Mike Thomas (politician)
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Mike Thomas (politician)
Michael Stuart Thomas (born 24 May 1944) is a former British politician, identified with the Labour Party until 1981 and thereafter with the Social Democratic Party (SDP). He became well known for his role in both the establishment of the SDP and then in the SDP's subsequent demise. The SDP's leader, Roy Jenkins, referred to Thomas as the "pint-sized Pavarotti", on the basis of his stocky build and beard together with his ebullient manner. Early life Thomas was educated at the Latymer Upper School and King's School, Macclesfield. In the 1950s both were direct grant grammar schools to which many pupils, including Thomas, were admitted on the basis of local authority scholarships. He studied at Liverpool University from 1962 to 1966, graduating with a BA degree in Economics and Politics. From 1965 to 1966 he served as President of the Liverpool University Guild of Undergraduates and from 1966 to 1968 he was a member of the National Executive of the National Union of Student ...
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Member Of Parliament (United Kingdom)
In the United Kingdom, a member of Parliament (MP) is an individual elected to serve in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Electoral system All 650 members of the UK House of Commons are elected using the first-past-the-post voting system in single member constituencies across the whole of the United Kingdom, where each constituency has its own single representative. Elections All MP positions become simultaneously vacant for elections held on a five-year cycle, or when a snap election is called. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 set out that ordinary general elections are held on the first Thursday in May, every five years. The Act was repealed in 2022. With approval from Parliament, both the 2017 and 2019 general elections were held earlier than the schedule set by the Act. If a vacancy arises at another time, due to death or resignation, then a constituency vacancy may be filled by a by-election. Under the Representation of the People Act 1981 ...
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East Hertfordshire (UK Parliament Constituency)
East Hertfordshire was a parliamentary constituency in the county of Hertfordshire from 1955 to 1983. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. History and Boundaries The constituency was created for the 1955 general election, comprising the Urban Districts of Bishop's Stortford, Cheshunt, Hoddesdon, Sawbridgeworth, and Ware, and the Rural Districts of Braughing and Ware. The bulk of the constituency was formed from the majority of the Hertford constituency which was significantly revised. A part of the Rural District of Braughing was transferred from Hitchin. For the February 1974 general election, the Urban District of Ware was transferred to the new constituency of Hertford and Stevenage. The constituency was abolished for the 1983 general election. Southern parts (consisting the majority of the electorate), largely comprising the former Urban Districts of Cheshunt and Hoddesdon (combined to form the ...
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Exeter (UK Parliament Constituency)
Exeter is a constituency composed of the cathedral city and county town of Devon represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. The constituency has had a history of representatives from 1900 of Conservative, Liberal Party, Independent and Labour representation. History The constituency has been held by Labour since 1997. The Labour Party currently has a majority of over 10,000, suggesting this is a safe seat for the party. Constituency profile The constituency covers the majority of this affluent city, including the University and the Met Office which are significant employers. Boundaries 1918–1950: The County Borough of Exeter. 1950–1974: As prior but with redrawn boundaries. 1974–1983: As prior but with redrawn boundaries. 1983–2010: The City of Exeter. 2010–present: The City of Exeter wards of Alphington, Cowick, Duryard, Exwick, Heavitree, Mincinglake, Newtown, Pennsylvania, Pinhoe, Polsloe, Priory, St David's, St James, St Leonard's, ...
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1983 United Kingdom General Election
The 1983 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 9 June 1983. It gave the Conservative Party under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher the most decisive election victory since that of the Labour Party in 1945, with a majority of 144 seats. Thatcher's first term as Prime Minister had not been an easy time. Unemployment increased during the first three years of her premiership and the economy went through a recession. However, the British victory in the Falklands War led to a recovery of her personal popularity, and economic growth had begun to resume. By the time Thatcher called the election in May 1983, opinion polls pointed to a Conservative victory, with most national newspapers backing the re-election of the Conservative government. The resulting win earned the Conservatives their biggest parliamentary majority of the post-war era, and their second-biggest majority as a single-party government, behind only the 1924 election (they earned even more seats in ...
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Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Conservative Party, in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Beginning as an alliance of Whigs, free trade–supporting Peelites and reformist Radicals in the 1850s, by the end of the 19th century it had formed four governments under William Gladstone. Despite being divided over the issue of Irish Home Rule, the party returned to government in 1905 and won a landslide victory in the 1906 general election. Under prime ministers Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1905–1908) and H. H. Asquith (1908–1916), the Liberal Party passed reforms that created a basic welfare state. Although Asquith was the party leader, its dominant figure was David Lloyd George. Asquith was overwhelmed by the wartime role of coalition prime minister and Lloyd George replaced him in late 1916, but Asquith remained as Liberal Party leader. The split between Lloyd George's breakaway faction and Asquith's official ...
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William Rodgers, Baron Rodgers Of Quarry Bank
William Thomas Rodgers, Baron Rodgers of Quarry Bank, (born 28 October 1928) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Transport from 1976 to 1979, and was one of the ' Gang of Four' of senior British Labour Party politicians who defected to form the Social Democratic Party (SDP). He subsequently helped to lead the SDP into the merger that formed the Liberal Democrats in 1988, and later served as that party's leader in the House of Lords between 1997 and 2001. Early life Rodgers was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, and educated at Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool. After national service in the King's Regiment (Liverpool), he studied Modern History at Magdalen College, Oxford on an Open Exhibition. He was general secretary of the Fabian Society from 1953 to 1960 and a councillor on St Marylebone Borough Council from 1958 to 1962. He was instrumental in lobbying the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party to reverse its vote in favour of unilat ...
