham of Ilton, the Parliament of Northern Ireland, including the House of Commons of Northern Ireland, was prorogued in 1972 and abolished completely in 1973 leaving the title of Father of the House defunct. In Australia, the current member of the House of Representatives with the longest period of continuous service, similarly, the current member of the Senate with the longest period of continuous service is known as Father of the Senate. The longer serving of the two Fathers is called Father of the Parliament, as in Britain, these terms have no official status. Where two or more members have equal length of service, more than any other members. Some state parliaments, however, follow the British convention of giving precedence by order of swearing into office, the Father of the House and the Father of the Senate in Australia have no parliamentary role at all
5.
Gerald Kaufman
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Sir Gerald Bernard Kaufman was a British Labour politician who served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until his death in 2017, first for Manchester Ardwick and then for Manchester Gorton. He was a government minister in the 1970s and a member of the Shadow Cabinet in the 1980s, knighted in 2004, he became Father of the House in 2015 and was the oldest sitting MP of the UK Parliament at the time of his death. He was known for his forthright views, Kaufman was a critic of the state of Israel. He voted against the Labour Party whip on several occasions, Kaufman was born in Leeds, the youngest of seven children of Louis and Jane Kaufman. His parents were both Polish Jews who moved to England before World War I and he was educated at Leeds Grammar School, and graduated with a degree in philosophy, politics and economics from the University of Oxford. During his time there, he was Secretary of the University Labour Club and he was assistant general secretary of the Fabian Society, a leader writer on the Daily Mirror and a journalist on the New Statesman. He was Parliamentary Press Liaison Officer for the Labour Party and eventually became a member of Prime Minister Harold Wilsons informal kitchen cabinet, in the 1955 general election Kaufman had unsuccessfully contested the Conservative seat of Bromley, and in the 1959 general election, Gillingham. He appeared as a guest on its successor, Not So Much a Programme and he remained MP for Gorton until his death. He was a junior minister throughout Labours time in power from 1974 to 1979, first in the Department for the Environment under Anthony Crosland and he was made a member of the Privy Council in 1978. After his re-election to the Commons in 2015, just before his 85th birthday, in opposition, Kaufman was the Shadow Environment Secretary, Shadow Home Secretary and Shadow Foreign Secretary. He dubbed the Labour Partys left-wing 1983 election manifesto the longest suicide note in history, in 1992 he went to the back benches and became Chair of what was then the National Heritage Select Committee. In 1997, Kaufman criticised the then Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House Mary Allen over alleged financial misconduct, which ultimately contributed to her tendering her resignation. He voted with the government on the 2003 invasion of Iraq saying in Parliament Even though all our hearts are heavy and he was knighted for services to Parliament in the 2004 Queens Birthday Honours. Kaufman was implicated in the 2009 expenses scandal, where a number of British MPs made excessive expense claims, misusing their permitted allowances, Kaufman was found to have submitted expense claims that included £8,865 for a 40-inch LCD television and £225 for a rollerball pen. Between 2005 and 2007, Kaufman claimed £28,834 for home improvements and he was subsequently summoned to the Parliamentary Fees Office to explain these claims, and in the end was paid £15,329. Kaufman wrote many books and articles, some are political, How to be a Minister is an irreverent look at the difficulties faced by ministers trying to control the civil service. Some are cultural, Meet Me in St Louis is a study of the 1944 Judy Garland film and he contributed a chapter about John Hodge, the Labour MP for Manchester Gorton elected in 1906, to Men Who Made Labour, edited by Alan Haworth and Diane Hayter. Kaufman was an opponent of hunting with hounds
6.
Minister without portfolio
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A minister without portfolio is either a government minister with no specific responsibilities or a minister who does not head a particular ministry. Stanley Bruce was given the title of Minister without Portfolio when he took up his position in 1932 as the Commonwealth Minister in London and he was given the title by Lyons Cabinet so that he could better represent the PM and his colleagues free from the limitations of a portfolio. In this case the title was a promotion and carried considerable responsibilities, bangladesh appoints ministers without portfolio during cabinet reshuffles or fresh appointments. Ministers are not usually appointed without portfolio as a coalition negotiation – all long run ministers end up with a portfolio, suranjit Sengupta was a minister without portfolio in Sheikh Hasinas second government. Notable Conservatives who filled the role include R. B, bennett, and Arthur Meighen, however, Meighen served this role after he had been prime minister. The practice has continued under the guise of ministers of state without responsibilities in the ministers titles, three control ministers served as ministers without portfolio during World War I. After the Liberation of Denmark in May 1945, the first Danish cabinet included four ministers without portfolio, kauffmann served in this capacity from 12 May to 7 November 1945. The three other holders of this title had joined the cabinet a few days before – Aksel Larsen, lise Østergaard held a position as minister without portfolio with special attention to foreign policy issues in Anker Jørgensens cabinet from 26 February 1977 to 28 February 1980. Anders Fogh Rasmussen appointed Bertel Haarder to Minister without Portfolio, Haarder served in this capacity from 27 November 2001 to 18 February 2005. The reason for appointing a minister without a ministry was the Danish European Union Presidency of 2002, Haarder was considered the most experienced Danish politician on European affairs. Tamás Fellegi Kunwar Natwar Singh Since the inception of the state, Indonesia had ministers without portfolio, the number was not fixed, entirely depended on the behest of the President. Below is the list of Ministers without Portfolio in each Cabinet, Mohammad Amir Abdul Wahid Hasyim Sartono Alexander Andries Maramis Mohammad Amir Oto Iskandar di Nata Rasjidi Wikana Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwana IX Abdul Wahid Hasyim Wikana Dr. Such a minister may nevertheless be given a specific title, the only substantive minister without portfolio has been Frank Aiken, the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures during World War II. By the Emergency Powers Act 1939 then in force, the Minister for Defence was able to delegate some competences to him, such delegation is now done instead with Ministers of State, junior ministers who are not members of the government. Junior ministers can be given a right to sit at cabinet and this allows the Government to circumvent the Constitutional limit on the number of Senior Ministers. On several occasions a minister has been appointed to a government with the title of a new Department of State. Between the date of appointment and the date of creation of the department, examples include, It is common practice in Israel to appoint ministers without portfolio as part of the coalition negotiations. All cabinets in recent years have had at least some such appointment, departments on equalities, European affairs and relations with regions, for example, are usually led by ministers without portfolio
7.
David Cameron
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David William Donald Cameron is a British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. He served as the Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016 and was Member of Parliament for Witney from 2001 to 2016, Cameron identifies as a One-Nation Conservative, and has been associated with both economically liberal and socially liberal policies. Born in London to wealthy upper middle-class parents, Cameron was educated at Heatherdown School, Eton College, from 1988 to 1993 he worked at the Conservative Research Department, assisting the Conservative Prime Minister John Major, before leaving politics to work for Carlton Communications in 1994. Becoming an MP in 2001, he served in the shadow cabinet under Conservative leader Michael Howard. Cameron sought to rebrand the Conservatives, embracing an increasingly liberal position. The 2010 general election led to Cameron becoming Prime Minister as the head of a government with the Liberal Democrats. His administration introduced large-scale changes to welfare, immigration policy, education and it privatised the Royal Mail and some other state assets, and legalised same-sex marriage. When the Conservatives secured a majority in the 2015 general election he remained as Prime Minister. To fulfil a manifesto pledge, he introduced a referendum on the UKs continuing membership of the EU, Cameron supported continued membership, following the success of the Leave vote, he resigned to make way for a new Prime Minister and was succeeded by Theresa May. Cameron has been praised for modernising the Conservative Party and for decreasing the United Kingdoms national deficit, conversely, he has been criticised by figures on both the left and right, and has been accused of political opportunism and elitism. Cameron is the son of Ian Donald Cameron a stockbroker, and his wife Mary Fleur, a retired Justice of the Peace. Camerons parents were married on 20 October 1962, the journalist Toby Young has described Camerons background as being upper-upper-middle class. Cameron was born in Marylebone, London, and raised in Peasemore, Berkshire and he has a brother, Alexander Cameron, QC, a barrister, and two sisters, Tania Rachel and Clare Louise. Blairmore was built by Camerons great-great-grandfather, Alexander Geddes, who had made a fortune in the trade in Chicago, Illinois. Blairmore was sold soon after Ians birth, Cameron has said, On my mothers side of the family, her mother was a Llewellyn, so Welsh. Im a real mixture of Scottish, Welsh, and English and he has also referenced the German Jewish ancestry of one of his great-grandfathers, Arthur Levita, a descendant of the Yiddish author Elia Levita. From the age of seven, Cameron was educated at two independent schools, at Heatherdown School in Winkfield in Berkshire, which counts Prince Andrew, owing to good grades, Cameron entered its top academic class almost two years early. At the age of thirteen, he went on to Eton College in Berkshire and his early interest was in art
8.
