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Catherine Ashton

Catherine Margaret Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, (born 20 March 1956) is a British Labour politician who served as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and First Vice President of the European Commission in the Barroso Commission from 2009 to 2014.

Her political career began in 1999 when she was created a life peer as Baroness Ashton of Upholland, of St Albans in the County of Hertfordshire, by Tony Blair's Labour government. She became the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education and Skills in 2001 and subsequently in the Ministry of Justice in 2004. She was appointed a Privy Councillor in May 2006 and Lady Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter in April 2023.

Ashton became Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council in Gordon Brown's first Cabinet in June 2007. She was instrumental in steering the EU's Treaty of Lisbon through the UK Parliament's upper chamber. In 2008, she was appointed as the British European Commissioner and became the Commissioner for Trade in the European Commission.

In December 2009, she became the inaugural High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy that was created by the Treaty of Lisbon. As High Representative, Ashton served as the EU's foreign policy chief. Despite being criticised by some, particularly at the time of her appointment and in the early stages of her term of office, for her limited previous experience of international diplomacy, Ashton subsequently won praise for her work as a negotiator in difficult international situations, in particular for her role in bringing Serbia and Kosovo to an agreement in April 2013 that normalised their ties, and in the P5+1 talks with Iran which led to the November 2013 Geneva interim agreement on the Iranian nuclear programme.

In January 2017, Ashton became Chancellor of the University of Warwick, succeeding Sir Richard Lambert and becoming Warwick's first female chancellor.

Early life
Catherine Ashton was born at Upholland, Lancashire, on 20 March 1956. She comes from a working-class family, with a background in coal mining.

Ashton attended Upholland Grammar School in Billinge Higher End, Lancashire, then Wigan Mining and Technical College, Wigan. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology in 1977 from Bedford College, London (now part of Royal Holloway, University of London). Ashton was the first person in her family to attend university.

United Kingdom
Between 1977 and 1983, Ashton worked for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) as an administrator and in 1982 was elected as its national treasurer and subsequently as one of its vice-chairs. From 1979 to 1981 she was business manager of the Coverdale Organisation, a management consultancy.

As of 1983 she worked for the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work. From 1983 to 1989 she was director of Business in the Community, working with business to tackle inequality, and she established the Employers' Forum on Disability, Opportunity Now, and the Windsor Fellowship. For most of the 1990s, she was a freelance policy adviser. She chaired the Health Authority in Hertfordshire from 1998 to 2001 and she became a vice-president of the National Council for One-Parent Families.

She was created a Labour Life Peer as Baroness Ashton of Upholland in 1999, under Prime Minister Tony Blair. In June 2001 she was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education and Skills. In 2002 she became Minister responsible for Sure Start in the same department, and in September 2004 she was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Department for Constitutional Affairs, with responsibilities including the National Archives and the Public Guardianship Office. Ashton was sworn of the Privy Council in 2006, and she became Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the new Ministry of Justice in May 2007.

In 2005 she was voted "Minister of the Year" by The House magazine and "Peer of the Year" by Channel 4. In 2006 she won the "Politician of the Year" award at the annual Stonewall Awards, made to those who had a positive impact on the lives of British LGBT people.

On 28 June 2007, Prime Minister Gordon Brown appointed Ashton to HM Cabinet as Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council. As Government Leader in the House of Lords, she was responsible for steering the Lisbon Treaty through the Upper House.

European Union
On 3 October 2008, Ashton was nominated by the UK to replace Peter Mandelson as the European Commissioner for Trade. Because European Commissioners may not engage in any other occupation during their term of office, whether gainful or not, she used the procedural device previously adopted in 1984 by Lord Cockfield and took a leave of absence from the House of Lords on 14 October 2008, retaining her peerage but not her seat.

During her term, Ashton represented the EU in negotiations related to a long-running dispute over beef with the United States (May 2009), led the EU delegation in an agreement with South Korea that removed virtually all tariffs between the two economies (October 2009) and represented the EU in ending a long-running dispute over banana imports, principally involving Latin America and the EU.

Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

On 19 November 2009, Ashton was appointed the EU's first High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security policy. Her appointment was agreed at a summit by 27 European Union leaders in Brussels. Having initially pushed for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to become President of the European Council, Gordon Brown eventually relented on the condition that the post of High Representative be awarded to a Briton.

Ashton's relative obscurity prior to her appointment prompted comment in the media. The Guardian newspaper reported that her appointment as High Representative had received a "cautious welcome... from international relations experts". The Economist described her as being a virtual unknown with paltry political experience, having no foreign-policy background and never having been elected to anything. The magazine credited her, however, with piloting the Lisbon Treaty through the House of Lords, handling the European Commission's Trade Portfolio without disagreement with her colleagues, and being suited to consensus-building.

Critics predicted she would be out of her depth. Nile Gardiner of The Heritage Foundation, who opposed a European Union role in foreign and security policy on principle, wrote in The Daily Telegraph "This may well be the most ridiculous appointment in EU history". Daniel Hannan, a British Conservative MEP, complained that she had "no background in trade issues at a time when the EU is engaged in critical negotiations with Canada, Korea and the WTO". The Guardian quoted an anonymous Whitehall source as commenting "Cathy just got lucky...The appointment of her and Herman Van Rompuy European Council president was a complete disgrace. They are no more than garden gnomes."

By contrast, former Home Secretary Charles Clarke said: "I have seen Cathy in action. I have great respect for her. She is excellent at building good relations with people and a good negotiator". Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, a human-rights pressure group, said: "people underestimate Cathy at their peril. She is not a great big bruiser. She is a persuader and a charmer. That is the secret of her success."

After a confirmation hearing by the Trade Committee of the European Parliament, Ashton was approved by the Parliament on 22 October 2008 by 538 to 40 votes, with 63 abstentions. She took office on 1 December 2009 for a five-year-term.

She was appointed Dame Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in the 2015 New Year Honours List for services to the European Common Foreign and Security Policy.

Notable events of her term as High Representative
Notable events of her term included:
 * Establishing the European External Action Service (1 December 2010), which merged the external relations departments of the European Commission and the Council of the European Union, and was to have diplomats seconded from national foreign services. Throughout the first half of 2010 Ashton sought agreement between the Council, the Parliament and the Commission over the shape of the EEAS. Parliament agreed to the plan on 8 July, when MEPs approved the service by 549 votes for and 78 against with 17 abstentions. The Council approved the transfer of departments to the EAS on 20 July. Until the EEAS became operational, Ashton had been supported by a staff of about 30 people.
 * Working with EU Special Representative Alexander Rondos to head Operation Atalanta: an EU military action off the coast of Somalia, which curtailed piracy (May 2012).
 * Helping to reach a deal between Serbia and Kosovo that normalised their ties (April 2013).
 * Successfully negotiating with the Egyptian Army a visit to the deposed president, Mohamed Morsi, in their custody. She reported that he was in good health and was well treated and aware of current affairs. (July 2013.)
 * Chairmanship of the P5+1 in their negotiations with Iran on nuclear matters in 2013, which led to the Geneva interim agreement on the Iranian nuclear programme (November 2013).
 * Her visit to Kyiv during Ukraine's Euromaidan protests.

