UK general election, 1987 - UK general election, 1987 The general election of June 11, 1987 was the third victory in a row for Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives. She was the first leader since the 2nd Earl of Liverpool to have three successive terms in office. The Conservative government had survived the industrial disputes with the mine workers (1984-85) and the print unions (1985-86), the 1986 Westland problems had been put aside with the loss of Michael Heseltine and Leon Brittan and the economy was performing well. Labour was in the throes of modernization and a return to more centralist policies under Neil Kinnock but expected to do better than in 1983. The SDP and the Liberalss renewed their Alliance and continued to split the non-Conservative vote; neither Alliance leader.
UK general election, 1992 - UK general election, 1992 The general election of April 9, 1992, was the fourth victory in a row for the Conservatives. Margaret Thatcher had been forced out of office in November 1990 and John Major, poorly regarded by some, succeeded her. During his term leading up to the 1992 elections he oversaw the British involvement in the Gulf War, abolished the disliked poll tax in favour of council tax and signed the Maastricht treaty. Like other leaders of major industrialized nations, he failed to halt the economy's slide into recession. Major waited until his Chancellor, Norman Lamont, had delivered a budget before announcing the date of the election on March 11. Some claimed the budget represented populist tax-cutting. Labour entered the campaign full of confidence; under.
United Kingdom general elections - United Kingdom general elections United Kingdom general elections are the times when the Members of Parliament forming the House of Commons are elected. Terms last for a maximum of five years. Candidates aim to win an election in a particular geographic constituency in the UK, and almost all are members of a political party. There are 659 constituencies, and thus 659 MPs. Most voters choose who to vote for based on the candidates' parties, rather than the personalities or opinions of the candidates. Timing A general election must take place before each parliamentary term begins. Since the maximum term of a parliament is five years, the interval between successive general elections can exceed that period by no more than the combined length of the election campaign and time.
The Labour Party (UK) - The Labour Party (UK) The Labour Party is a centre-left or social democratic political party in Great Britain, and one of the United Kingdom's three main political parties, and since 1997 has dominated British politics. Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Structure 2 Early Years 3 The Split Under MacDonald 4 Post-War Victory to the 1960s 5 The 1970s 6 The Thatcher Years 7 New Labour 8 Leaders of the Labour Party since 1906 9 Deputy Leaders of the Labour Party since 1922 10 See also Structure The Labour Party is a membership organization consisting of Constituency Labour Parties, affiliated trade unions, and socialist societies. Members who are elected to parliamentary positions take part in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) and European Parliamentary Labour Party (EPLP). The party's decision-making.
Chris Smith (UK politician) - Chris Smith (UK politician) The Rt Hon Christopher Robert Smith (born July 24, 1951) is a British Labour Party Member of Parliament and former Cabinet minister. He was the UK's first openly homosexual MP, coming out in 1984. Chris Smith attended Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he gained a PhD with a thesis on Coleridge and Wordsworth, and was President of the Union. He worked for a housing charity and became a councillor in the London Borough of Islington before narrowly winning the seat of Islington South at the 1983 general election. He became an opposition whip in 1986, a shadow Treasury minister from 1987 to 1992, and shadowed the environment, heritage, pensions and health portfolios between 1992 and 1997. In 1997 he was appointed to Tony Blair's Cabinet.
Social Democratic Party (UK) - Social Democratic Party (UK) The British Social Democratic Party (SDP) is a defunct United Kingdom political party which existed between 1981 and 1990. It was created in 1981 as a centrist breakaway group from the Labour Party by those who thought the Labour Party had moved too far to the left, making it unelectable and leaving the Conservative Party effectively unchallenged. The founding members, the "gang of four", were senior Labour moderates: the leader Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers, and Shirley Williams. They announced the new party at a press conference and outlined their policies in the "Limehouse declaration". The SDP did not prosper. It created the SDP-Liberal Alliance with the Liberal Party late in 1981, under the joint leadership of Roy Jenkins (SDP) and David Steel (Lib)..
Liberal Democrats (UK) - Liberal Democrats (UK) The Liberal Democrats ("Lib Dems") are a politically liberal and social democratic political party based in the United Kingdom. The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the Liberal Party, and the short lived Social Democratic Party, (the two parties had already been in an alliance for some years). At the time of the merger, in 1988, the party was named the Social and Liberal Democrats (SLD). It changed to the current name in October 1989. Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Electoral results 2 Politics and Policies 2.1 Policies 3 Leaders of the Liberal Democrats, 1988-Present 4 Shadow Cabinet 5 External Link Electoral results In recent United Kingdom general elections they have emerged the third most popular party behind Labour and the Conservatives..