Sayeeda Warsi, Baroness Warsi
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Sayeeda Hussain Warsi, Baroness Warsi, PC is a British lawyer, politician and member of the House of Lords. From 2010 to 2012, she was co-Chair of the Conservative Party, Warsi grew up in a family of Pakistani immigrants living in West Yorkshire. She studied as a solicitor at University of Leeds and the Crown Prosecution Service, in 2004, she gave up her job as a solicitor to stand, unsuccessfully, for election to Parliament. After being raised to the peerage in 2007, Warsi served as Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion, the first female Muslim to attend Cabinet, Lady Warsi came to further prominence when, at her first meeting in Downing Street, she wore a traditional South Asian shalwar kameez. Warsi was the second of five daughters born at Dewsbury, West Riding of Yorkshire, in 1971, to Pakistani immigrants from Bewal, Gujar Khan, her ancestors are from southern Pakistan. Her father, Safdar Hussain, is owner of a bed manufacturing company, with a turnover of £2 million a year, who started life as a mill worker, Warsi has said that her fathers success led her to adopting Conservative principles. Warsi was educated at Birkdale High School, Dewsbury College, and the University of Leeds and she attended the College of Law, York, and completed her legal practice training thereafter with both the Crown Prosecution Service and the Home Office Immigration Department. After qualifying as a solicitor, she worked for the last Conservative MP for Dewsbury, John Whitfield, at Whitfield Hallam Goodall Solicitors, during the election campaign she was criticised for election literature which was described as homophobic by the gay equality group Stonewall. On 2 July 2007, Warsi was appointed Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion, on joining the House of Lords, she became its youngest member. On 1 December 2007, Warsi travelled to Khartoum, with the Labour peer Lord Ahmed, the Guardian newspaper referred to the incident as Tory Peers Triumph. On 12 May 2010, David Cameron appointed Warsi as Minister without Portfolio in Cabinet and this appointment made Warsi the first Muslim woman to serve in the Cabinet. Warsi was sworn of the Privy Council on 13 May 2010, ahead of David Camerons first Cabinet reshuffle, Warsi told The Daily Telegraph, If I genuinely had a choice, I would like to stay doing what Im doing. Speaking in Tampa Bay, Florida, where she had been attending the Republican Party convention, Warsi said the Prime Minister knew her strengths and she said the Party needed more votes from people in urban areas and more women. We need more people from urban areas voting for us, more people who are not white and more women. I play that back and think, Im a woman, Im not white, Im from an area, Im from the North. All the groups that were aiming for are groups that Im familiar with, I believe youve got to have the right people in the right job, she added. In the same interview, she said that she was angry some viewed hers as a tokenistic appointment, Lord Ashcroft found at the 2010 election, only 16% of ethnic minority voters supported the Conservatives. More than two thirds voted Labour, not being white was the single best predictor that somebody would not vote Conservative
9.
Robert Halfon
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Robert Henry Halfon is a British Conservative Party politician who has served as Minister of State for Education since 2016, and as the Member of Parliament for Harlow since 2010. He was re-elected with a majority of 8,350 in 2015. On 11 May 2015, David Cameron appointed Halfon Minister without Portfolio and Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party, Halfon was sworn of the Privy Council on 14 May 2015. On 17 July 2016 the new Prime Minister Theresa May appointed him Minister of State at the Department for Education, Halfon was born to a British Jewish family living in Hampstead, London. His grandfather was an Italian Jew, living in Libya until forced to leave in 1968, Halfon was born with a moderate version of spastic diplegia, a form of cerebral palsy, and underwent several major operations as a child, causing osteoarthritis in his early thirties. He was educated at Highgate School, an independent school in London and he attended the University of Exeter, where he read for a Bachelor of Arts degree in politics before a Master of Arts in Russian and East European politics. Along with David Burrowes, Sajid Javid and Tim Montgomerie, he took over Exeter Universitys Conservative Association, at Exeter he took the issue of compulsory membership of the National Union of Students to the European Human Rights Court, which decided his application was manifestly ill-founded. Halfon worked as chief of staff for the Conservative MP Oliver Letwin before becoming political director for Conservative Friends of Israel and he contested the Harlow seat in the 2001 and 2005 general elections, losing by just 97 votes on the second occasion. His third run for Harlow was successful and after the 2010 general election and he delivered his maiden speech in the House on 2 June 2010. He has been a member of the Public Administration Select Committee since 2010, on 19 July 2010 he hosted the launch of the Friends of Israel Initiative at the House of Commons. On 18 July 2014 he was chosen by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announcing the appointment, Osborne described Halfon as a brilliant campaigner. Halfon is a member of the Prospect trade union and a campaigner for Conservative supporters to more involved in trade unions. He is a supporter of the FairFuelUK pressure group and has raised the issue of cheaper petrol in Parliament and he also presented a petition calling for an inquiry into price-fixing at the Office of Fair Trading signed by 30,000 motorists in 2013. This led to Chancellor George Osborne calling him a champion of the people he represents and he won The Spectators Campaigner of the Year Award in 2013 for his work fighting to keep petrol duty low. Halfon is a supporter of apprenticeships, and campaigned for a new university college to be built in Harlow. He set up the Parliamentary Academy, which encourages MPs to employ apprentices in Parliament and he had the first MPs apprentice in the House of Commons, and as of 2013 was on his third apprentice, who came from Harlow College. For his work on apprenticeships, Robert Halfon was also named Avantas Politician of the Year in 2013, Halfon has worked against utility companies making big profits. In 2013 he published a study of companies in the Eastern region examining their profits
10.
Secretary of State for Justice
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On 9 May 2007, the Department for Constitutional Affairs was abolished, and a Ministry of Justice was created in its place. The Ministry of Justice is also responsible for certain functions transferred from the Home Office, the then 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 and he was replaced by Conservative MP Ken Clarke. In the Cabinet reshuffle of August 2012 Chris Grayling MP was promoted to Lord Chancellor and, by convention, after the 2015 UK General election, the position was given to former Government Chief Whip Michael Gove MP. Michael Gove was sacked after Theresa May became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on 14 July 2016 and succeeded by Liz Truss
11.
Lord Chancellor
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The Lord Chancellor, formally the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is a senior functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. They are appointed by the Sovereign on the advice of the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking after only the Lord High Steward. Prior to the Union there were separate Lords Chancellor for England and Wales, the Lord Chancellor is a member of the Cabinet and, by law, is responsible for the efficient functioning and independence of the courts. In 2007 there were a number of changes to the legal system, the current Lord Chancellor is Elizabeth Truss, who is also Secretary of State for Justice. One of the Lord Chancellors responsibilities is to act as the custodian of the Great Seal of the Realm, a Lord Keeper of the Great Seal may be appointed instead of a Lord Chancellor. The two offices entail exactly the same duties, the distinction is in the mode of appointment. The seal is then said to be in commission, since the 19th century, however, only Lord Chancellors have been appointed, the other offices having fallen into disuse. The office of Lord Chancellor of England may trace its origins to the Carolingian monarchy, in England, the office dates at least as far back as the Norman Conquest, and possibly earlier. Some give the first Chancellor of England as Angmendus, in 605, other sources suggest that the first to appoint a Chancellor was Edward the Confessor, who is said to have adopted the practice of sealing documents instead of personally signing them. A clerk of Edwards, Regenbald, was named chancellor in some documents from Edwards reign, in any event, the office has been continuously occupied since the Norman Conquest. The chancellor headed the office or chancery. Formerly, the Lord Chancellor was almost always a churchman, as during the Middle Ages the clergy were amongst the few men of the realm. The Lord Chancellor performed multiple functions—he was the Keeper of the Great Seal, the royal chaplain. Thus, the position emerged as one of the most important ones in government and he was only outranked in government by the Justiciar. As one of the Kings ministers, the Lord Chancellor attended the curia regis or Royal Court, if a bishop, the Lord Chancellor received a writ of summons, if an ecclesiastic of a lower degree or, if a layman, he attended without any summons. The curia regis would later evolve into Parliament, the Lord Chancellor becoming the prolocutor of its upper house, as was confirmed by a statute passed during the reign of Henry VIII, a Lord Chancellor could preside over the House of Lords even if not a Lord himself. The Lord Chancellors judicial duties also evolved through his role in the curia regis, petitions for justice were normally addressed to the King and the curia, but in 1280, Edward I instructed his justices to examine and deal with petitions themselves as the Court of Kings Bench. Important petitions were to be sent to the Lord Chancellor for his decision, by the reign of Edward III, this chancellery function developed into a separate tribunal for the Lord Chancellor
12.