Serbia-Kosovo
In April 2013, after two years of negotiations, the governments of Serbia and Kosovo reached agreement to normalise their relations. Although Serbia did not formally recognise Kosovo as an independent state, it did "in effect – concede that the government in Pristina has legal authority over the whole territory, including Serb-majority areas of northern Kosovo". In return, Kosovo agreed to grant a degree of autonomy to four Serb-majority areas. The agreement, which among other things removed obstacles to Serbia and Kosovo joining the European Union, followed Ashton's mediation of ten rounds of talks between Serbia's Prime Minister, Ivica Dacic, and Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci. A cross-party committee of the U.S. House of Representatives nominated Ashton and her fellow negotiators Dacic and Thaci for the Nobel Peace Prize. A similar nomination came from the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament

Iran
After the November 2013 negotiation of an interim agreement with Iran over its nuclear programme, the Financial Times wrote that Ashton was "no longer the diplomatic dilettante". A senior French diplomat was quoted as saying, "I tip my hat to her.... She truly played a decisive role". The report continued that, after initially insisting on negotiating only with other foreign ministers, by the latter stages of the negotiations the Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif "now... wanted to deal only with Lady Ashton". Said a western diplomat, "That the others agreed to this was significant. For China and Russia to be outside while she was in the room negotiating details was quite remarkable".

Ukraine
In December 2013 Ashton visited Kyiv. She said she was impressed by the "determination of Ukrainians demonstrating for the European perspective of their country" and observed "with sadness that police used force to remove peaceful people from the center of Kyiv... Dialogue with political forces and society and the use of arguments is always better than the argument of force". Subsequently, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin criticised Ashton's categorisation of the anti-government protests in Kyiv as peaceful in nature, pointing to the death of a number of police officers.

At the beginning of March a recording of a conversation between Ashton and the Estonian foreign minister Urmas Paet was released. In the call, Paet said he had been told by a woman doctor named Olga that snipers responsible for killing police and civilians in Kyiv last month were protest movement provocateurs rather than supporters of then-president Viktor Yanukovych. Ashton responds: "I didn't know … Gosh." "So there is a stronger and stronger understanding that behind snipers it was not Yanukovych, it was somebody from the new coalition", Paet says. Ashton replies: "I think we do want to investigate. I didn't pick that up, that's interesting. Gosh", she says. The Estonian foreign ministry confirmed the accuracy of the leak but clarified that "Foreign Minister Paet was giving an overview of what he had heard in Kyiv and expressed concern over the situation on the ground. We reject the claim that Paet was giving an assessment of the opposition's involvement in the violence." The woman doctor, Olga Bogomolets, said in an interview reported by Paul Waldie of The Globe and Mail that, in her conversation with the Estonian minister, "she did not indicate that protesters used snipers. She simply relayed to the Estonian minister what she saw that day – protesters shot in the head and heart. 'What I saw were people who were killed by snipers and only on [protesters'] side.'"

On 28 March 2014 Ashton issued a news release condemning violence by members of the Ukrainian nationalist political party Right Sector, stating, "I strongly condemn the pressure by activists of the Right Sector who have surrounded the building of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Such an intimidation of the parliament is against ... democratic principles and [the] rule of law. I call on the Right Sector and other parties in Ukraine to refrain from the use or threat of violence. They need to hand over any unauthorised arms to the authorities immediately."

Russia
President Putin signed the new treason law on 12 November 2012. Ashton expressed concern at the new law "potentially penalizing contacts with foreign nationals with up to 20 years in prison" and reducing "the burden of proof for charges of treason and espionage". The United Nations Committee Against Torture stated that the new law could prohibit sharing information on the human rights situation in Russia with the United Nations human rights organs. According to Ashton, the March 2013 inspection wave in Russia seemed aimed at "undermining civil society activities".

Egypt
Ashton condemned the "disproportionate" use of force by Egyptian security forces on August 14, 2013, when the security forces killed over 1000 people during the violent dispersal of mass anti-government sit-ins at Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya and al-Nahda squares.

Early phase as EU High Representative
Ashton was questioned by Members of the European Parliament in 2009 about her role as national treasurer in the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1980s, amid claims by its opponents that it may have had financial links to the Soviet Union. Ashton responded that she had not taken any "direct money from communist countries". Much of the organisation's funds had been "collected in buckets" at marches and demonstrations, she said, adding that she was the first to order an audit of CND's finances. Her spokesman said: "She never visited the Soviet Union, she had no contacts with the Soviet Union and she never accepted money from Soviet sources ... She has never been a member of the Communist Party".

In February 2010, Ashton was criticised within the EU community for not visiting Haiti in the wake of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. A number of defence ministers reportedly also complained that she had not attended a European Defence Summit in Majorca. More broadly, senior officials within her team were said to complain that she spoke only in "generalities". A rumour that she switched off her phone after 8 pm every day was greeted by Ashton with ridicule.

In February 2011, Ashton received the lowest grade in a survey rating the performance of European Commissioners. The survey, carried out by lobbying and PR company Burson-Marsteller, asked 324 Brussels policy-makers to rate the European Commissioners with a grade of A to E (A being the highest). Ashton scored an E for her performance, the only Commissioner to receive a grade below D.

In March 2012, Ashton was criticised by Israeli politicians for comparing the shooting of Jewish children in Toulouse with the situation in Gaza. Ashton told Palestinian youths at a UNRWA event, "When we think of what happened in Toulouse today, when we remember what happened in Norway a year ago, when we know what is happening in Syria, when we see what is happening in Gaza and Sderot and in different parts of the world – we remember young people and children who lose their lives." After she was quoted in the press as not having mentioned the Israeli city of Sderot, Israeli politicians denounced her for equating the murder of three children and a rabbi in the shooting attack with the situation in Gaza. Her spokesman stated that her remark had been "grossly distorted" and that she had also referenced Israeli victims in Sderot, but this fact had been omitted from the original transcript.

In counterpoint to earlier criticism of Ashton for not travelling enough, in September 2012 The Daily Telegraph criticised her for not being present in Brussels for enough European Commission meetings, reporting that Ashton had missed 21 out of 32 regular weekly meetings held so far that year. To the paper's complaint that Ashton's absences were "leaving Britain without a voice" at such meetings, European diplomatic officials said that, under EU treaties, commissioners serve as representatives not of individual member countries but of the European interest. Ashton's staff also pointed to her personal involvement in nuclear negotiations with Iran as among the international responsibilities that had kept her away from Commission meetings.

The Polish Minister for European and Economic Affairs, Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, stated in 2011 that criticism of Ashton was "a lot of hot air" and that "she has an impossible job to do and she is doing it well. At the end of her time in office, people will be more positive about what she has done. She will leave a real legacy."

Ashton was said in February 2010 to be angry over what she perceived as the "latent sexism" among some of her European peers that underpinned some of the criticisms aimed at her. She told the press that her work was sometimes hampered by the limited resources provided to her. She is not, for example, provided with her own aeroplane: something taken for granted by U.S. Secretaries of State.

Later phase as EU High Representative
The tone of public comment on Ashton's performance in office was subsequently to be influenced especially by her contributions to negotiations over Kosovo and Iran. In October 2013, Der Spiegel wrote of her:"But now the 57-year-old baroness is suddenly at the center of world diplomacy. And whenever she is mentioned, she earns praise for her hard-nosed negotiating skills, her stamina and her diplomatic talents. It is said that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has much faith in her. 'She is discreet and perceptive, but also tenacious. That makes her an ideal negotiator', says Alexander Graf Lamsdorff, the head of Germany's business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP) in the European Parliament and a member of its Committee on Foreign Affairs."