Ken Livingstone - in Lambeth, London. He was Labour MP for Brent East between 1987 and 2001. He is also known as "Red Ken", a tabloid sobriquet, and is famous for his predilection for keeping newts. Livingstone worked for eight years as a cancer research technician and also trained as a teacher. He was elected to the Lambeth borough council in 1971 and served as Vice-Chair of the Housing Committee from 1971 to 1973. (Among his fellow Lambeth councillors was John Major.) He became a Labour member of the Greater London Council in 1973 and served as Vice-Chair of Housing Mangement in 1974-1975. He also served on the Camden council from 1978 to 1982 and unsuccessfully stood for Parliament in the 1979 general election. Livingstone was re-admitted to the Labour Party in January 2004.
Kenneth Clarke - July 2, 1940) is a moderate, pro-Europe UK Conservative party MP for Rushcliffe, near Nottingham. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1993 until 1997. He is noted for his scruffy clothes, especially footwear; his love of jazz and for being a birdwatcher. He is president of the Tory Reform Group. Early life Born in Nottingham, Clarke was educated at the Nottingham High School (then a "direct grant" school) and went on to study law at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He was called to the bar in 1963 and married Gillian Edwards in November 1964. He had joined the Conservatives while at university, where he was chairman of the Cambridge University Conservative Association for an eight week term. He first gained notoriety in this post when he invited the fascist.
Jack Straw (politician) - Secretary in the Labour government of 1997-2001, and became Foreign Secretary after the 2001 UK general election. Born in Essex, and brought up by a single mother on a council estate, he was educated at Brentwood School (where he took the name "Jack" after the 14th century peasant leader Jack Straw) and the University of Leeds. During his time as president of the Leeds students' union, and subsequently of the National Union of Students, he was regarded as a radical on issues of social equality and race, though he opposed drugs. He qualified as a barrister and practised criminal law before becoming a political adviser to Labour ministers in 1974-77 and then a television journalist. He is Member of Parliament for Blackburn, a seat he won after the retirement, in 1979,.
Ireland in the 20th Century - and Dublin (football) 1902 Archbishop Croke, patron of the GAA, dies at the age of 78. Waterford City confer the freedom of the city on John Redmond. The centenary of the Christian Brothers is celebrated. The UK Liberal Party stops its support for Home Rule. The All-Ireland Champions are Cork (hurling) and Dublin (football) 1903 St. Patrick's day becomes a national holiday in Ireland. Erskine Childers publishes The Riddle of the Sands. The Wyndham Land Act is passed - it solves the land purchase problem. The Independent Orange Order is founded in Belfast. The All-Ireland Champions are Cork (hurling) and Kerry (football) 1904 The Abbey Theatre is founded in Dublin June 10 - Bloomsday. James Joyce meets Nora Barnacle for the first time. The All-Ireland Champions are Kilkenny (hurling) and Kerry.
History of Gibraltar - attained full internal self-government, with an elected House of Assembly. The preamble to the Constitution stated that "Her Majesty's Government will never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their freely and democratically expressed wishes." Major Robert (later Sir Robert) Peliza of the Integration With Britain Party (IWBP) was elected Chief Minister in 1969, although Joshua (later Sir Joshua) Hassan of the Association for the Advancement of Civil Rights (AACR) was returned to power in 1972. In 1976, the IWBP broke up after the British Foreign Office Minister Roy Hattersley ruled out integration with the UK, and was succeeded by the Democratic Party of British Gibraltar. In response, Spain closed the border with Gibraltar in 1969, and severed all communication.
History of Israel - The Lavon Affair 4 1956 Suez War 5 Six-Day War 6 The Yom Kippur War 7 "Zionism is Racism" Resolution 8 Egyptian-Israeli Peace Process 9 Lebanon 10 First Intifada 11 Gulf War 12 Immigration from the former Soviet Union 13 Middle East Peace Process 14 Assassination of Rabin 15 Election of Netanyahu 16 Hebron and Wye River Agreements 17 Recent History 18 Official Documents Zionism and Israel The creation of the State of Israel in 1948 was preceded by more than 50 years of efforts by Zionist leaders to establish a sovereign nation as a homeland for Jews. The desire of Jews to return to what they consider their rightful homeland was first expressed during the Babylonian exile and became a universal Jewish theme after the destruction of Jerusalem by the.