Jack Straw
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John Whitaker Straw is an English politician who served as the Member of Parliament for Blackburn from 1979 to 2015. Straw served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the governments of Tony Blair and he held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretary from 1997 to 2001 and Foreign Secretary from 2001 to 2006 under Blair. From 2007 to 2010 he served as Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Justice throughout Browns Premiership, Straw is one of only three individuals to have served in Cabinet continuously under the Labour government from 1997 to 2010, the others being Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling. In February 2015 Channel 4 Dispatches and The Daily Telegraph accused Straw of impropriety following a meeting set up with a fictitious Chinese company. Straw strongly denied the allegations and referred himself to Parliament’s Commissioner for Standards, in September 2015 the Commissioner for Standards dismissed all allegations that he had brought the House of Commons into disrepute and criticised Channel 4 and the Daily Telegraph’s conduct. Jack Straw was born in Buckhurst Hill in Essex, the son of Walter Arthur Whitaker Straw, an insurance salesman, after his father left the family, Straw was brought up by his mother on a council estate in Loughton. Known to his family as John, he started calling himself Jack while in school, in reference to Jack Straw, Straw is of 1/8th Jewish descent. Jack Straw was educated at Brentwood School and the University of Leeds and he graduated with a 2,2 degree in Law. He was alleged by the Foreign Office to have disrupted a student trip to Chile to build a youth centre and they branded him a troublemaker acting with malice aforethought. Led by Straw, Labour Society disaffiliated itself from the Labour Party, Straw was then elected president of the Leeds University Union. At the 1967 National Union of Students Conference, he ran for office in the NUS. In April 1968, he stood unsuccessfully for election as NUS President, however, he was elected as NUS President in 1969, holding this post until 1971. In 1971, he was elected as a Labour councillor in the London Borough of Islington, in 2007 the Union Council reinstated his life membership and place on the Presidents Board. Straw subsequently qualified as a barrister at Inns of Court School of Law and he is a member of The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple and remains active in lecturing to fellow members and students. Between 1971 and 1974, Jack Straw was a member of the Inner London Education Authority, and Deputy Leader from 1973 to 1974. He served as an adviser to Barbara Castle at the Department of Social Security from 1974 to 1976. From 1977 to 1979, Straw worked as a researcher for the Granada TV series, Straw stood unsuccessfully as the Labour parliamentary candidate for the safe Conservative Tonbridge and Malling constituency in the February 1974 election. He was later selected to stand for Labour in its safe Blackburn seat at the 1979 General Election, Straw was selected to stand for Parliament for the Lancashire constituency of Blackburn in 1977, after Barbara Castle decided not to seek re-election there
13.
Chris Grayling
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Christopher Stephen Grayling PC is a British Conservative Party politician and former author who has been the Secretary of State for Transport since July 2016. Grayling was born in London and studied History at Cambridge University and he published a number of books as well as working for the BBC and Channel 4 before going into politics. First elected to Parliament in the 2001 general election for Epsom and Ewell, from 2007 he became the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and in 2009 he was appointed Shadow Home Secretary. Following the 2010 general election and the formation of the Coalition Government, in September 2012, he was appointed to the UK Cabinet in a reshuffle, replacing Kenneth Clarke as the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice from 2012 to 2015. He was the first non-lawyer to have served as Lord Chancellor for at least 440 years and he was the Leader of the House of Commons and the Lord President of the Council between 2015 and 2016. Grayling was appointed as Transport Secretary in July 2016, when Theresa May became Prime Minister, Grayling was born in London and grew up in Buckinghamshire, where he was educated at the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe. He then went to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he graduated with an upper-second class Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1984, Grayling joined BBC News in 1985 as a trainee, becoming a producer in 1986. He left the BBC in 1988 to join Channel 4 as an editor on its Business Daily television programme and he rejoined the BBC in 1991 as a business development manager on BBC Select. He became a management consultant in 1997 with Burson Marsteller, where he remained until his election to Parliament, prior to joining the Conservative Party, Grayling was a member of the Social Democratic Party. Grayling was selected to contest the Labour-held marginal seat of Warrington South at the 1997 general election and he was elected as a councillor for the Hillside ward in the London Borough of Merton in 1998 and remained on the council until 2002. Grayling was elected to the House of Commons to represent the Surrey seat of Epsom, Grayling held the seat with a majority of 10,080 and has been returned as MP there since. He made his speech on 25 June 2001. He became a Spokesman for Education and Skills by Michael Howard in 2003, in June 2007, he was made Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, a post he held until January 2009 when he became Shadow Home Secretary. Grayling became known as a national politician through his attack dog pressure on leading Labour politicians and he was heavily involved in the questioning of David Blunkett, the then Work and Pensions Secretary, over his business affairs which led to Blunketts resignation in 2005. Grayling also challenged Tony Blair and his wife Cherie over the money made from lectures while Blair was Prime Minister. He also challenged minister Stephen Byers over his handling of the Railtrack collapse, between 2001 and 2009, Grayling claimed expenses for his flat in Pimlico, close to the Houses of Parliament, despite having a constituency home no further than 17 miles away. Grayling says he uses the flat when working very late because he needs to work very erratic, during the Parliamentary expenses scandal, The Daily Telegraph reported that Grayling refitted and redecorated the flat in 2005 costing over £5,000. Graylings expenses issue was seen as embarrassing for the Conservative Party as he had previously criticised Labour ministers for being implicated in sleaze scandals, as Shadow Home Secretary, Grayling provoked controversy in August 2009 when he compared Manchesters Moss Side area to the American TV crime drama The Wire
14.
Alan Duncan
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Sir Alan James Carter Duncan, KCMG is a British Conservative Party politician. He is the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, between 2010 and 2014 he was the Minister of State for International Development. Duncan began his career in the oil industry with Royal Dutch Shell, after several minor positions in the government of John Major, he played a key role in William Hagues successful bid for the Conservative leadership in 1997. He was removed from the Cabinet and appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael, a return to front-line politics was signalled when his appointment as a minister of state at the Foreign Office was announced on 17 July 2016. He was the first openly gay Conservative Member of Parliament, having come out in 2002. Duncan was born in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, the son of J. G. Duncan OBE, an RAF wing commander, and his wife Anne Duncan, the family travelled much, following Alans father on NATO postings, including in Gibraltar, Italy, and Norway. Duncan was educated at two independent schools, Beechwood Park School in Markyate, and Merchant Taylors School in Northwood, whilst coming from a Liberal family, and running as a Liberal at a school mock election in 1970, Duncan joined the Young Conservatives in 1972. Duncan had two brothers, who also attended Beechwood Park School, Duncan then attended St Johns College at the University of Oxford, where he coxed the college first eight, and was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1979. Whilst there, he formed a friendship with Benazir Bhutto, and he gained a Kennedy Scholarship to study at Harvard University between 1981 and 1982. After graduating from Oxford, he worked as a trader of oil and refined products, first with Royal Dutch Shell, Duncan worked for Rich in London and Singapore. From 1988 to 1992, Duncan used the connections he had built up to be self-employed, acting as a consultant and adviser to governments on oil supplies. In 1989, Duncan set up the independent Harcourt Consultants, which advises on oil and he made over a £1 million after helping fill the need to supply oil to Pakistan after Kuwaits supplies had been disrupted in the Gulf War. Duncan was an member of the Battersea Conservative Association from 1979 until 1984. After Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher resigned in November 1990, he offered his home in Westminster as the headquarters of John Majors leadership campaign, Duncan first stood for Parliament as a Conservative candidate in the 1987 general election, unsuccessfully contesting the safe Labour seat of Barnsley West and Penistone. For the 1992 general election he was selected as the Conservative candidate for Rutland and Melton, a safe Conservative seat, which he retained with a 59% share of the votes cast. In the Labour landslide of 1997, his proportion of the vote was reduced to 46% but has increased to 48% in 2001, 51% in 2005. From 1993 to 1995, Duncan was a member of the Social Security Select Committee and his first governmental position was as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Health, a position he obtained in December 1993. He resigned from the position within a month after it emerged that he had used the programme to make profits on property deals
15.
Pat McFadden (British politician)
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Patrick Bosco McFadden is a Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom, who has been the Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton South East since 2005. He was briefly Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, McFadden is the son of Annie and James McFadden, both native Irish language speakers from the Falcarragh area of northern County Donegal in Ireland. He went to Holy Cross RC Primary School on Calder Street and Holyrood Secondary School in Crosshill, in 1993 he left this role to become a speechwriter and policy adviser to the Labour leader John Smith. Prior to becoming an MP he worked in advisory roles for Tony Blair. McFadden was elected at the 2005 general election, after Dennis Turner retired, in the 2006 reshuffle he was appointed as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Exclusion at the Cabinet Office. McFadden was contemporaneously appointed to the Privy Council, following Labours defeat in the 2010 election and the resignation of Gordon Brown, McFadden was named in interim leader Harriet Harmans shadow cabinet as Shadow Business Secretary. After Ed Milibands election as Labour leader in September 2010, McFadden announced his decision to stand in Labours shadow cabinet election but was not elected, however, when he reshuffled his Shadow Cabinet in 2014, Miliband appointed him as shadow minister for Europe. He retained his post when Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader but was sacked in January 2016, the Labour leadership said that he had been sacked for disloyalty, with John McDonnell saying that McFaddens remarks on terrorism were an example of McFadden undermining the leaders view. Jonathan Reynolds and Stephen Doughty expressed support for McFadden in their resignation letters the following day and he is part of Open Britain and defended Tony Blairs pro-European speech on February 2017. McFadden and his wife, Marianna, have a son and a daughter and he is a supporter of Celtic Football Club. As a child he regularly visited Donegal, where his parents came from
16.
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
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The Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer in the British Parliamentary system is the member of the Shadow Cabinet who is responsible for shadowing the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The title is in the gift of the Leader of the Opposition but is informal, the Shadow Chancellor has no constitutional role. The name for the position has a mixed history and it is used to designate the lead economic spokesman for the Opposition, although some Shadow Cabinets have not used the term. The term has been used interchangeably with economic spokesperson by the Liberal Democrats as well as the opposition party. The current position of Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer is held by John McDonnell, lewis Baston Reggie, The Life of Reginald Maudling
17.