One of the critics of Ashton's appointment came to concede her effectiveness in office. In September 2013, Peter Oborne, the chief political commentator of The Daily Telegraph, wrote:"Well, let's admit we were all completely wrong. It is now obvious that Catherine Ashton has been a success. In her unobtrusive but determined way, she can boast real achievement. Last year a peace deal was struck between Serbia and Kosovo. Nobody had thought it possible. It was a massive step towards healing ancient hatreds and building economic prosperity. It was brokered by Baroness Ashton.... I have never met Baroness Ashton but I guess that one of her secrets is that she keeps her head down, does not flaunt her ego, and allows others to take the credit. It takes little imagination to envisage how a male politician from any of the main parties would have exploited the Kosovo peace-deal, or the Morsi visit. She just kept her head down and quietly got on with her job."

In July 2014, as discussions took place on the selection of Ashton's successor, Paul Taylor of Reuters wrote in The New York Times, as part of a larger critique of the political nature of appointments to the European Commission:"While Ms. Ashton had some successes, brokering a first accord between Serbia and Kosovo and leading negotiations for an interim nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, critics say she has too often been missing in action closer to home."

Reflecting on her record, in July 2014, Adam Boulton in the UK's Sunday Times concluded: "As the European Union's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Catherine Ashton still bestrides the international stage four years after Gordon Brown, the man who gave her the job, was expelled from the corridors of power. She was a surprise nominee to everyone including herself, and few would have expected then that her successor as Britain's commissioner would struggle to match Baroness Ashton in calibre and clout."

Personal life
Ashton lives in London with her husband, Peter Kellner, the former president of the online polling organisation, YouGov. Ashton and Kellner have been married since 1988. Ashton has two children and three stepchildren.

Publications

 * And Then What? Inside Stories of 21st-Century Diplomacy (Elliott & Thompson, London, 2023) ISBN 978-1-78396-634-9

Other activities
Catherine Ashton is a member of the Global Leadership Foundation, an organisation that works to support democratic leadership, prevent and resolve conflict through mediation and promote good governance in the form of democratic institutions, open markets, human rights and the rule of law. It does so by making available, discreetly and in confidence, the experience of former leaders to today's national leaders. It is a not-for-profit organisation composed of former heads of government, senior governmental and international organisation officials who work closely with heads of government on governance-related issues of concern to them.

She has been the Chancellor of the University of Warwick since 2016.

Awards
In February 2013, Ashton was assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4.

She was awarded an honorary degree from the University of East London in 2005.

British honours

 * Order_of_the_Garter_UK_ribbon.svg Lady Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (LG).
 * UK_Order_St-Michael_St-George_ribbon.svg Dame Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in the 2015 New Year Honours List, upon her retirement as EU high representative. In 2019 she was appointed King of Arms of the Order of St Michael and St George. She was appointed chancellor of the order in 2022, and represented the order at the coronation of Charles III and Camilla in 2023.

Foreign honours

 * SVK Rad Bieleho Dvojkriza 2 triedy BAR.svg 2nd Class of the Order of the White Double Cross (Slovakia)

title: Catherine Ashton


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Hypocrisy (band)

Hypocrisy is a Swedish death metal band formed in October 1991 in Ludvika by Peter Tägtgren. The band has released thirteen studio albums since their inception, with Tägtgren remaining the band's only continuous member.

History
After spending three years in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1990, founder Peter Tägtgren returned to his homeland of Sweden, to form his own band. Hypocrisy's early releases were noted as being well-executed death metal, but panned for not being particularly innovative. That criticism waned as the band matured, cultivating a more distinctive sound as well as employing an introspective lyrical approach. Later releases have a more atmospheric sound, with lyrical exploration of aliens and abduction experiences.

Tägtgren's experience as a producer may also have led to the band's change in musical direction, as he is more closely involved with many other bands while producing their albums.

After twice cancelling a U.S. tour in 2009, Hypocrisy confirmed a North American tour for 2010. Joining them on the "Long Time, No Death" tour were Scar Symmetry, Hate, Blackguard and Swashbuckle. From January to March 2010, they toured Germany, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, finishing in Moscow. Their North American tour took place in May 2010.

On 14 October 2011, Hypocrisy released a DVD called Hell Over Sofia - 20 Years of Chaos and Confusion. It contains a full concert from the "Long Time, No Death" tour. The DVD also contains a one and a half-hour documentary about the band. On 10 November 2011, Mikael Hedlund announced writing material for a new studio album during an interview with Metal Shock Finland's chief editor, Mohsen Fayyazi. Mikael tells Metal Shock Finland: It's too early to say what it's going to sounds like, but all I can say is that it's not gonna be any change of style. It will be a classic HYPOCRISY album without [any] compromises. We already got some material and we're really looking forward to enter the studio again. We don't know yet when it will [be], but hopefully after the summer 2012. Nothing is confirmed yet. We're doing the Metalfest tour [of Europe] in May/June plus some other festivals. That's the plans at the moment.

In early 2012 the band began to write new material for a follow-up to A Taste of Extreme Divinity. On 21 December 2012 Hypocrisy announced that the title of the upcoming album is End of Disclosure. It was released on 22 March 2013.

Hypocrisy's thirteenth studio album, and first in eight years, Worship was released on 26 November 2021. The album was preceded by a music video for the first single "Chemical Whore". It was later elected by Loudwire as the 32nd best metal song of 2021.

On 5 April 2022, via the band's official Facebook page, the band announced the departure of Horgh from the band. He was replaced a week later by Henrik Axelsson of The Crown.

Musical style and lyrical themes
Musically, the band started off with a traditional death metal sound on their early albums, but soon turned into a melodic death metal band. Their early lyrics – written by original vocalist Masse Broberg – dealt with anti-Christian themes and Satanism. The band later focused on themes such as the paranormal and extraterrestrials. Their tenth album, Virus, contains themes more typical of death metal such as violence, the horrors of reality, insanity, torture, war, drug addiction, and emotional strife. Their twelfth album, End of Disclosure, uses conspiracy and anti-Illuminati themes.

Members
Current members
 * Peter Tägtgren – guitars (1991–present), vocals (1993–present)
 * Mikael Hedlund – bass (1991–present)
 * Tomas Elofsson – guitars (2010–present)
 * Henrik Axelsson – drums (2022–present)

Former members
 * Magnus "Masse" Broberg – vocals (1992–1993)
 * Lars Szöke – drums (1992–2004)
 * Jonas Österberg – guitars (1992)
 * Mathias Kamijo – guitars (1995–2004)
 * Horgh – drums (2004–2022)
 * Andreas Holma – guitars (2004–2006)

Live members
 * Klas Ideberg – guitars (2006)
 * Alexi Laiho – guitars (2009)

Timeline

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Hypocrisy (band)


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Clifford Forsythe

Clifford Forsythe (24 August 1929 – 27 April 2000) was an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Antrim from 1983 until his death in 2000.

Early life
Forsythe was born in Glengormley. He was a footballer with Derry City and Linfield Football Clubs. He won several footballing medals, and was described as a 'fine, speedy winger'.

