Matthew Gordon-Banks (born 21 June 1961) is a British former Conservative Party politician who was elected in 1992 as the

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

for

Southport Southport is a seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. At the 2001 census, it had a population of 90,336, making it the eleventh most populous settlement in North West England. Southport lies on the Iris ...

, but lost his seat in 1997. Gordon-Banks left the Conservative Party in 2004 to join the Liberal Democrats. In 2016, he was suspended from his membership of the Liberal Democrats.

Early life and career

Gordon-Banks graduated with a BA (Hons) in History and Economics from Sheffield Hallam University.Biography, '' Who's Who''. He served in the 1st Battalion, 51st Highland Volunteers, from 1979 to 1981 before attending the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and being commissioned into the

Gordon Highlanders Gordon may refer to: People * Gordon (given name), a masculine given name, including list of persons and fictional characters * Gordon (surname), the surname * Gordon (slave), escaped to a Union Army camp during the U.S. Civil War * Clan Gord ...

in 1981.Matthew Banks appointed as PPS to Curry and Jones
/ref> After leaving the Army in 1983 with a war disablement pension he worked for

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and in 1984 he was elected as Conservative member for the

Heswall Heswall is a town on the Wirral, Merseyside, England. At the 2001 Census, the population was 16,012, including the nearby villages of Barnston and Gayton. Before local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974 it was part of the administr ...

Ward on Wirral Borough Council, serving as chairman of the Schools Committee from 1985 to 1986 and the Works Committee from 1986 to 1987. He was re-elected with 75% of the vote in 1988 before standing down from the council in 1990. From 1988 to 1989, he worked as private secretary to

Cecil Franks Cecil Simon Franks (1 July 1935 – 2 February 2014) was a British solicitor and politician from Manchester. He was the Member of Parliament for Barrow and Furness from the 1983 General Election until the 1992 General Election. Franks was ...

, Conservative MP for Barrow and Furness, and from 1989 he was a senior adviser on the Middle-East affairs for LBJ Ltd. In the 1987 general election, Gordon-Banks was the Conservative candidate for Manchester Central, a safe Labour seat.

Parliamentary career

In 1990, Gordon-Banks was selected to contest

and was elected as the constituency's Member of Parliament (MP) 1992, gaining the seat from the

Liberal Democrat Several political parties from around the world have been called the Liberal Democratic Party or Liberal Democrats. These parties usually follow a liberal democratic ideology. Active parties Former parties See also *Liberal democracy *Lib ...

Ronnie Fearn. In Parliament, he served on the

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from 1992 to 1997. He was also chairman of the Anglo-Venezuela Parliamentary Group and secretary of the Anglo-United Arab Emirates Parliamentary Group from 1993 to 1997. In 1997, Fearn regained the seat from Gordon-Banks.

Later career

Gordon-Banks represented

Northleach Northleach is a market town and former civil parish, now in parish Northleach with Eastington, in the Cotswold district, in Gloucestershire, England. The town is in the valley of the River Leach in the Cotswolds, about northeast of Cirenceste ...

Cotswold District Council The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Jura ...

from 2000 to 2004, sitting as an

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and chairing the Overview and Scrutiny Committee for two years. After re-election unopposed in May 2004, he resigned from the council in November of that year. Gordon-Banks received an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

from the Donald Harrison School of Business at Southeast Missouri State University in 2001. From 2002 to 2006, he was an adviser to the Joint Security Industry Council and in 2004, he joined the

Defence Academy of the United Kingdom The Defence Academy of the United Kingdom provides higher education for personnel in the British Armed Forces, Civil Service, other government departments and service personnel from other nations. The Director General of the Defence Academy is ...

as a Senior Research Fellow, Middle East and South Asia, a post he held until 2012. From 2006 to 2010, he was a Senior Adviser regarding the Middle East and South East Asia in the Advanced Research and Assessment Group of the Defence Academy.

Party defection and expulsion

In 2004, Gordon-Banks switched party allegiance to the Liberal Democrats, joining the party's Executive Committee in Moray, Scotland. Gordon-Banks was suspended from the Liberal Democrats in 2016 after an antisemitic

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tweet: "Farron's leadership campaign was organised and funded by London Jews". Marie van der Zyl, Vice President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said, "The comments by Matthew Gordon Banks on Twitter are of very deep concern. He talks about Jews and money and hints at the age-old canard of the 'Jewish conspiracy'. He must urgently clarify and apologise for his comments, otherwise, we would expect the Liberal Democrat Party to invoke disciplinary procedures".

Personal life

Gordon-Banks married Jane Miller in 1992 and has a son and a daughter. He has a home in Charlbury, West Oxfordshire. In 2017 Gordon-Banks was jailed for crashing his Jaguar into a camper occupied by a 71-year-old man, for driving his motor vehicle at over twice the drink-drive limit, failing to stop for police and driving whilst banned and without insurance. In February 2017 Gordon-Banks was banned from the roads for driving whilst over the alcohol limit. In both cases his defence pled

PTSD Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on ...

in mitigation.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon-Banks, Matthew 1961 births Living people Gordon Banks, Matthew Banks, Matthew Gordon Highlanders officers Graduates of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Liberal Democrats (UK) councillors Alumni of Sheffield Hallam University Southeast Missouri State University alumni 51st Highland Volunteers soldiers Councillors in Merseyside Councillors in Gloucestershire People from Moray