Michael Clapham (born 15 May 1943) is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Barnsley West and Penistone from

1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

Early life

Born in Darton, in

Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. It is the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. The town's population was 71,422 in 2021, while the wider boroug ...

, Clapham was educated at the Darton Secondary Modern School on Churchfield Lane (now Darton High School) and the Barnsley Technical College. After leaving school in 1958, he was a coal miner for 12 years before he returned to education at Leeds Polytechnic, where he received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

degree with

honours Honour (Commonwealth English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is a quality of a person that is of both social teaching and personal ethos, that manifests itself as a code of conduct, and has various elements such as valo ...

in 1973. He earned a Postgraduate Certificate in Education at the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

in 1974, and a

Master of Philosophy A Master of Philosophy (MPhil or PhM; Latin ' or ') is a postgraduate degree. The name of the degree is most often abbreviated MPhil (or, at times, as PhM in other countries). MPhil are awarded to postgraduate students after completing at leas ...

at the

University of Bradford The University of Bradford is a public research university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. A plate glass university, it received its royal charter in 1966, making it the 40th university to be created in Britain, but ...

in 1990. In 1974, he lectured in trade union studies at the Whitwood College in

Castleford Castleford is a town within the City of Wakefield district, West Yorkshire, England. It had a population of 45,106 at a 2021 population estimate. Historic counties of England, Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, to the north of the t ...

(now the Whitwood Campus of

Wakefield College Wakefield College is a Further Education and Higher Education College in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. It has provided education in the city since 1868. On 1 March 2022, the college merged with Selby College to form the 'Heart of Yorkshi ...

), before joining the National Union of Mineworkers in 1977 as a claims officer, becoming its head of

industrial relations Industrial relations or employment relations is the multidisciplinary academic field that studies the employment relationship; that is, the complex interrelations between employers and employees, labor union, labor/trade unions, employer organ ...

in 1983, the position he held for the duration of the miners' strike of 1984–1985, he stepped down on his election to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

in 1992.

Parliamentary career

Clapham was the treasurer of the Barnsley West and Penistone Constituency Labour Party after 1983. He was elected as the MP there at the 1992 General Election following the retirement of Allen McKay, holding the seat with a majority of 14,504. He made his

maiden speech A maiden speech is the first speech given by a newly elected or appointed member of a legislature or parliament. Traditions surrounding maiden speeches vary from country to country. In many Westminster system governments, there is a convention th ...

, speaking on the concerns in the local coal mining industry, on 6 May 1992. Clapham is a

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...

er and was a member of the Socialist Campaign Group, rebelling against the government on various issues. He was a member of the Trade and Industry Committee from 1992 to 1997 and again from 2003; in between he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Alan Milburn following the 1997 general election, but he resigned over

Harriet Harman Harriet Ruth Harman, Baroness Harman, (born 30 July 1950), is a British politician and solicitor who served as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and Chair of the Labour Party (UK), Chair of the Labour Pa ...

's decision to cut lone parent benefits in December of that year. He used to be very loyal to his old boss

Arthur Scargill Arthur Scargill (born 11 January 1938) is a British trade unionist who was President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1982 to 2002. He is best known for leading the 1984–1985 UK miners' strike, a major event in the history o ...

, but later criticised him for being too Stalinist. His voting record shows him to be against many of

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He was Leader ...

's policies, including ID cards, student top-up fees and the Iraq war. Clapham announced he would stand down at the next general election; his constituency became part of the new constituency of Penistone and Stocksbridge.

Personal life

Clapham is a Distinguished Supporter of

Humanists UK Humanists UK, known from 1967 until May 2017 as the British Humanist Association (BHA), is a charitable organisation which promotes secular humanism and aims to represent Irreligion in the United Kingdom, non-religious people in the UK throug ...

. He is also a supporter of

Republic A republic, based on the Latin phrase ''res publica'' ('public affair' or 'people's affair'), is a State (polity), state in which Power (social and political), political power rests with the public (people), typically through their Representat ...

, a campaign to replace the

British monarchy The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the form of government used by the United Kingdom by which a hereditary monarch reigns as the head of state, with their powers Constitutional monarchy, regula ...

with an elected head of state. He has been married to Yvonne Hallsworth since 1965 and they have a son and a daughter.

References

External links

Michael Clapham, MP
* official site

* ttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/michael_clapham/barnsley_west_and_penistone TheyWorkForYou.com – Michael Clapham MP*
The Public Whip – Michael Clapham MP
voting record
BBC News Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clapham, Michael 1943 births Living people Alumni of Leeds Beckett University Alumni of the University of Bradford Alumni of the University of Leeds English humanists English republicans European democratic socialists Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies National Union of Mineworkers-sponsored MPs People from Darton Politics of Barnsley Politics of Penistone UK MPs 1992–1997 UK MPs 1997–2001 UK MPs 2001–2005 UK MPs 2005–2010 British Eurosceptics