Career
He had previously been Mayor of Newtownabbey Borough Council, and was also a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly from 1982 to 1986. He also once served as the President of the Northern Ireland Institute of Plumbing.

Forsythe was the constituency election agent for Ulster Unionist leader James Molyneaux, and later won the same seat, albeit with a reduced majority, in 1983.

In his paper Quangopus Government published by the Ulster Unionist Party in June 1992, Forsythe – as the then UUP Spokesman on Local Government – argued for devolution of responsibility to locally elected representatives.

In 1996, Forsythe survived an attempt to deselect him as an MP.

Political views
Like Molyneaux, Forsythe opposed the Good Friday Agreement and supported proposals for a Northern Ireland-wide administrative assembly/regional council (with powers broadly analogous to the National Assembly for Wales) to administer legislation and public services that were, at that time, administered by Northern Ireland Office Ministers, civil servants and quangos.

On more than one occasion, Forsythe claimed that his experience – both in the 1982–86 Northern Ireland Assembly and as a Past Vice-Chairman of the Ulster Monday Club – led him to conclude that the unimplemented 1979 Conservative General Election Manifesto commitment to administrative devolution in Northern Ireland offered the way forward for Northern Ireland.

He was an active member of the House of Commons' Social Security Select Committee from 1991–1997, and the Environment, Transport and the Regions Select Committee from 1997 until his death in 2000.

Shortly before his death, Forsythe criticised the Government for its failure to tackle social security fraud by paramilitary groups.

He argued that air travel between Great Britain and Northern Ireland should be exempt from air passenger duty, on the basis that the tax unfairly disadvantaged Northern Ireland compared with the rest of the United Kingdom given the limited alternative means of travelling between Belfast and London.

Personal life and death
Forsythe, the father of five, was married twice; however, he was noted to be "intensely private" and did not discuss his personal life.

Forsythe died from complications of a heart attack and stroke at Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, on 27 April 2000, at the age of 70.

title: Clifford Forsythe


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David Triesman, Baron Triesman

David Maxim Triesman, Baron Triesman (born 30 October 1943) is a British politician, merchant banker and former trade union leader.

Triesman is a Labour member of the House of Lords. Triesman previously sat as a Labour peer until resigning the whip in July 2019, then having previously been a minister in the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He sat non-affiliated in the House of Lords until 2020 when he rejoined Labour. He was chairman of the Football Association from 2008 to 2010.

Background
Triesman (named Maxim after Maxim Gorky, the Russian author, whom his mother admired) was born into a North London Jewish community. He was the son of Michael Triesman, an advertising manager and wartime aircraft inspector of Belarusian and Latvian descent, and Rita Triesman (née Lubran) of French descent. His parents were active Communists.

Triesman was educated at the Stationers' Company's School in London, before going to the University of Essex and subsequently King's College, Cambridge.

At Essex University, Triesman and a group of fellow students seized control declaring it a 'free university'. He was subsequently suspended from Essex in 1968 after interrupting a meeting addressed by a defence industry scientist but readmitted after two weeks.

He is a Senior Network Member at the European Leadership Network (ELN).

Business career
Triesman has been involved in business in real estate, banking, publishing and fine art. He has served on the boards and advisory boards of several companies including chairing Victoria Management, the advisory board of UBS and Templewood Merchant Bank and some of its subsidiaries. He is an executive board member of the Salamanca Group and its subsidiaries, One Ocean Enterprises, Funding Affordable Homes (and its Housing Association).

Politics and union career
In 1959, aged 16, Triesman became a member of the Labour Party but eleven years later resigned and joined the Communist Party where he remained for six years, following which he rejoined the Labour Party. He is an ex-Maoist.

For a number of years, he was a lecturer and research director at South Bank Polytechnic (now London South Bank University) and held roles in the lecturers' union, NATFHE. Triesman became a full-time union official of NATFHE in 1984, with the post of National Negotiating Secretary. He was also General Secretary of the Association of University Teachers from 1993 until 2001.

He then was appointed as the General Secretary of the Labour Party from 2001 to December 2003, where a significant part of his job was to maintain the support of the trade unions who had become disillusioned with Tony Blair's government.

He was created a Life Peer on 9 January 2004 taking the title Baron Triesman, of Tottenham in the London Borough of Haringey, prior to which he was elected a Visiting Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge in 2000, for the study of economics and Higher Education. He has published a number of academic papers in economics and epidemiology. He is a senior visiting fellow at the University of Warwick and a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics. Triesman is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and the Royal Society of Arts. In 2015, he was awarded the Icebreaker Award by the Chinese Ambassador to the UK for services to Chinese-UK relations, including football.

He served as HM Opposition (Labour) Lords Shadow Spokesperson for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 2010 to 2014.

Triesman is a member of the Henry Jackson Society's Political Council, and a member of the European Leadership Network Board and Top Level Group.

Triesman resigned from the Labour group in the House of Lords in July 2019 in protest at the party leadership's behaviour and policies with regard to antisemitism in the party, Brexit and defence.

He rejoined the Labour Party in February 2020.

Government office
Under Tony Blair's third Labour administration, Triesman served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with responsibility for relations with Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Overseas Territories, the Commonwealth, UK visas, migration policy working directly to the prime minister, consular policy, the British Council, the BBC World Service and the Chevening Scholarships Scheme. During this period, he conducted negotiations with Iran to secure the release of a group of British naval and marine personnel who had been taken prisoner in the Upper Persian Gulf. In the reshuffle of 29 June 2007, he was moved to the newly created post of Parliamentary Under-Secretary of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. In this role, he had responsibility for quality in higher education, innovation and intellectual property and future planning. In 2004, he was appointed as a Lord in Waiting. He is a member of the European Affairs External Affairs Select Committee. He is chairman of the Design Commission. He is co-chairman of the All Party St Lucia Group and a member of the All Party China and Chinese in Britain Group.

Football administration
A longtime fan of Tottenham Hotspur and patron of the club's charitable Foundation, Triesman became the first independent Chairman of the Football Association in January 2008. He resigned in May 2010. Triesman was a board member at Wembley National Stadium, the Premier League shareholders' meeting, the Football Foundation, and is a qualified senior football referee.

In February 2011 he testified before a parliamentary committee on the state of the administration of English football. He was heavily critical of the FA, saying it was shying away from governing the game. He was especially damning of the FA's administrative procedures and its working relationship with other football bodies, in particular the Premier League.

Comments about FIFA bribery allegations
On 16 May 2010, the Mail on Sunday revealed Lord Triesman made comments about alleged bribery attempts by Spain and Russia of referees in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Triesman asserted, "there’s some evidence that the Spanish football authorities are trying to identify the referees ... and pay them." It was announced that he was to 'quit' both the FA and England's 2018 bid. On 10 May 2011, Triesman, speaking before a British parliamentary select committee, affirmed his suspicions of bribery concerning four FIFA members, claiming that they sought bribes in return for backing England's failed 2018 World Cup bid. Whilst the FIFA Executive Committee dismissed the allegations, all the FIFA officials named have subsequently been either convicted of offences, or face extradition to the US for trial. They with other FIFA executives have been banned for different periods from all contact with football.