John Major
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Sir John Major, KG, CH, PC is a British politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. A cabinet minister from 1987, he served Margaret Thatcher in the Treasury, Major was Member of Parliament for Huntingdon from 1979 to 2001. He is currently the oldest living former Prime Minister, following the death of Thatcher on 8 April 2013, at the beginning of his premiership, Major presided over British participation in the Gulf War in March 1991 and negotiated the Maastricht Treaty in December 1991. Shortly after this, even though a supporter of the ERM. This event led to a loss of confidence in Conservative economic policies, Major went on to lose the 1997 general election months later, in one of the largest electoral defeats since the Great Reform Act of 1832. After defeat, Major resigned as Prime Minister and was succeeded as Leader of the Conservative Party by William Hague and he went on to retire from active politics, leaving the House of Commons at the 2001 general election. Major was born in 1943 at St Helier Hospital in Sutton, Surrey and he was christened John Roy Major but only John was recorded on his birth certificate. He used his name until the early 1980s. He attended primary school at Cheam Common and from 1954 he attended Rutlish School, in 1955, with his fathers garden ornaments business in decline, the family moved to Brixton. He also credited a chance meeting with former Prime Minister Clement Attlee on the Kings Road shortly afterwards, Major left school at the age of 16 in 1959 with three O-levels in History, English Language and English Literature. He later gained three more O-levels by correspondence course, in the British Constitution, Mathematics and Economics, Majors first job was as a clerk in the insurance brokerage firm Pratt & Sons in 1959. Major joined the Young Conservatives in Brixton at this time, Major was almost 19 years old when his father died at the age of 82 on 27 March 1962. His mother died eight and a years later in September 1970 at the age of 65. After Major became Prime Minister it was misreported that his failure to get a job as a bus conductor resulted from his failing to pass a maths test and he had in fact passed all of the necessary tests but had been passed over owing to his height. After a period of unemployment, Major started working at the London Electricity Board in 1963 which is incidentally his successor as Prime Minister, Tony Blair. He later decided to undertake a course in banking. Major took up a post as an executive at the Standard Chartered Bank in May 1965 and he was sent to work in Jos, Nigeria, by the bank in 1967 and he nearly died in a car accident there. Major was interested in politics from an early age, encouraged by fellow Conservative Derek Stone, he started giving speeches on a soap-box in Brixton Market
18.
Gordon Brown
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James Gordon Brown is a British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Blair Government from 1997 to 2007, Brown was a Member of Parliament from 1983 to 2015, first for Dunfermline East and later for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. A doctoral graduate of the University of Edinburgh, Brown spent his career working as both a lecturer at a further education college and a television journalist. He entered Parliament in 1983 as the MP for Dunfermline East and he joined the Shadow Cabinet in 1989 as Shadow Secretary of State for Trade, and was later promoted to become Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1992. After Labours victory in 1997, he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 2007, Tony Blair resigned as Prime Minister and Labour Leader and Brown was chosen to replace him in an uncontested election. Brown remained in office as Labour negotiated to form a government with the Liberal Democrats. On 10 May 2010, Brown announced he would stand down as leader of the Labour Party, Labours attempts to retain power failed and on 11 May, he officially resigned as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party. He was succeeded as Prime Minister by David Cameron, and as Leader of the Labour Party by Ed Miliband, later, Brown played a prominent role in the campaign surrounding the Scottish independence referendum of 2014, galvanising support behind maintaining the union. Brown was born at the Orchard Maternity Nursing Home in Giffnock, Renfrewshire and his father was John Ebenezer Brown, a minister of the Church of Scotland and a strong influence on Brown. He died in December 1998, aged 84 and his mother, Jessie Elizabeth Brown, known as Bunty, died on 19 September 2004, aged 86. She was the daughter of John Souter, a timber merchant, the family moved to Kirkcaldy – then the largest town in Fife, across the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh – when Gordon was three. Brown was brought up there with his elder brother John and younger brother Andrew Brown in a manse, in common with many other notable Scots, he is therefore often referred to as a son of the manse. At age sixteen he wrote that he loathed and resented this ludicrous experiment on young lives and he was accepted by the University of Edinburgh to study history at the same early age of sixteen. During an end-of-term rugby union match at his old school, he received a kick to the head and this left him blind in his left eye, despite treatment including several operations and weeks spent lying in a darkened room. Later at Edinburgh, while playing tennis, he noticed the symptoms in his right eye. Brown underwent experimental surgery at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and his eye was saved. In his youth at the University of Edinburgh, Brown was involved in a relationship with Margarita. Margarita said about it, It was a solid and romantic story
19.
Peter Lilley
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Peter Bruce Lilley is a British Conservative Party politician who has been a Member of Parliament since 1983. He currently represents the constituency of Hitchin and Harpenden and, prior to boundary changes, Lilley, whose father was a personnel officer for the BBC, was born at Hayes in Kent. He was educated at Dulwich College and Clare College, Cambridge and his Cambridge contemporaries included Kenneth Clarke, Michael Howard and Norman Lamont. Before entering Parliament, he was an energy analyst at the City of London stockbroker, Lilley was chairman of conservative think tank the Bow Group from 1973–75. In October 1974 he fought the seat of Tottenham, being beaten by Norman Atkinson. Having been selected and elected for St, after the 1992 general election he became Secretary of State for Social Security. He contested the 1997 Conservative Party leadership election, placing fourth in a field of five, in opposition, he held the post of Shadow Chancellor from 1997 to 1998 and was Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party from 1998 to 1999. Lilley is known for being an advocate of marijuana legalisation, in 2001, Lilley provoked some controversy in his party and Britain more widely by calling for cannabis to be legalised in a Social Market Foundation pamphlet. Lilley produced a report for the Bow Group in 2005 that was critical of Government plans to introduce national identity cards. John Major made Lilley the Secretary of State at the Department of Social Security at a time when the number of claimants of Invalidity Benefit was growing rapidly. / Theres those who make up bogus claims / In half a dozen names / And councillors who draw the dole / To run left-wing campaigns / They never would be missed / They never would be missed. / Theres young ladies who get pregnant just to jump the housing queue / And dads who wont support the kids / of ladies they have. Kissed / And I havent even mentioned all those sponging socialists / Ive got them on my list / And theres none of them be missed / Theres none of them be missed. The speech was received by party members and tabloid newspapers. Lilley was among the front bench Conservative ministers who threatened to join the Maastricht Rebels in voting against his government over the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. Unlike its predecessor, Invalidity Benefit, this new welfare payment came with a medical test that gauged claimants ability to do any job and was taxable. Nevertheless, the number of claimants and the cost to the continued to rise until it was replaced by Employment. He changed the words of Land of Hope and Glory to create a song Land of Chattering Classes, in condemnation of the abandonment of British values
20.
Chancellor of the Exchequer
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The office is a British Cabinet-level position. The chancellor is responsible for all economic and financial matters, equivalent to the role of Secretary of the Treasury or Minister of Finance in other nations. The position is considered one of the four Great Offices of State, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is now always Second Lord of the Treasury as one of the Lords Commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Treasurer. Formerly, in cases when the Chancellorship was vacant, the Lord Chief Justice of the Kings Bench would act as Chancellor pro tempore, the last Lord Chief Justice to serve in this way was Lord Denman in 1834. The earliest surviving records which are the results of the audit, date from 1129–30 under King Henry I. The Chancellor controlled monetary policy as well as fiscal policy until 1997, the Chancellor also has oversight of public spending across Government departments. The current Chancellor of the Exchequer is Philip Hammond and he is entrusted with a certain amount of misery which it is his duty to distribute as fairly as he can. The Chancellor has considerable control over other departments as it is the Treasury which sets Departmental Expenditure Limits, the amount of power this gives to an individual Chancellor depends on his personal forcefulness, his status within his party and his relationship with the Prime Minister. Gordon Brown, who became Chancellor when Labour came into Government in 1997, had a personal power base in the party. One part of the Chancellors key roles involves the framing of the annual year budget, as of 2017, the first is the Autumn Budget, also known as Budget Day which forecasts government spending in the next financial year and also announces new financial measures. The second is a Spring Statement, also known as a mini-Budget, britains tax year has retained the old Julian end of year,24 March /5 April. From 1993, the Budget was in spring, preceded by an annual autumn statement. This was then called Pre-Budget Report, the Autumn Statement usually took place in November or December. The 1997,2001,2002,2003,2006,2007,2008,2012 and 2016 Budgets were all delivered on a Wednesday, although the Bank of England is responsible for setting interest rates, the Chancellor also plays an important part in the monetary policy structure. He sets the target which the Bank must set interest rates to meet. Under the Bank of England Act 1998 the Chancellor has the power of appointment of four out of nine members of the Banks Monetary Policy Committee – the so-called external members. The Act also provides that the Government has the power to give instructions to the Bank on interest rates for a period in extreme circumstances. This power has never officially used. At HM Treasury the Chancellor is supported by a team of four junior ministers
21.
