UK MPs - 2015 Parliament

[Filuwaúrdjan]

An intelligent left-wing backbencher with genuine expertise on certain issues: quite the contrast with her predecessor! Married to John Abrahams (captain of Lancashire County Cricket Club in the mid 1980s).

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Afriyie is pretty much worthless.

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Indeed. It's curious though... I mean... they oversold Chuka Umunna a lot as well. Are there senior journalists with a thing for half Nigerian half white men?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Indeed. It's curious though... I mean... they oversold Chuka Umunna a lot as well. Are there senior journalists with a thing for half Nigerian half white men?

Ghanaian.

Indeed. I appear to have confused the pair of them with Simfan for a moment there. Embarrassing.

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Right, yeah. The other half being posh Irish. My God this discussion looks so much worse than it actually is.

Half Nigeria Half Ethiopian IIRC.

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Heidi Alexander (Labour - Lewisham East)

Right-wing fixer type with a local government background and elected for an area that (appropriately enough) was once represented by Herbert Morrison. Currently working for Sadiq Khan's Mayoral campaign.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Rushanara Ali (Labour    - Bethnal Green and Bow)

Capable, photogenic and obviously not lacking in ambition: future cabinet material, perhaps. Good bio for a Labour politician as well.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Lucy Allan (Conservative - Telford)

The usual awful Midlands Tory MP presumably. Employers puppets the lot of them.

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The majority was tiny - it was a surprise hold in 2010 largely because the Tories chose an appalling candidate - and so also was the swing. And more and more private housing estates are springing up on the fringes of the constituency as I type this. But one of our most preventable losses and therefore one of the most frustrating. Though as far as I'm aware (and I could be wrong) Wright never had much of a personal vote; unlike his predecessor.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Graham Allen (Labour   - Nottingham North)

A former whip. Opposed the Iraq War. His election in 1987 was actually a Labour gain. Got a good result in May (consistent with many English big city seats).

Independent minded to the point of idiosyncrasy, which makes his spell as a whip seem quite surreal. A valuable member of the Commons even if probably no one agrees with him on everything.

Nottingham, btw, had had at least one Labour MP at all General Elections since 1918 except for 1931 and had elected a majority Labour delegation at all postwar elections but 1955 (tied) and 1959: the 1983 results in the city were as shocking at the time as they look now.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Former miner who ended up as a care worker and Unison official before his election in 2005. Popular and effective Left MP who's campaigned on quite a few issues that don't get the attention they ought and a massive contrast (and not just physically!) with his rather low-key and procedure orientated predecessor.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

1959-64 was for a different constituency: he narrowly gained Nottingham West in one of the biggest upsets of the election (Labour did terribly in Nottingham that year, I think partly due to a nasty row between the city council and the local police chief) and then inevitably lost it in 1964. There is actually an MP who served in the 1960s who's still in the Commons, but he's had interrupted service: David Winnick was elected for Croydon South (which is mostly in the current Croydon Central) in 1966, lost it in 1970, and was then out of the Commons until he regained Walsall North for Labour in 1979. Winnick was the defeated candidate in the 1976 by-election there, a by-election triggered by the resignation of John Stonehouse (who famously faked his own death in 1974 in order to escape from the consequences of his fraudulent business activities). Stonehouse was first elected for the Wednesbury constituency at a by-election in 1957: the defeated Conservative candidate was Peter Tapsell.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ian Austin   (Labour - Dudley North)

Former PPS to Gordon Brown. Elected in 2005, he's been met with a Tory underperformance all three times.

The West Midlands Labour Right machine politician's West Midlands Labour Right machine politician and probably not someone to bump into in a dark alley. I suspect he would regard that description as a compliment as well. His handling of certain contentious issues in his constituency in the last parliament was not liked in some quarters (even described by some as foolish), but it seems to have paid off electorally: he had a good result in May (notable as other Dudley Borough results were dismal) even if most of the increase in his majority happened because of certain surreal events regarding the original Tory candidate. Anyway I don't know whether 2005 was exactly a Tory underperformance: it's more that Labour underperformed in 1997 and 2001 because obvious parachute Ross Cranston was not well liked.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Adrian Bailey (Labour - West Bromwich West)

Old school Party Right stalwart (background in local government and the Co-op Party) with a strong interest in complex policy issues. He represents a constituency that is bizarrely named for two reasons: the first is obvious, the second is that it includes none of West Bromwich.