Personal life
Triesman spent many years in a relationship with the writer and critic Michelene Wandor until they split up in the late 1990s. He married Lucy Hooberman in 2004 and has an adopted daughter.

title: David Triesman, Baron Triesman


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Charles-Eugène Delaunay

Charles-Eugène Delaunay (9 April 1816 – 5 August 1872) was a French astronomer and mathematician. His lunar motion studies were important in advancing both the theory of planetary motion and mathematics.

Life
Born in Lusigny-sur-Barse, France, to Jacques‐Hubert Delaunay and Catherine Choiselat, Delaunay studied under Jean-Baptiste Biot at the Sorbonne. He worked on the mechanics of the Moon as a special case of the three-body problem. He published two volumes on the topic, each of 900 pages in length, in 1860 and 1867. The work hints at chaos in the system, and clearly demonstrates the problem of so-called "small denominators" in perturbation theory. His infinite series expression for finding the position of the Moon converged too slowly to be of practical use but was a catalyst in the development of functional analysis and computer algebra.

Delaunay became director of the Paris Observatory in 1870 but drowned in a boating accident near Cherbourg, France, two years later. He was followed by Jean Claude Bouquet at the Academy. Peter Guthrie Tait in his book An Elementary Treatise on Quaternions edition 1867 on page 244 named Didonia in honour of Delaunay.

Honours

 * Member of the Académie des Sciences, (1855)
 * Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, (1870)
 * His name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower.

About Delaunay

 * [Anon.] (2001) "Delaunay, Charles-Eugène", ''Encyclopædia Britannica, Deluxe edition CD-ROM
 * Some of Delaunay's works are digitalized on Paris Observatory digital library.
 * Some of Delaunay's works are digitalized on Paris Observatory digital library.

title: Charles-Eugène Delaunay


text:
Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, commonly shortened to Central, is a drama school founded by Elsie Fogerty in 1906, as the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art, to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students. It became a constituent college of the University of London in 2005 and is a member of Conservatoires UK and the Federation of Drama Schools.

Courses
The school offers undergraduate, postgraduate, research degrees and short courses in acting, actor training, applied theatre, theatre crafts and making, design, drama therapy, movement, musical theatre, performance, producing, research, scenography, stage management, teacher training, technical arts, voice and writing.

History
In 2006, the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art was absorbed into Central.

On 29 November 2012, the 'Royal' title was bestowed on the school by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of its reputation as a "world-class institution for exceptional professional training in theatre and performance studies". It is entitled to use it in official documentation, although it continues to be colloquially referred to as "Central". The school's Patron, Princess Alexandra of Kent, played a role in recommending the institution for the title.

Buildings
The school is located at Swiss Cottage in north London, an area which is being redeveloped as a "civic and cultural quarter" which includes a new extension building for the school, replacing 1960s accommodation. The school's theatre is located inside the new building, which was awarded a BREEAM rating of "very good".

Administration
Past presidents of the school include Laurence Olivier and Judi Dench. In October 2008 Harold Pinter, who attended the school in 1950–51, became its president, succeeding Peter Mandelson. He was to receive an honorary fellowship in December 2008, but had to receive it in absentia because of ill health; he died two weeks later. Michael Grandage was president from 2010 to 2022. Theatre producer and Central graduate Sonia Friedman was appointed after Grandage stepped down from the role.

Former presidents

 * Laurence Olivier (1983 to 1989)
 * Peggy Ashcroft (1989 to 1992)
 * Judi Dench (1992 to 1997)
 * Peter Mandelson (2001 to 2008)
 * Harold Pinter (2008)
 * Michael Grandage (2012 to 2022)

Research
In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise the majority of Central's submission was judged "world leading" or "internationally excellent". The school has been ranked sixth in its league of specialist institutions by The Guardian, and ninth for drama and dance.

The school has over 20 doctoral candidates. The first PhD was awarded in 2010.


text:
William Ross (Unionist politician)

William Ross (born 4 February 1936) is a Northern Irish unionist politician, serving as President of the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) since 2008. He served as the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Londonderry (later East Londonderry) from February 1974 until 2001. He was one of the UUP members opposed to the Good Friday Agreement.

Career
For some years he was a member of the Conservative Monday Club (which followed the Tory tradition of being Conservative and Unionist). In September 1982 he was chairman of the club's Northern Ireland Committee when it published a Policy Paper entitled Proposals for a Constitutional Settlement [for Ulster].

As Chief Whip of the Ulster Unionist Parliamentary Party from 1987 to 1995, in an attempt to derail multi-party talks initiated by then-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Brooke, in February 1990 Ross unsuccessfully introduced a Private Member's Bill, the Northern Ireland Act 1974 (Amendment) Bill, to provide that laws for Northern Ireland may not be made by (non-amendable) Orders-in-Council but by (amendable) Bills introduced into the United Kingdom Parliament, and repeatedly called on the then Conservative Government to implement its 1979 Conservative General Election Manifesto commitment to "establish one or more elected regional councils with a wide range of powers over local services" (in Northern Ireland), which had been drafted by the then UUP Leader Jim Molyneaux and adopted by Airey Neave then-Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in 1978.

Following Molyneaux's retirement as UUP Leader, Ross unsuccessfully stood for the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party in September 1995 and, although a close confidant and supporter of Molyneaux throughout the latter's leadership of the UUP, quickly became a very vocal opponent of the policies and style of newly elected UUP Leader David Trimble.

In June 2008, it was announced that he had been made the party president of Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV).

William Ross stood for the TUV in the 2010 UK General Election in the East Londonderry constituency.

title: William Ross (Unionist politician)


text:
William Cullen, Baron Cullen of Whitekirk

William Douglas Cullen, Baron Cullen of Whitekirk, (born 18 November 1935) is a former senior member of the Scottish judiciary. He formerly served as Lord Justice General and Lord President of the Court of Session, and was an additional Lord of Appeal in the House of Lords prior to the transfer of its judicial functions to the Supreme Court.

Early life
William Douglas Cullen was educated at the High School of Dundee and the universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh. He was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1962 and was Standing Junior Counsel to Her Majesty's Customs and Excise from 1970 to 1973. He was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1973 and served as an Advocate Depute from 1978 to 1981. From 1984 to 1986 Cullen served as Chairperson of the influential Edinburgh conservationist group the Cockburn Association.

Judicial career
Lord Cullen was a chairman of the Medical Appeal Tribunals from 1977 until his appointment as a judge in 1985. He was appointed a Senator of the College of Justice, a judge of the High Court of Justiciary and Court of Session, as Lord Cullen. From 1988 to 1990 he conducted the Public Inquiry into the Piper Alpha disaster and in 1996 he chaired the Public Inquiry into the shootings at Dunblane Primary School. In October 1999 he was appointed to chair the Ladbroke Grove Rail Inquiry. He was Lord Justice Clerk and president of the Second Division of the Inner House from 1997 to 2002, when he was appointed Lord Justice General and Lord President of the Court of Session.

In March 2002, Lord Cullen led the 5-judge tribunal at the Scottish Court in the Netherlands which heard the failed appeal of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi against his conviction for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

On 15 July 2005, Lord Cullen announced his intention to retire in November 2005. On 24 November the Scottish Executive announced that Arthur Hamilton, Lord Hamilton, a member of the Inner House of the Court of Session, would succeed him as the new Lord Justice General and Lord President of the Court of Session.