Norman Lamont
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Norman Stewart Hughson Lamont, Baron Lamont of Lerwick, PC is a British politician and former Conservative MP for Kingston-upon-Thames. He is best known for his serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was created a peer in 1998. Lamont was born in Lerwick, in the Shetland Islands, where his father was the islands surgeon and he also took part in the English-Speaking Unions Tour of the United States. At Cambridge he was a contemporary of Michael Howard, Kenneth Clarke, Leon Brittan, the group was sometimes collectively known as the Cambridge Mafia. Lamont became chairman of centre-right think tank the Bow Group between 1971-2, before entering Parliament he worked for N M Rothschild & Sons, the investment bank, and became director of Rothschild Asset Management. Lamont currently, in addition to his role as a peer, is a director of. He is a director of the hedge fund company RAB Capital, Balli Group plc and he is also a director of a number of investment funds. Also, he is on the board of OMFIF where he is regularly involved in meetings regarding the financial. Lamont stood as a candidate for Member of Parliament in the June 1970 general election for Hull East and he was defeated by John Prescott who would go on to become Tony Blairs Deputy Prime Minister. Two years later, on 4 May 1972 he won a by-election to become MP for Kingston upon Thames, Lamont served in successive governments under Margaret Thatcher and John Major for a total of 14 years, in the Departments of Energy, Industry, Defence and the Treasury. Lamont remained as Chief Secretary to the Treasury under Majors Chancellorship, the decision to join the ERM was announced on Friday 5 October 1990, the last trading day before the week of the Conservative party conference. Shortly afterwards he successfully managed Majors election campaign to succeed Margaret Thatcher as party leader, in her memoirs, Thatcher listed Lamont along with six other Cabinet ministers as a potential successor to her. Lamont eventually slammed the phone down on Lawson in temper, though he wrote to Lawson to offer an apology. On 16 May 1991, Lamont stated in parliament that Rising unemployment and that price is well worth paying. The remark is regularly, but not always approvingly, recalled by commentators, seven months before Lamont made the statement, inflation reached 10. 9%. In May 1991, inflation fell to 6. 4%, however the economy continued to contract until the third quarter of 1991. After economic growth resumed, the economy grew rapidly and by the quarter of 1993
22.
Home Secretary
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The office is a British Cabinet level position. The Home Secretary is responsible for the affairs of England and Wales. The remit of the Home Office also includes policing in England and Wales and matters of security, as the Security Service. The current Home Secretary is Amber Rudd, appointed formally by Queen Elizabeth II on the advice of her Prime Minister Theresa May on 13 July 2016. Mrs. May had been the incumbent, appointed on 12 May 2010 by Prime Minister, David Cameron. May was reappointed by Cameron on 8 May 2015 to serve as Home Secretary in the Conservative government and she stood down from this role on 13 July 2016 upon assuming the office of Prime Minister, succeeding Cameron
23.
Kenneth Baker, Baron Baker of Dorking
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Kenneth Wilfred Baker, Baron Baker of Dorking, CH, PC is a British politician, a former Conservative Member of Parliament and cabinet minister and a life member of the Tory Reform Group. He did National Service as a lieutenant and worked for Royal Dutch Shell before being elected as a Member of Parliament at a by-election in March 1968. However, at the 1970 general election he was defeated by Labours Nigel Spearing, however he successfully obtained nomination at Mole Valley, a safely-Conservative rural seat in Surrey, which he held until his retirement in 1997. He was succeeded there by Sir Paul Beresford, bakers first government post was in the Heath ministry, in 1972 he became Parliamentary Secretary at the Civil Service Department, and in 1974 Parliamentary Private Secretary to Edward Heath. Having been sworn of the Privy Council in the 1984 New Year Honours, Baker served as Secretary of State for Education from 1986 to 1989. His most noted action in his time at the Department of Education was the introduction of the controversial National Curriculum through the 1988 Education Act and he also introduced in-service training days for teachers, which became popularly known as Baker days. At this time Baker was often tipped as a future Conservative leader, critchley quoted one journalists witticism I have seen the future and it smirks. Bakers mannerisms were unpopular with people, he dressed his hair with Brylcreem. In the July 1989 reshuffle Baker was appointed Chairman of the Conservative Party and he was still Party Chairman at the time Margaret Thatcher resigned in November 1990. After the change of regime Baker was promoted to Home Secretary and his time at the Home Office was marred by prison riots, and by bad publicity over the introduction of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. After his term of office he was found to have been in contempt of court for having deported a man back to Zaire in 1991, in breach of an interim injunction. It would be a day for the rule of law and the liberty of the subject. This was the first time the courts had reached such a finding against a minister for exercise of Prerogative Powers, after the 1992 general election Baker left the government rather than accept demotion to the job of Welsh Secretary. He was appointed a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour on 13 April 1992 and he proposed the Loyal Address in the Queens Speech debate on 6 May 1992, following the general election. He chose not to stand for re-election to the House of Commons in 1997 and he was interviewed in 2012 as part of the The History of Parliaments oral history project. In 2013 Baker was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Education from Plymouth University, until 1995 Baker lived in Station Road in the village of Betchworth,4 miles east of Dorking. He now lives in the hamlet of Iford near Lewes, East Sussex, in 2005 he published a book on King George IV, George IV, A Life in Caricature, followed by King George III, A Life in Caricature in 2007. Other publications include several compilations of poetry, a history of political cartoons, in 2006 Lord Baker announced that he was introducing a bill into the House of Lords to address the West Lothian question
24.
Michael Howard
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Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne, CH, PC, QC is a British politician who served as the Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from November 2003 to December 2005. He studied at Peterhouse, Cambridge, following which he joined the Young Conservatives, in 1964 he was called to the Bar and became a Queens Counsel in 1982. He became a Member of Parliament in the 1983 General Election, representing the constituency of Folkestone and this quickly led to promotion and Howard became Minister for Local Government in 1987. Under John Major, he held cabinet positions including Secretary of State for Employment. In November 2003, following the Conservative Partys vote of no confidence in its leader Iain Duncan Smith, he was elected unopposed. In the 2005 General Election, the Conservatives gained 33 new seats in Westminster, including five from the Liberal Democrats, following the election, Howard resigned as Leader of the Conservative Party and was succeeded by David Cameron. Howard did not contest his seat of Folkestone and Hythe in the 2010 General Election, Howard was born Michael Hecht in Gorseinon, Swansea. He is the son of Bernat Hecht, who was born in Romania and his mother, Hilda, lived in Wales from the age of 6 months. Both of Howards parents were from Jewish families, when Howard was six, his parents became naturalised as British subjects, and his surname was also changed following the parents naturalisation with the new surname Howard. Howard passed his eleven-plus exam in 1952 and then attended Llanelli Boys Grammar School and he joined the Young Conservatives at age 15. He obtained eight O-levels and his subsequent A-levels earned him a place at Peterhouse at Cambridge University and he was President of the Cambridge Union Society in 1962. After taking a 2,1 in the first part of the tripos, he switched to law. Howard was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1964 and specialised in employment, unlike his many Cambridge contemporaries, he continued his career at the Bar, becoming a practising Queens Counsel in 1982. The late 1960s saw Howards promotion within the Bow Group, where he became Chairman in April 1970, in the 1970s, Howard was a leading advocate of British membership of the Common Market and served on the board of the cross-party Britain in Europe group. Howard was named as co-respondent in the divorce case of 1960s model Sandra Paul. They have a son born in 1976 and a born in 1977. C. Which he has held since childhood, in June 1982, Howard was selected to contest the constituency of Folkestone and Hythe in Kent after the sitting Conservative MP, Sir Albert Costain, decided to retire. Howard won the seat at the 1983 general election and this junior post became very important, as he oversaw the Big Bang introduction of new technology in 1986
25.
Secretary of State for Education
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Her Majestys Principal Secretary of State for Education is the chief minister of the Department for Education in the United Kingdom government. The position was re-established on 12 May 2010, a committee of the Privy Council was appointed in 1839 to supervise the distribution of certain government grants in the education field. The members of the committee were the Lord President of the Council, the Secretaries of State, the First Lord of the Treasury, from 1857 a vice-president was appointed who took responsibility for policy. On 1 April 1900, the Board of Education Act 1899 abolished the committee and instituted a new board, the Education Act 1944 replaced the Board of Education with a new Ministry of Education. The Department of Education and Science was created in 1964 with the merger of the offices of Minister of Education, in 1992 the responsibility for science was transferred to Cabinet Offices Office of Public Service, and the department was renamed Department of Education. As of 14 July 2016, the position is held by Justine Greening as her predesseccesor, in 2009, the latter department was merged into the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Colour key, Labour Labour Co-operative The Department for Education and the post of Secretary of State for Education were recreated in 2010. Responsibility for higher and adult education remained with the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, colour key, Conservative Department for Education Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
26.