History of British Socialism - most importent of these groups were: The Diggers, utopians The Fifth Monarchists, wanted more measures to help the poor and the abolition of tithes The Levellers, probably the most important of the three groups, the Levellers are usually held to be the fathers of British Socialism. They were lead by John Lilburne, and advocated: voting rights for all adult males annual elections complete religious freedom an end to the censorship of books and newspapers the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords trial by jury an end to taxation of people earning less than £30 a year a maximum interest rate of 6%. Although the Levellers had little effect on Oliver Cromwell's government, they did have a big effect on later generations. The Industrial Revolution and Robert Owen The.
Houston, Texas - with different functions in the community. The wards are no longer political divisions, but their names are still used. The Texas Government started to promote colonization of the state. The Allen brothers started to promote their town. The Allen brothers were not particularly honest to the people whom they settled. They boasted of waterfalls in their advertisements when all Houston had were bayous. However, Houston did get many perks very quickly, since the brothers really wanted their city to succeed. Digging for a proposed Port of Houston began when Congress approved a move to dig out the Buffalo Bayou on January 9, 1842. $2000 came as financial aid. Houstonians had mixed opinions over the apparent statehood of their country. When Mexico was threatening Texas, President Sam Houston moved the capital to.
George Galloway - often controversial opinions (on Iraq and other subjects) have led him to be both widely admired and condemned. Born in Dundee, Galloway became a factory worker on leaving school. He later became a Labour Party organiser and General Secretary of the charity War on Want before being elected to the House of Commons at the 1987 general election, defeating the former SDP leader Roy Jenkins in Glasgow Hillhead. George Galloway was married from 1979 to 1999 to Elaine Fyffe, with whom he has a daughter. In 2000 he married Dr Amireh Abu-Zayyad, a Palestinian academic. Galloway is an unreconstructed left-winger. He is a voluble opponent of privatisation and nuclear weapons at a time when the "New Labour" government and the Labour Party are in favour of both. He has gained most.
Graham Allen - Graham Allen Graham Allen, a member of the UK Parliament, was returned to the backbenches in the reshuffle following the 2001 general election. His frontbench career always promised more than he got the chance to deliver. After helping to organise Tony Blair's leadership campaign he was given a series of shadow portfolios, including transport and constitution, but in office he never rose higher than government whip. It may have been his radicalism which prevented his ministerial career rising further. Mr Allen he is one of Labour's most enthusiastic proponents of constitutional reform, and supports proportional representation for Westminster and a fully elected House of Lords. He introduced a bill calling for a written constitution in the UK. In November 2000, he published a book claiming that the UK effectively had a.
Elvis Costello - the basis of a demo tape, he was signed to Stiff Records. His manager at Stiff, Jake Riviera suggested a name change (using Presley's first name and his mother's maiden name to form "Elvis Costello") and teamed him with a country/soft rock band named "Clover" (who would later back Huey Lewis as 'The News'). Costello's first album, My Aim Is True (1977) was a moderate commercial success (#14 in the UK and Top 40 in the US) with Costello appearing on the cover in his trademark glasses bearing a striking resemblance to Buddy Holly. Its release saw Costello marketed by Stiff a as a new wave artist or a punk, despite fact that the album featured the ballad "Alison" (one of his most enduring songs). The same year, Costello recruited his.
David Blunkett - and became the youngest-ever councillor on Sheffield City Council at the age of 22. He became well-known as a left-wing figure while leader of that council in the 1980s, and was elected to the Labour Party's National Executive Committee. At the 1987 general election he was elected MP for Sheffield Brightside. He became a party spokesman on local government, joined the shadow cabinet in 1992 as Shadow Health Secretary, and became Shadow Education Secretary in 1994. Combining reforming zeal with social conservatism, he became a favourite of new party leader Tony Blair. After Labour's landslide victory in the 1997 general election he became the UK's first blind cabinet minister as Secretary of State for Education and Employment. Education Secretary was a vital role in a government whose Prime Minister had described.
David Mellor - became member of Parliament for Putney in 1979, and was made Queen's Counsel in 1987. He was Chief Secretary to the Treasury between 1990 and 1992 when he was given the newly created Department for National Heritage. However, he was forced to resigned as Secretary of State for National Heritage later that year, amid media coverage of his affair with actress Antonia de Sancha. He contested the UK general election, 1997 but lost his seat. He was made head of the incoming Labour government's 'Football Task Force' in 1997. Until 2001 he was a presenter on BBC Radio 5..