Honours
On 17 June 2003, Cullen was created a life peer, as Baron Cullen of Whitekirk, of Whitekirk in East Lothian. He sat as a crossbench member of the House of Lords until his retirement in 2019. He was also one of five additional Lords of Appeal in the House of Lords. On 25 June 2005, he was elected president of the Saltire Society, replacing The Right Honourable The Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, K.T. On 30 November 2007 it was announced that Lord Cullen would be appointed a Knight of the Thistle. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at a ceremony in Edinburgh on 2 July 2008. On 4 September 2009 he was also formally installed as chancellor of Abertay University in Dundee, a position he held for a decade. In 1995 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering

Cullen also received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1995

He was sworn in as a Member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 1997.


text:
John Home Robertson

John David Home Robertson (born 5 December 1948) is a retired Labour politician in Scotland. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Berwick and East Lothian and East Lothian from 1978 to 2001 and a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for East Lothian from 1999 until 2007.

Background
John David Home Robertson was born at 18 Eglinton Crescent, Edinburgh, the son of John Wallace Robertson, Lieutenant-Colonel of the King's Own Scottish Borderers regiment, who assumed the additional surname in 1933, by Scottish Licence, of Home following his marriage that year to Helen Margaret (1905–1987), elder daughter and heiress of David William Milne-Home (1873–1918), of Wedderburn & Paxton, Berwickshire.

He was educated at Farleigh School, Ampleforth College and at the West of Scotland Agricultural College. In 1988, Home Robertson placed his maternal family's historic home and grounds, Paxton House, in a Historic Buildings Preservation Trust, and opened it to the public. It is a Partner Gallery of the National Galleries of Scotland.

Political career
He was an Independent member of Berwickshire District Council from 1974 to 1978, and of the Borders NHS Health Board 1975–78. One of his forebears was a Member of the (original) Parliament of Scotland, for Berwickshire, in 1707 who opposed the Act of Union.

As a delegate to the Labour Party Conference in 1976, Home Robertson moved the resolution which committed the Party to devolution for Scotland, and throughout his career at Westminster he campaigned for the establishment of the Scottish Parliament. Home Robertson was the successful Labour candidate at the Berwick and East Lothian by-election in 1978, following the death of Labour MP John Mackintosh.

He represented Berwick and East Lothian until the 1983 general election, when the constituency was abolished and he was elected for the new constituency of East Lothian. He was re-elected at subsequent general elections before standing down at the 2001 election, when he was replaced by Anne Picking.

A Europhile, Home Robertson was one of only five Labour MPs to vote for the Third Reading of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, defying his party Whip, which was to abstain.

At Westminster, Home Robertson served on the Scottish Affairs (1979–83) and Defence (1990–) Select committees, and was Chairman of the Scottish Group of Labour M.P.s, 1982–83. He spent time as Opposition Scottish Whip, 1983–84, as Labour's Opposition Front Bench Spokesman on: Agriculture (1984–87), Scottish Affairs (1987–88), Agricultural and Rural Affairs (1988–), and Food (1989–).

He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Jack Cunningham at the Ministry of Agriculture and then at the Cabinet Office. He announced that would stand down from the Scottish Parliament in 2007, and was succeeded by Iain Gray.

title: John Home Robertson


text:
Michael Boyce, Baron Boyce

Admiral of the Fleet Michael Cecil Boyce, Baron Boyce, (2 April 1943 – 6 November 2022) was a British Royal Navy officer who also sat as a crossbench member of the House of Lords until his death in November 2022.

Boyce commanded three submarines and then a frigate before achieving higher command in the Navy and serving as First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff from 1998 to 2001 and then as Chief of the Defence Staff from 2001 to 2003. As Chief of Defence Staff he is believed to have had concerns about US plans for a national missile defence system. In early 2003 he advised the British Government on the deployment of troops for the invasion of Iraq, seeking assurances as to the legitimacy of the deployment before it was allowed to proceed.

Early life
Michael Cecil Boyce, the first son of Commander Hugh Boyce DSC and his Afrikaner wife, Madeline (née Manley), was born in Cape Town on 2 April 1943. His two brothers were Philip Boyce, a professor of psychiatry in Australia, and Graham Boyce, a diplomat.

Naval career

Boyce was educated at Hurstpierpoint College and the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. He joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1961 and, having trained as a submariner, was confirmed in the rank of sub-lieutenant on 10 December 1965, promoted to lieutenant on 30 August 1966, and saw service in the submarines HMS Anchorite (P422), HMS Valiant (S102) and HMS Conqueror (S48). He completed the Submarine Command Course in 1973, became commanding officer of the submarine HMS Oberon (S09) in the same year and, having been promoted to lieutenant commander on 8 January 1974, was given command of the submarine HMS Opossum (S19) later that year.

Promoted to the rank of commander on 30 June 1976, Boyce became commanding officer of the submarine HMS Superb (S109) in 1979. He was posted to the Directorate of Naval Plans at the Ministry of Defence in 1981 and appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1982 Birthday Honours, before being promoted to captain on 30 June 1982. He was given command of the frigate HMS Brilliant (F90) in January 1983, and returned to the Ministry of Defence as captain, Submarine Sea Training in 1984. He attended the Royal College of Defence Studies in 1988 and then became Senior Naval Officer in the Middle East in 1989. He went on to be Director of Naval Staff Duties at the Ministry of Defence in August 1989. Following promotion to rear admiral, he became Flag Officer Sea Training in July 1991. He became Flag Officer, Surface Flotilla and NATO Commander of the Anti-Submarine Warfare Striking Force in November 1992.

Promoted to vice admiral in February 1994, Boyce was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the 1995 New Year Honours. He was promoted to full admiral on 25 May 1995, on appointment as Second Sea Lord and Commander-in-Chief Naval Home Command, and went on to be Commander-in-Chief Fleet as well as NATO Commander-in-Chief Eastern Atlantic and NATO Commander Allied Naval Forces North West Europe in September 1997.

Boyce became First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff in October 1998 and was advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in the 1999 Birthday Honours. He was appointed Chief of the Defence Staff in February 2001, and in that role is believed to have had concerns about US plans for a national missile defence system. In early 2003 he advised the British Government on the deployment of troops for the invasion of Iraq, seeking assurances as to the legitimacy of the deployment before it was allowed to proceed. He was appointed a Knight of Justice of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem on 27 November 2002, and retired as Chief of Defence Staff on 7 November 2003.

Later career

Boyce was created a life peer as Baron Boyce, of Pimlico in the City of Westminster, on 16 June 2003 and was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London on 19 December 2003. He was also appointed a non-executive director of WS Atkins plc in May 2004 and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports on 10 December 2004, succeeding Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in that role. He became chairman of the Royal Navy Club of 1765 & 1785 (United 1889) in 2004.

In May 2005, Boyce was among the several retired Chiefs of Defence Staff who spoke in the House of Lords about the risk to servicemen facing liability for their actions – for which he claims politicians are ultimately responsible – before the International Criminal Court. He gave evidence to The Iraq Inquiry on 3 December 2009. He was created a Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter in April 2011 and was a member of the Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-proliferation.

Boyce was Patron of the Submariners Association, Dover College, the Dover War Memorial Project and of Kent Search and Rescue as well as being an Elder Brother of Trinity House and Chairman of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. He took a keen interest in sports. In 2013, he was elected Master of the Drapers' Company. He has been the president of the Pilgrims Society, the Royal Navy Submarine Museum and Hastings charity, the Winkle Club, as well as a trustee of the Naval and Military Club.