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Campaign For Labour Victory
The Campaign for Democratic Socialism or CDS was a social democratic and democratic socialist organisation in the British Labour Party, serving as a pressure group representing the right wing of the party. Established in 1960, the CDS was composed of Gaitskellites, Labour members who supported the then-party leader, Hugh Gaitskell. The origins of the CDS can be traced to the 1959 general election, which Labour was largely expected to win, but lost due to the Conservatives exploiting public uncertainty over the Labour economic programme. Gaitskell had promised that there would be no new taxes under his administration should he become Prime Minister, not wanting to tamper with the prosperity that had emerged in Britain under the Conservative governments of Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, and Harold Macmillan. However, the Bevanites – the left wing faction of the Labour Party – had pushed through an electoral manifesto stating it would raise taxes to support increased gov ...
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Parliamentary Labour Party
In UK politics, the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) is the parliamentary group of the Labour Party in Parliament, i.e. Labour MPs as a collective body. Commentators on the British Constitution sometimes draw a distinction between the Labour Party (which was created outside Parliament and later achieved office) and the Conservative and Liberal parties (which began as parliamentary factions). The term Parliamentary Labour Party refers to the party in Parliament, whereas the term Labour Party refers to the entire Labour Party, the parliamentary element of which is the PLP. A similar body for the Conservative Party is the 1922 Committee. An organisation for former members, the ''PLP in exile'', was established after the 2010 general election. Role The PLP holds regular meetings behind closed doors to question the Leader and to discuss its concerns. Labour MPs elect three of their number to Labour's National Executive Committee. Originally, the Leader of the Labour Party w ...
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Roy Hattersley
Roy Sydney George Hattersley, Baron Hattersley, (born 28 December 1932) is a British Labour Party politician, author and journalist from Sheffield. He was MP for Birmingham Sparkbrook for over 32 years from 1964 to 1997, and served as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1983 to 1992. Early life Hattersley was born on 28 December 1932 in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, to Enid Brackenbury and Frederick Roy Hattersley (1902–1973; also known by his middle name), who married in the 1950s. His mother was a city councillor, and later served as Lord Mayor of Sheffield (1981). His father, at various times a police officer, clerk at Sheffield town hall, and chairman of the council's Health Committee, was a former Roman Catholic priest, the parish priest at St Joseph's at Shirebrook in Derbyshire, who renounced the church and left the priesthood to cohabit with Hattersley's mother, Enid, a married woman at whose wedding he had officiated two weeks earlier; Frederick ultima ...
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Parliamentary Private Secretary
A Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) is a Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom who acts as an unpaid assistant to a minister or shadow minister. They are selected from backbench MPs as the 'eyes and ears' of the minister in the House of Commons. PPSs are junior to Parliamentary Under-Secretaries of State, a ministerial post salaried by one or more departments. Duties and powers of a PPS Although not paid other than their salary as an MP, PPSs help the government to track backbench opinion in Parliament. They are subject to some restrictions as outlined in the Ministerial Code of the British government but are not members of the Government. A PPS can sit on select committees but must avoid "associating themselves with recommendations critical of, or embarrassing to the Government", and must not make statements or ask questions on matters affecting the minister's department. In particular, the PPS in the Department for Communities and Local Government may no ...
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October 1974 United Kingdom General Election
The October 1974 United Kingdom general election took place on Thursday 10 October 1974 to elect 635 members of the British House of Commons. It was the second general election held that year, the first year that two general elections were held in the same year since 1910, and the first time that two general elections were held less than a year apart from each other since the 1923 and 1924 elections, which took place 10 months apart. The election resulted in the Labour Party led by Harold Wilson winning a bare majority of just 3 seats. This enabled the remainder of the Labour government, 1974–1979 to take place, which saw a gradual loss of its majority. The election of February that year had produced an unexpected hung parliament. Coalition talks between the Conservatives and other parties such as the Liberals and the Ulster Unionists failed, allowing Labour leader Harold Wilson to form a minority government. The October campaign was not as vigorous or exciting as the o ...
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London King's Cross Railway Station
King's Cross railway station, also known as London King's Cross, is a passenger railway terminus in the London Borough of Camden, on the edge of Central London. It is in the London station group, one of the busiest stations in the United Kingdom and the southern terminus of the East Coast Main Line to North East England and Scotland. Adjacent to King's Cross station is St Pancras International, the London terminus for Eurostar services to continental Europe. Beneath both main line stations is King's Cross St Pancras tube station on the London Underground; combined they form one of the country's largest and busiest transport hubs. The station was opened in Kings Cross in 1852 by the Great Northern Railway on the northern edge of Central London to accommodate the East Coast Main Line. It quickly grew to cater for suburban lines and was expanded several times in the 19th century. It came under the ownership of the London and North Eastern Railway as part of the Big Four g ...
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