Margaret Thatcher
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She was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century, and the first woman to have held the office. A Soviet journalist dubbed her The Iron Lady, a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics, as Prime Minister, she implemented policies that have come to be known as Thatcherism. A research chemist before becoming a barrister, Thatcher was elected Member of Parliament for Finchley in 1959, Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his 1970 government. In 1975, Thatcher defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election to become Leader of the Opposition and she became Prime Minister after winning the 1979 general election. Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised deregulation, flexible labour markets, the privatisation of state-owned companies and she narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in 1984. Thatcher was re-elected for a term in 1987. During this period her support for a Community Charge was widely unpopular and she resigned as Prime Minister and party leader in November 1990, after Michael Heseltine launched a challenge to her leadership. After retiring from the Commons in 1992, she was given a peerage as Baroness Thatcher which entitled her to sit in the House of Lords. After a series of strokes in 2002, she was advised to withdraw from public speaking. Despite this, she managed to pre-record a eulogy to Ronald Reagan prior to his death, in 2013, she died of another stroke in London, at the age of 87. Always a controversial figure, she has described as one of the greatest and most influential politicians in British history. Thatcher was born Margaret Hilda Roberts on 13 October 1925, in Grantham and her father was Alfred Roberts, originally from Northamptonshire, and her mother was Beatrice Ethel from Lincolnshire. She spent her childhood in Grantham, where her father owned two grocery shops, Prior to the Second World War, in 1938 the Roberts family gave sanctuary to a teenage Jewish girl escaping Nazi Germany. Thatcher was to describe this in her memoirs as among the significant events of her formative years, Alfred Roberts was an alderman and a Methodist local preacher, and brought up his daughter as a strict Wesleyan Methodist attending the Finkin Street Methodist Church. He came from a Liberal family but stood as an Independent and he was Mayor of Grantham in 1945–46 and lost his position as alderman in 1952 after the Labour Party won its first majority on Grantham Council in 1950. Margaret Roberts attended Huntingtower Road Primary School and won a scholarship to Kesteven and her school reports showed hard work and continual improvement, her extracurricular activities included the piano, field hockey, poetry recitals, swimming and walking. She was head girl in 1942–43, in her upper sixth year she applied for a scholarship to study chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, but she was initially rejected and was offered a place only after another candidate withdrew. Her dissertation was on the structure of the antibiotic gramicidin, even while working on chemistry, she was already thinking towards law and politics
27.
John MacGregor, Baron MacGregor of Pulham Market
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John Roddick Russell MacGregor, Baron MacGregor of Pulham Market, OBE PC FKC, is a politician in the United Kingdom. He was educated at Merchiston Castle School, then at the University of St Andrews, prior to the 1979 general election he worked for Hill Samuel, a merchant bank. MacGregor is also a magician and member of The Magic Circle. He gave regular performances on British television, including guest spots on The Best of Magic and he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1971 New Year Honours for political services. He was Conservative MP for South Norfolk, but stepped down at the 2001 election. He became an MP at the February 1974 General Election, and served as a Tory whip from 1977 to 1981, when he became a junior minister at the Department of Trade and Industry, moving to MAFF in 1983. He entered the Cabinet on 2 September 1985 as Chief Secretary to the Treasury and he was promoted to Secretary of State for Education and Science in July 1989. In the small reshuffle following the resignation of Sir Geoffrey Howe, he was made Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council just days before Thatchers own resignation. He continued in this position from 1990 to 1992, although William Keegan writes that he was a contender for the position of Chancellor when John Major came to power. He was made Secretary of State for Transport in 1992, remaining in the post until July 1994 when he left the cabinet and his time as Transport Secretary saw him given responsibility for the privatisation of British Rail and the decision to privatise the Transport Research Laboratory. He was made a peer as Baron MacGregor of Pulham Market
28.
John Patten, Baron Patten
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John Haggitt Charles Patten, Baron Patten, PC is a former Conservative Member of Parliament for Oxford West and Abingdon. A Roman Catholic, he was educated by the Jesuits at Wimbledon College before graduating from Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and he was first elected for Oxford in 1979, transferring to Oxford West and Abingdon in 1983 after boundary changes divided the seat. He stood down at the 1997 general election, the seat was subsequently won by the Liberal Democrat Evan Harris. Patten was offered the role as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland by Margaret Thatcher, Patten served as Secretary of State for Education from 1992 to 1994. He was interviewed at length by Brian Sherratt in 1994 regarding his role as Secretary of State. While he was Education Secretary, Patten described Birmingham education chief Tim Brighouse as a madman, wandering the streets, frightening the children. Brighouse sued, and won substantial damages which were donated to educational charities, Patten was created a life peer as Baron Patten of Wincanton in the County of Somerset on 17 June 1997. He is married to the businesswoman Louise Patten and they have one daughter, hansard 1803–2005, contributions in Parliament by John Patten
29.
Secretary of State for Health
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Her Majestys Principal Secretary of State for Health is a UK cabinet position responsible for the NHS. Health services in Northern Ireland have always had separate arrangements from the rest of the UK, the first Boards of Health were created by Orders in Council dated 21 June 14 November, and 21 November 1831. In 1848, a General Board of Health was created with the First Commissioner of Woods, in 1854, this Board was reconstituted and the President appointed separately. However, the Board was abolished in 1858 and its function of overseeing the local boards was transferred to a new Local Government Act Office within the Home Office, from 1871, that function was transferred to the new Local Government Board. The Ministry of Health was created in 1919 as a reconstruction of the Local Government Board, Local government functions were eventually transferred to the Minister of Housing and Local Government, leaving the Health Ministry in charge of Health proper. From 1968, it was amalgamated with the Ministry of Social Security under the Secretary of State for Social Services, until a de-merger of the Department of Health, jeremy Hunt remained in post after Theresa May became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Colour key, Whig Conservative Radical Peelite Liberal Labour Unionist National Labour National Liberal
30.
John Moore, Baron Moore of Lower Marsh
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John Edward Michael Moore, Baron Moore of Lower Marsh PC is a British politician who was Member of Parliament for Croydon Central from February 1974 until 1992. During the Premiership of Margaret Thatcher he enjoyed a rise through the ranks of government which culminated in him serving as Secretary of State for Social Services from 1987 to 1989. For a time, he was considered a star of the Conservative Party. He was particularly noted for his good looks and an American background. Moores wife was American and he had lived for years in the USA. He brought aspects of American corporate culture to government and was reported to speak with a slight American accent and his first political experience was as a Democratic Party organiser in Illinois during the early 1960s. However, his fortunes in government waned after 1987 when he was responsible for the highly sensitive portfolios of health. His earlier success had been as a facilitator of the Thatcher governments privatisation programme, in this capacity he became known as Mr Privatisation. When Moore attempted to extend this concept into the management of the National Health Service, after losing credibility he was effectively demoted in 1988 and then sacked from his cabinet post in 1989. He left the House of Commons in 1992 and subsequently held a number of directorships and chairmanships. Moore was born in Kentish Town, London and his father was a factory worker who later became a publican. He attended the Licensed Victuallers School in Slough, an independent school supported by his fathers trade body, after leaving school Moore undertook two years of National Service from 1955 to 1957. He served with the Royal Sussex Regiment and spent some time in Korea and he enrolled at the London School of Economics in 1958 and followed a three-year degree course. He was active in student politics and held the position of President of the LSE Students Union, during this time he met fellow student Sheila Tillotson. Moore accompanied Tillotson back to her native Chicago after the two had completed their studies. Here the couple married and Moore found work initially as a financial analyst with a Chicago investment bank and he became a stockbroker and achieved a senior position at the Chicago office of the Dean Witter brokerage. Dean Witter catered to a middle class clientele with the typical client holding only a modest portfolio of stock. While in Chicago, Moore became a Democratic Party activist and served as a precinct captain, in this capacity he gained experience of American political campaigning which he later applied in the UK
31.
William Waldegrave, Baron Waldegrave of North Hill
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William Arthur Waldegrave, Baron Waldegrave of North Hill, PC is a British Conservative politician who served in the Cabinet from 1990 until 1997 and is a life member of the Tory Reform Group. He is now a peer and Provost of Eton College. Waldegrave served as a Trustee and Chair of the Rhodes Trust, during which time he helped to create. His portrait hangs at Rhodes House, Oxford, Waldegrave was the Chairman of Trustees for the National Museum of Science and Industry from 2002 to 2010. He became Provost of Eton College, on 8 February 2009, Waldegrave is the youngest of the seven children of Mary Hermione Grenfell and the 12th Earl Waldegrave, and the only brother of the present Earl. One of his sisters is The Lady Susan Hussey, Waldegrave was educated at Eton College, where he won the Newcastle Scholarship in 1965, and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he served for a term as president of the Oxford Union. Oxford was followed by Harvard University in the United States, on a Kennedy Scholarship, in 1971 he was elected a Prize Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and is now a Distinguished Fellow. In 1971 Waldegrave was working at the Conservative Research Department and in March 1971 he was appointed to the Central Policy Review Staff. “He was from the one of the most active philosophers of the CPRS. He was one of the few openly political members of the staff and was used by Victor Rothschild, head of the CPRS and he was elected to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament for Bristol West in 1979. He remained at Environment, becoming a Minister of State in 1985, until 1988 when he became a Minister of State at the Foreign, however Sir Richard Scott exonerated Waldegrave of duplicitous intent in wrongly describing the Governments policy. He attended Bilderberg meetings three times, after losing his Commons seat to Valerie Davey in Labours 1997 landslide, he entered the House of Lords as Baron Waldegrave of North Hill, of Chewton Mendip in the County of Somerset, in 1999. He is married to Caroline Waldegrave, cookery writer and managing director of Leiths School of Food and they have four children, Katherine, Elizabeth, James and Harriet. Waldegrave is a trustee of Cumberland Lodge, an educational charity and he is an active member of the Board of Managers for the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. He is notable for having offered a prize for the best lay explanation of the Higgs Boson and this represents the Higgs field in space. A former Conservative Prime Minister enters the room, All the workers she passes are strongly attracted to her. As she moves through the room, the cluster of admirers around her create resistance to her movement and this can be imagined as how a particle moves through the Higgs field. The field clusters around a particle, resisting its motion and giving it mass, if a sleazy rumour crosses the room, it creates the same sort of clustering
32.