Boyce was appointed an honorary admiral of the fleet in the Queen's 2014 Birthday Honours.

On 6 December 2021, Boyce was appointed Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom.

Personal life and death
In 1971, Boyce married Harriette Gail Fletcher, with whom he had one son and one daughter. Following the dissolution of his first marriage, he married Fleur Margaret Anne Rutherford (née Smith). Lady Boyce died in 2016 at the age of 67.

Boyce died from cancer on 6 November 2022, at the age of 79.

A service of thanksgiving was held at Westminster Abbey on 13 July 2023. Sir Graham Boyce, brother, Admiral Sir George Zambellas and Colonel Oliver Lee paid tribute.

title: Michael Boyce, Baron Boyce


text:
John Madejski

Sir John Robert Madejski, OBE, DL (born Robert John Hurst; 28 April 1941) is an English businessman, with commercial interests spanning property, broadcast media, hotels, restaurants, publishing and football.

Madejski is the founder of the magazine which became Auto Trader and was chairman of Reading F.C., Chancellor of the University of Reading and a Deputy Lieutenant of Berkshire. He is a benefactor to many institutions, especially in academia, education and the arts. In the Sunday Times Rich List 2009 ranking of the wealthiest people in the UK he was placed 222nd with an estimated fortune of £250 million.

Personal life
Madejski are the Polish descendant.

Madejski was born Robert John Hurst on 28 April 1941, in Stoke-on-Trent, as a result of a wartime fling, being initially placed with a foster family. While still a baby, Hurst was moved back to his mother's home town of Reading and placed in a children's home. His mother later married a Second World War airman, Zygmunt Madejski, with Hurst eventually coming to live with them and adopting his stepfather's surname of Madejski. Hurst's biological father had started another family.

Madejski has two daughters, but has never married. He made front-page headlines in UK tabloid newspapers in October 2004 due to his alleged romantic attachment with singer and TV star Cilla Black. The pair became friends due to their mutual affiliation with the Conservative Party.

He owns a large number of luxury cars, including two Rolls-Royces, two Bentleys, four Jaguars, an AC Cobra and two Ferraris, including a red 328 which is kept in a glass case at his home.

Career
While on holiday in the US in the mid-1970s, Madejski saw a car sales magazine that included pictures of the vehicles on sale. He immediately realised the potential of the idea and with the help of his business partners Paul Gibbons and Peter Taylor founded Thames Valley Trader in 1976. Initially the magazine advertised a range of items, from houses to cars and aircraft, but it soon concentrated on vehicles and was renamed Auto Trader. Madejski partnered with the Guardian Media Group in 1982 to give the title national exposure.

By 1998, 52 titles were being published with a combined circulation of more than 700,000. In 1998, he sold his company Hurst Publishing for £174 million.

Reading F.C.
Madejski became chairman of the Football League club Reading F.C. in 1990, and has given his name to the club's Madejski Stadium, built in 1998 with £25 million largely contributed by him. He rescued Reading from receivership. He said "When Robert Maxwell was alive I offered him five pounds a share. When he fell off his boat I got them for 10p. Funny old life isn't it?". In 2006, he led the club to the top tier of English football for the first time in its 135-year history and proposed to expand the stadium to 38,000 seats. After Premier League promotion, Madejski said he was ready to sell up:"The brand is getting stronger all the time and if there is a billionaire who wants a nice accessory down the M4 then come and talk to me. Apart from Manchester United, unless you've got a sugar daddy with really deep pockets, you're wasting your time." The club achieved pre-tax profits of £6.6 million during the tax year ending in June 2007.

On 21 January 2012 it was announced that Madejski planned to relinquish control of the club by selling a 51% stake for £40 million to Thames Sports Investments, a Russian consortium headed by Anton Zingarevich. Madejski announced that as part of the deal he would continue as chairman for at least another two years, followed by becoming honorary life president. Madejski's ownership of the club ended on 29 May 2012 when the takeover deal was completed.

Charitable activities
In 1990, Madejski donated £500,000 to the trustees of the Falkland Islands Memorial Chapel Trust. The donation was crucial to the fund-raising effort and enabled the trustees to build the War Memorial Chapel, dedicated to the 255 fallen of the Falkland Islands War: it is situated in the grounds of Pangbourne College and was opened by the Queen in 2000.

He is also a benefactor to the Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly, London and in 2004 had the John Madejski Fine Rooms at Burlington House named after him in recognition of a contribution of £3 million to the institution. A sculpture by Edgar Degas, La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans, that he purchased at Sotheby's in 2004 was on display in the John Madejski Fine Rooms; it was sold in February 2009 for £13.3 million.

The John Madejski Centre for Reputation at Henley Management College, the new garden at the Victoria and Albert Museum, a lecture theatre at the University of Reading and a gallery at the Museum of Reading also bear his name. The John Madejski Academy (formerly Thamesbridge College) has been found to be "inadequate" twice by the regulator Ofsted, and "requires improvement" three times.

Madejski has said he is not particularly concerned about how this might appear, adding "People can think what they like about me. I don't care. It's never been a popularity contest. I do it all for the community. In my view, you start life with nothing and you end it with nothing. I'd like to enjoy it all before I kick the bucket." His most recent project was a £500m redevelopment of Reading town centre, but this has been halted by the credit crunch.

Political activities
In the early 2000s, Madejski was active in politics: he contributed extensively to the Conservative Party. Madejski and Dave Whelan called for football clubs to observe a minute's silence to mark the death of Margaret Thatcher.

Honours

 * In 2000, Madejski was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2000 Birthday Honours "for services to Reading Football Club and the community in Reading, Berkshire." He is also Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire.
 * In 2006, he was admitted as a Freeman of the Borough "in recognition of the distinguished service rendered to the Borough of Reading, by his contribution to the growth and success of football in Reading, and by his support for education and arts".
 * On 14 December 2007, Madejski was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters University of Reading and formally installed as the seventh chancellor of the university, succeeding to the post on the retirement of Lord Carrington.
 * Madejski was knighted in the 2009 New Year Honours for charitable services.

title: John Madejski


text:
Richard Wilson, Baron Wilson of Dinton

Richard Thomas James Wilson, Baron Wilson of Dinton, (born 11 October 1942) is a crossbench member of the British House of Lords and former Cabinet Secretary.

Career
Richard Wilson was born in Glamorgan. He was educated at Radley College (1956–60 and where he much later chaired the College Council (the governing body) and Clare College, Cambridge (1961–65), where he was awarded the degree of Master of Laws (LLM). He was called to the Bar but, rather than practise, entered the Civil Service as an assistant principal in the Board of Trade in 1966.

He subsequently served in a number of departments including 12 years in the Department of Energy where his responsibilities included nuclear power policy, the privatisation of Britoil, personnel and finance. He headed the Economic Secretariat in the Cabinet Office under Margaret Thatcher from 1987 to 1990 and after two years in the Treasury was appointed Permanent Secretary of the Department of the Environment in 1992.

He became Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office in 1994 and Secretary of the Cabinet and Head of the Home Civil Service in January 1998, retiring in 2002.