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The largest town in his constituency is Tipton. 'nuff said.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Not for non-Brits.

Probably for non-Midlanders actually. Like many other Black Country towns Tipton has a bit of a reputation for insularity and has had a far-right undercurrent for ages, much of which stems from a no-longer-exactly-what-you'd-call-healthy-frankly working class Tory tradition and specifically what happens when you combine that with, you know, lots of non white people living in other towns nearby.

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A useless blowhard's useless blowhard.

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Professional Yorkshireman to the point of stereotype and an interesting character, I think it's fair to say. He was an NUM activist and ally of Arthur Scargill - actually not just an ally but the man who ran his Presidential campaign in 1981 - and when first elected he was a member of the SCG. He was (quite famously) attacked by a police officer while on a picket line during the Miners Strike and won damages. He later became an ally of Kinnock's (and later a supporter of Blair's), a critic of Scargill and the head of the New Clause IV Campaign... and was eventually expelled from the NUM on political grounds. His later career has been less dramatic - much of it spent on Committee work: he has chaired the Standards and Privileges Committee since 2010 and chaired the Health committee 2005-10 - and has been characterised by endless campaigning on health issues especially against the tobacco industry.

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Margaret Beckett (Labour - Derby South)

Once a Bennite, she moved rightwards (though not actually all the way to the Right) following Benn's 1988 challenge to Kinnock. Elected Deputy in 1992 and subsequently stood in as acting Leader following the death of John Smith in 1994. Failed in her bid of that same year to became Leader outright and also lost the Deputy role to John Prescott (who had made a deal with Tony Blair). Served in various Cabinet positions in the 1997-2010 government, including that of Foreign Secretary.

Most would probably be surprised to learn that she is still an MP.

And her post 1983 stint for Derby South isn't the first time she was an MP either: she was the MP for Lincoln 1974-79, defeating proto-SDPer Dick Taverne in the October GE. As that was before she married she was Margaret Jackson at the time.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Bellingham is a descendant of John Bellingham, the man who assassinated Spencer Perceval in 1812. When he lost his seat in the 1997 landslide the Labour majority (1,339) was significantly less than the vote polled by the Referendum Party candidate (2,923) one Roger Percival who claimed descent from none other than Spencer Perceval.

But that whole thing aside, Bellingham is a remarkably uninteresting shires Tory MP except to the extent that he is stereotypical to the point of archetype: Eton, Cambridge, a short stint in the military, a brief period as a practicing barrister, extensive business interests outside Parliament.

Is there any particular reason they changed the name from King's Lynn to NW Norfolk?

Because the Boundary Commission is boring. The justification will have been that only a minority of the constituency lives in Lynn: they used the same to rename Leominster as North Herefordshire for the 2010 election.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The richest MP and also an actual slum landlord.

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Regarding Benn, I have long suspected that he does not need to wear glasses.

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In 1992 he was the Conservative candidate in Bristol South, challenging the Labour incumbent 'Red' Dawn Primarolo, who would later serve (2010-15) as one of the Deputy Speakers. Yeah they both moved towards the centre as they got older.

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In political terms at least Berger is hard as nails (it must run in the family: one suspects that she would respond to direct racist abuse in much the same manner as her great uncle; i.e. with sudden surprisingly effective physical violence) and is not without political ambition. Worth noting that unlike most politicians with a background in the murky world student politics she's a good media performer.

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Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour- City of Durham)

Has served as a Minister and as a Shadow Minister. Her seat was once a major Lib Dem target; they are now in fourth place.

Though is historically a safe Labour seat - held since 1922 with only one break (1931-35, obviously) and usually with big majorities - as the pit villages that surround Durham City provide a very high base vote.

Anyway, Blackman-Woods (who is from Northern Ireland originally) is an academic representing a university constituency and is a much more capable politician than the last academic to represent Durham City (Mark Hughes, 1970-87). She's an expert on housing policy, so hopefully whoever wins the leadership keeps her as Shadow Housing Minister.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

one suspects that she would respond to direct racist abuse in much the same manner as her great uncle; i.e. with sudden surprisingly effective physical violence

Could you elaborate on this?

I could, but I think I'll just link to the Hansard account as its funnier.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And in one of those constituencies where the Community union has a degree of political clout over Labour selections. Spent much of his first term as an MP engaged in a factional war with the now former dominant players in the Labour group on Redcar & Cleveland council: he won and there were many deselections. Succeeded the late (and very popular) Ashok Kumar in 2010.