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is appointed by the Sovereign on the advice of the Prime Minister. The Chancellor is answerable to Parliament for the governance of the Duchy, however, the involvement of the Chancellor in the running of the day-to-day affairs of the Duchy is slight, and the office is held by a senior politician whose main role is usually quite different. The position is held by Patrick McLoughlin. The position has often given to a junior Cabinet minister with responsibilities in a particular area of policy for which there is no department with an appropriate portfolio. In 1491, the office of Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster was created, in recent times, the Chancellors duties have been said to occupy an average of one day a week. Under the Promissory Oaths Act 1868, the Chancellor is required to take the oath of allegiance, the Office of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is part of the Cabinet Office. From 1997 until 2009, the holder of the title served as the Minister for the Cabinet Office. This was true of Alan Milburn, who was given the title by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2004, however, in the reshuffle of 5 June 2009, the Chancellorship went to the Leader of the House of Lords, the Baroness Royall. In David Camerons first cabinet, announced on 12 May 2010, the position is currently held by Patrick McLoughlin, who is also Chairman of the Conservative Party, following Theresa Mays appointment as Prime Minister. The last holder of the post was Oliver Letwin, having been appointed in July 2014 when he was also Minister for Government Policy, following the 2015 general election, he was also given overall responsibility for the Cabinet Office and made a full member of the Cabinet. He has also been the Member of Parliament for West Dorset since 1997, list of Chancellors of the Duchy of Lancaster County Palatine of Lancaster
33.
Norman Tebbit
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Norman Beresford Tebbit, Baron Tebbit, CH, PC is a British politician. He was a member of parliament from 1970 to 1992, representing the constituencies of Epping, in 1984, he was injured in the Provisional Irish Republican Armys bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton, where he was staying during the Conservative Party Conference. His wife Margaret was left disabled after the explosion. He left the government after the 1987 general election to care for his wife and he gave up his parliamentary seat for Chingford in 1992, and has since sat in the House of Lords as Baron Tebbit, of Chingford. Born in Ponders End, Middlesex to working parents, Tebbit went to Edmonton County Grammar School. Tebbit worked as a journalist for the Financial Times before serving with the Royal Air Force, during which time he flew Meteor and Vampire jets. In July 1954, at RAF Waterbeach near Cambridge, he had to open the cockpit canopy of a burning Meteor 8 aircraft to escape from it. On leaving the RAF he joined BOAC in 1953 as a navigator and pilot, of his airline navigation training, he later said, In those days it was a considerable academic syllabus. You had to be up to speed on spherical trigonometry to get through it. ”During his time at BOAC he was an official in the British Air Line Pilots Association and he flew Avro Yorks, Argonauts, Britannias, DC7Cs and the Boeing 707. He was elected MP for Epping in 1970 and then for Chingford in February 1974 and he is recorded as an MP member of the Conservative Monday Club in 1970. Tebbits first intervention as a MP was to ask a question of the then Minister at the Board of Trade and his question was on the subject of a crash of a Comet-4 aircraft in Spain on 3 July, which killed all the 112 people on board at the time. In 1975, six men were dismissed from their jobs because of the introduction of a shop and were denied unemployment benefit. Tebbit accused Foot of pure undiluted fascism and left Mr. Foot exposed as an opponent of freedom. The next day The Times first leader —titled IS MR, FOOT A FASCIST. —quoted Tebbit and went on, Mr. Foots doctrine is intolerable because it is a violation of the liberty of the ordinary man in his job. Mr. Tebbit is therefore using fascism in a descriptive sense when he accuses Mr. Foot of it. We perhaps need to revive the phrase social fascism to describe the modern British development of the corporate state, the question is not therefore, is Mr. Foot a fascist. But does Mr. Foot know he is a fascist, Tebbit involved himself in that dispute by making a controversial speech on 12 September 1977, in which he said, Inside Britain there is a. threat from the Marxist collectivist totalitarians. Just to state that fact is to be accused of union-bashing, such people are to be found in the Conservative, Liberal and Labour Parties
34.
Tony Newton, Baron Newton of Braintree
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Antony Harold Newton, Baron Newton of Braintree, OBE, PC, DL was a British Conservative politician and former Cabinet member. He was the member of Parliament for Braintree from 1974–1997, and was later a member of the House of Lords, Newton was born in Harwich, Essex. He was educated at Friends School Saffron Walden and Trinity College, Oxford, where he was President of Oxford University Conservative Association and he unsuccessfully fought Sheffield Brightside in the 1970 General Election. In the 1972 Birthday Honours, Newton was appointed to the Order of the British Empire as an Officer, Newton was appointed a government whip when the Conservatives came to power in 1979. In the 1988 New Year Honours, Newton was sworn of the Privy Council and his discretion about John Majors four-year affair with Edwina Currie is credited with enabling Major to become prime minister. In the 1997 Prime Ministers Resignation Honours, after Newton lost his seat, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Newton of Braintree and he attempted to be selected for the 1999 European Parliament Election, but was unsuccessful. Newton chaired the Hansard Society Commission on Parliamentary Scrutiny which ran from 1999 to 2001, the Commission concluded that Parliament was being left behind by changes in the constitution, government and society and set out reforms for improving its function. On 1 November 2007 he was appointed the first chairman of the new Administrative Justice, Newton was married to Janet Huxley from 1962 until they divorced in 1986. He married Patricia Gilthorpe later that year and he is survived by his two daughters from his first marriage
35.
Paymaster General
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Her Majestys Paymaster General or HM Paymaster General is a ministerial position in the United Kingdom. When the post is held by a minister in HM Treasury it ranks third in the Treasury, after the Chancellor of the Exchequer, from 1848 to 1868, the post was held concurrently with that of Vice-President of the Board of Trade. The longest-serving holder of the post was Dawn Primarolo, whose portfolio covered HM Revenue, the incumbent Paymaster General is Ben Gummer, who is also the Minister for the Cabinet Office. The Paymaster General was formerly in charge of the Office of HM Paymaster General, funds which were made available from the Consolidated Fund were then channelled into OPG accounts, from where they were used by the relevant body. OPG operated a range of accounts and banking transaction services, including cheque and credit, BACS. Integration of OPG accounts held with commercial banks was provided by the private company Xafinity Paymaster, the post is now therefore usually combined with another role. 1836–1841 Edward Stanley 1841 Sir Edward Knatchbull, Bt, since then the OPG website redirects to the new GBS site, Government Banking Service
36.
John Gummer
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John Selwyn Gummer, Baron Deben, PC is a British Conservative Party politician, formerly Member of Parliament for Suffolk Coastal and now a member of the House of Lords. Lord Deben is Chairman of the UKs independent Committee on Climate Change and he is a non-executive director of Veolia Voda, The Catholic Herald and the Castle Trust – a mortgage and investment firm. He is also a Trustee of the conservation charity, Blue Marine Foundation. John Gummer stood down from the House of Commons at the 2010 general election and was appointed to the Upper House as Lord Deben. The eldest son of a Church of England priest, Canon Selwyn Gummer, his brother is Peter Gummer, Baron Chadlington. Gummer attended Kings School, Rochester, before going up to Selwyn College, Cambridge where he read History, first elected to Parliament at the 1970 general election, where he defeated sitting MP James Dickens in Lewisham West, Gummer had previously contested Greenwich in 1964 and 1966. In 1979, he returned to the House of Commons, securing Eye in Suffolk and he held the constituency and its successor Suffolk Coastal until his retirement from the Commons in 2010. He joined the Cabinet in 1989 as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, as Environment Secretary he introduced the Environment Act 1995 and the Landfill Tax, which was the first such environmental tax in the UK. The BBC Wildlife magazine described him as the Environment Secretary against which all others are judged, in 1997, he was also awarded the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Medal. and Friends of the Earth described his as the best Environment Secretary weve ever had. He had responsibility for safety during the mad cow disease epidemic in 1989–90 which eventually claimed 176 British lives. At the height of the crisis in May 1990, he attempted to refute the evidence for BSE/Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease by feeding his 4-year-old daughter a burger before press cameras. Gummer opposed reduction of beds at the Aldeburgh Cottage Hospital, following the 1997 Labour election victory he became a backbencher and chairman of the All-Party Group on Architecture and Planning. During this time he actively pursued environmental causes, introducing an Early Day Motion on Climate Change to Parliament along with Michael Meacher and he was also instrumental in the passing of the Climate Change Act of 2008. Because of his credentials, in 2005 David Cameron asked Deben to chair the Quality of Life Policy Group with Zac Goldsmith as his deputy. In 2009, Lord Deben attracted attention in the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal, after claiming £36,000 for gardening over 4 years, as an parliamentary expense. Although the claims were encouraged and initially approved by the Parliamentary Fees Office and he repaid £11,538 for gardening and household bills and donated £11,500 to charity, paying above the minimum required in order to demonstrate corporate social responsibility for the expenses system. Consequently, the Legg Report showed that 343 MPs had been asked to repay some money with Gummer paying the 7th highest figure and it was announced that Gummer would be awarded a peerage in the 2010 Dissolution Honours List. As a pro-European moderate, Lord Deben supported Kenneth Clarkes leadership bids, in September 2012, Lord Deben was confirmed as Chairman of the UKs independent Committee on Climate Change, succeeding Adair, Lord Turner
37.
Peter Brooke, Baron Brooke of Sutton Mandeville
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Peter Leonard Brooke, Baron Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, CH, PC is a British politician. He is the son of Henry Brooke, a former Home Secretary and he was educated at Marlborough College and Balliol College, Oxford, before going on to the Harvard Business School in the United States. After leaving university he worked as a headhunter and was Chairman of Spencer Stuart, after unsuccessfully challenging Neil Kinnock at the Labour stronghold of Bedwellty in October 1974, he was elected as MP for the Cities of London and Westminster in a by-election in 1977. He was sworn of the Privy Council in 1988 and he was made Chairman of the Conservative Party in 1987, and then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in 1989. In January 1992, Brooke appeared on the Irish chat show, unionists were outraged at what seemed to be a moment clearly out of touch with grieving families, and instantly requested the resignation of Brooke. The incident was a factor in Brookes being dropped from his position after the April 1992 general election, after leaving the Cabinet, Brooke stood unsuccessfully for the position of Speaker of the House of Commons. Brooke then remained on the backbenches for a time before being brought back into the Cabinet later in the year as Secretary of State for National Heritage. During his time as Heritage Secretary, he oversaw the restoration of Windsor Castle following the fire that had struck the state apartments in 1992. Brooke stepped down as an MP at the 2001 general election and was made a peer as Baron Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, of Sutton Mandeville in the County of Wiltshire. He was Chairman of the Association of Conservative Peers and he was appointed Companion of Honour, as his father had been, in 1992. Lord Brooke is one of several peers and MPs with an abiding interest in the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, hansard 1803–2005, contributions in Parliament by Peter Brooke
38.
Department for Work and Pensions
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The Department for Work and Pensions is the largest government department in the United Kingdom, and is responsible for welfare and pension policy. The Department was initially tasked with creating Jobcentre Plus and the Pensions Service from the remains of the Employment Service, the Department is therefore responsible for welfare and pension policy. It aims to help its customers become financially independent and to reduce child poverty. The departments ministers are, The Permanent Secretary is Robert Devereux, with the creation of the department in June 2001, the Pension Service was created, bringing together many different departments and divisions. The Pension Service is a service for current and future pensioners. The Pension Service consists of local Pension Centres and centrally-based centres, at Tyneview Park the following centres are found, Future Pension Centre provides state pension forecasts for people approaching retirement age. Newcastle Pension Centre originally dealt with the London area and Home counties, now the service is virutal so all pension centres deal with all areas of the country. Pension Tracing Service helps track old pensions and pension schemes, international Pension Centre deals with all enquiries regarding the payment of state pension, bereavement benefits, incapacity benefits and other such benefits for those living abroad. Local Pension Centres deal with localised claims for state pension and retirement related benefits, Pension Centres are found all over the country. Both former agencies kept their corporate branding and provided services under their separate identities, the decision was made due to the two agencies sharing roughly fifty percent of the same customers and as a single agency, the rationalisation of services would provide a better service for customers. Prior to July 2012 the Child Support Agency was the arm of the Child Maintenance. All are now operated wholly from within the department, with the names continuing as brand identifiers, Jobcentre Plus, The Pension Service and the Disability and Carers Service operate through a network of around 1,000 Jobcentres, contact centres and benefit processing centres across the UK. After the departure of John Suffolk as Government Chief Information Officer in November 2010, the total annual budget of the department in 2011-12 is £151.6 billion, representing approximately 28% of total UK Government spending. The department spends a far greater share of wealth than any other department in Britain. The department spends an average of £348.9 million with suppliers a month, a report of February 2012 stated that a sum amounting to billions of pounds of money payable through possible benefit claims had not been claimed. The department is a commissioner of external social science research, with the objective of providing the evidence base needed to inform departmental strategy, policy-making. The department has developed and uses various microsimulation and other models, including the Policy Simulation Model, Pensim2, datasets held include the LLMDB and the Family Resources Survey. Employment, health and safety, and social security policy are reserved matters in Scotland, Employment and health and safety policy are fully devolved
39.
Peter Morrison
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Sir Peter Hugh Morrison PC was a British Conservative politician, MP for Chester from 1974 to 1992, and Parliamentary Private Secretary to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Morrison was the son of John Morrison, 1st Baron Margadale, by the Honourable Margaret Smith. Sir Charles Morrison, Conservative MP for Devizes from 1964 to 1992, was his elder brother and he was educated at Eton and Keble College, Oxford, where he read Law. Morrison was first elected to the House of Commons in the election of February 1974 for Chester. He was one of the first backbench MPs to urge Margaret Thatcher to stand for the Party leadership in 1975, in 1986 he became Deputy Conservative Party chairman under Norman Tebbit having been previously a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State and Minister of State in the Department of Employment. In 1987, he was Minister of State for Energy, with responsibility for oil, during the Cash for Questions Inquiry, Ian Greer Associates admitted Morrison received payments after ceasing to be an MP. The Parliamentary Report in Hansard quotes Ian Greer as stating he made Two commission payments and he became Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher in 1990 and was the leader of her campaign team in the Conservative leadership election in the same year. He was relaxed about Thatchers prospects and predicted a win for her. Alan Clark went to visit Morrison one afternoon during the campaign, Morrison claimed that he had enough MPs down as Thatcher supporters to ensure she would win. He said to her, Prime Minister, if you havent won then there are a lot of Tory MPs who are lying and he stood down at the 1992 general election, being succeeded as MP for Chester by Gyles Brandreth. Morrison was knighted by the Queen in February 1991 and he died of a heart attack early in the morning of 13 July 1995, aged 51. According to the journalist Simon Heffer, Morrison was gay and went cruising in Sussex Gardens, fellow Conservative MP Michael Brown, himself gay, described Morrison as gay in a column published by The Independent in 2002. In October 2012, Rod Richards, a former MP and ex-leader of the Welsh Conservatives, between 1974-90, up to 650 children from forty childrens homes were sexually, physically and emotionally abused. Richards said that Morrison and another high-profile Conservative politician were named in documents as regular, investigative journalist Nick Davies reported in The Guardian that Morrison received a caution for cottaging with underage boys in public lavatories. Former Conservative minister Edwina Currie stated that Morrison regularly had sex with 16-year-old boys – whilst the legal age of consent at the time was 21, in 2002, Currie described Morrison as a notable pederast. In July 2014, Barry Strevens, a bodyguard to Margaret Thatcher. Strevens said that passing on the allegations to Thatcher she later promoted Morrison to the position of deputy chairman of the Conservative party. Thatchers private secretary, Archie Hamilton, reportedly took notes of what was said, in January 2015, The Daily Telegraph reported allegations that Morrison raped a 14-year-old boy at Elm Guest House in London
40.
Lynda Chalker, Baroness Chalker of Wallasey
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Lynda Chalker, Baroness Chalker of Wallasey, PC is a British Conservative politician who was Member of Parliament for Wallasey from 1974 to 1992. She served as Minister of State for Overseas Development and Africa at the Foreign Office, Chalker headed the British delegation which participated in the first Tokyo International Conference on African Development in October 1993. In 1983 she became Minister of State at Transport, being appointed Minister for Europe in 1986, Chalker was granted a life peerage as Baroness Chalker of Wallasey, of Leigh-on-Sea in the County of Essex in 1992, after losing her seat at the General Election of that year. Chalker is the Founder and President of Africa Matters Limited, an independent consultancy providing advice and assistance to companies initiating, developing or growing their activities in Africa. She is a member of the advisory board of Lafarge. She is a Consultant for Ugandas Presidential Investors Roundtable that advises the President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, on ways to improve Ugandas investment climate and it does so by making available, discreetly and in confidence, the experience of former leaders to today’s national leaders. Chalker founded the Chalker Foundation, which seeks to support the improvement of healthcare in Africa, in June 1974, Chalker was awarded an Honorary Citizenship from President Guebuza for services to Mozambique. She held the position of Non-Executive Director and Chairman of the Corporate Responsibility and she joined the Board of Unilever as an Advisory Director in 1998 becoming a Non-Executive Director in 2004. She also served on Africa Advisory Board of Renaissance Capital, Chalker is a former Chairman of the Medicines for Malaria Venture, a not-for-profit foundation dedicated to reducing the burden of malaria in disease endemic countries. She is a former Non-Executive Director of Group Five and she was awarded the Livingstone Medal by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in 2000. Chalker was shortlisted for the Grassroot Diplomat Initiative Award in 2015 for her work with Africa Matters, hansard 1803–2005, contributions in Parliament by Lynda Chalker Lynda Chalker biodata, qub. ac. uk, accessed 10 August 2014
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