Wilson was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the 1991 New Year Honours, promoted to Knight Commander (KCB) in the 1997 New Year Honours and to Knight Grand Cross (GCB) in the 2001 New Year Honours.

After retiring as Cabinet Secretary, he was created a life peer on 18 November 2002 with the title Baron Wilson of Dinton, of Dinton in the County of Buckinghamshire. In September of that year, he was made Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He has variously been a Non-executive Director of British Sky Broadcasting Group plc, Chairman of C. Hoare & Co, a Non-executive Director of Xansa and Chair of the Board of Patrons of The Wilberforce Society.

title: Richard Wilson, Baron Wilson of Dinton


text:
Calligra Stage

Calligra Stage (formerly KPresenter) is a free presentation program that is part of the Calligra Suite, an integrated office suite developed by KDE.

Calligra Stage's native export format is OpenDocument. Stage is able to load presentation documents from Microsoft PowerPoint, LibreOffice Impress and OpenOffice Impress.

In 2014, development of Calligra Gemini with official support for Windows was announced.

As KPresenter
Reginald Stadlbauer began development of KPresenter in 1997. The first official release of the KOffice suite was on October 23, 2000 when it was released as part of K Desktop Environment 2.0. Versions 1.1 followed in 2001, 1.2 in 2002, 1.3 in 2004, 1.4 in 2005, and 1.5 and 1.6 both in 2006.

KOffice underwent a major transition as part of the release of KDE Software Compilation 4 (SC4). Coinciding with the work on SC4, the KOffice team prepared a major new release – KOffice 2.0 – which used the new KDE Platform 4 libraries. Although version 2.0 was released in 2009, the release was labeled as a “platform release” which was recommended only for testers and developers, rather than production use, since the release was missing key features and applications from the previous stable release series.

This continued with version 2.1 in November, 2009. Regular end-users requiring a stable environment were still recommended by developers to use the stable 1.6 release series. This version was also ported to Haiku but the port was later not updated for newer KOffice versions.

In May 2010, version 2.2.0 was released and brought many new features and bugfixes. Kexi was integrated again. Kivio has not yet been migrated. A new framework for effects on shapes and a new import filters for the Microsoft Office Open XML formats that are used in MS Office 2007 and later got added.

In mid-2010, following disagreements between KWord’s maintainer Thomas Zander and the other core developers, KPresenter was renamed Calligra Stage. The KWord maintainer forked the KPresenter presentation tool to create KOffice Showcase.

KOffice 2.3, released 31 December 2010, along with subsequent bugfix releases (2.3.1–2.3.3 ) was still a collaborative effort of both the KOffice and Calligra development teams.

KOffice Showcase 2.4 never materialized in release form. KOffice was declared unmaintained by KDE.

As Calligra Stage
On 18 May 2011 the Calligra team began releasing monthly snapshots while preparing for the release of Calligra 2.4.

The first version of the Calligra Suite for Windows was released on 21 December 2011. The package is labeled as “highly experimental” and “not yet suitable for daily use”.

The Calligra team originally scheduled to release the final 2.4 version in January 2012 but problems in the undo/redo feature of Words and Stage required a partial rewrite and caused a delay. Calligra 2.4 was released on 11 April 2012.

Calligra 2.4 launched with two mobile-oriented user interfaces: Calligra Mobile and Calligra Active. Calligra Mobile's development was initiated in summer 2009 and first shown during Akademy / Desktop Summit 2009 by KO GmbH as a simple port of KOffice to Maemo. Later Nokia hired KO to assist them with a full-fledged mobile version, including a touchscreen-friendly user interface which was presented by Nokia during Maemo Conference in October 2009. The first alpha version was made available in January 2010. Along with the launch of the Nokia N9 smartphone, Nokia released its own Poppler and Calligra-based office document viewer under GPL.

Calligra Active was launched in 2011 after the Plasma Active initiative to provide a document viewer similar to Calligra Mobile but for tablet computers.

Jolla continued Nokia's efforts on a smartphone version. In 2013 Jolla launched Sailfish Office. Sailfish Office reuses the Qt Quick components from Calligra Active.

In September 2013 a merger of Krita and Krita Sketch, named Krita Gemini, was launched on Windows 8.1. Development was funded by Intel to promote 2in1 convertible notebooks.

In April 2014 Intel and KO GmbH extended the promotion deal to Gemini versions of Stage and Words. On 28 August 2014 the first snapshot of Calligra Gemini was released by KO GmbH for Windows. On 21 November 2014 KDE announced that Calligra Gemini would officially be released as part of Calligra 2.9. As with Krita, this Gemini release adds a touchscreen interface to Words and Stage and users can switch between desktop and touch mode at runtime. Calligra Gemini is a continuation of Calligra Active and Sailfish Office developments but with added editing capabilities. On 19 October 2014 a Linux version was presented.

title: Calligra Stage


text:
User:Jost ammon

I'm a linguist and teacher for French and English by education but have ever since worked at European car manufacturers. Currently I'm Key Account Manager with a French car manufacturer. Occasionally I teach International Marketing Strategies at Pforzheim Academy of Applied Sciences.

My website has more for the moment. State of things has more at the moment.

Interests & contributions:

Ok, I have written Lyle Mays, Pat Metheny Group and Pat Metheny and the entries look quite well now. Time to go out in the sunny Sunday ;-)

And I have added a little something here and there like Matthias Ettrich

Am starting the entry Leasing (and wonder that this hasn't been dealt with yet).

music Lyle Mays, Pat Metheny, Johann Sebastian Bach, Glenn Gould, Richard Wagner, Eberhard Weber

computing Mandrakelinux, OpenOffice.org, Sylpheed, Debian, KaLUG, Mozilla, KDE, GNOME

literature Denis Diderot

linguistics de:benutzer:Jost_ammon

title: User:Jost ammon


text:
Claude-Henri de Fusée de Voisenon

Claude-Henri de Fusée, abbé de Voisenon (8 July 1708 – 22 November 1775) was a French playwright and writer.

Life
Born at the château de Voisenon near Melun, he was only ten when he addressed an epistle in verse to Voltaire, who asked the boy to visit him. They remained friends for fifty years. Voisenon made his début as a dramatist with L'Heureuse resemblance in 1728, followed in 1739 by a three-act comedy L'École du monde at the Théâtre Français. This was preceded by a verse prologue, L'Ombre de Molière, and a month later Voisenon produced a criticism of his own piece in Le Retour de l'ombre de Molière.

A duel provoked by Voisenon inspired him with remorse, and he entered a seminary; he was soon promoted to the post of secretary to his relative, the Bishop of Boulogne. He became closely attached to Madame du Châtelet, the mistress of Voltaire, and was intimate with the comte de Caylus and Mademoiselle Jeanne Quinault. He made witty but by no means edifying contributions to the Étrennes de Saint-Jean, the Bals de Bois, etc.

In 1744, he produced the Ménages assortis and in 1746 his masterpiece, the Coquette fixée. He was a close friend of Charles Simon Favart and his wife. His pen was always at the service of any of his friends, and it was generally supposed that he had a considerable share in Favart's most successful operas. Voisenon had scruples all his life about the incongruity between his way of living and his profession, but he continued to write indecent stories for private circulation, and wrote verses in honor of Madame du Barry, as he had done for Madame de Pompadour.

He was elected to the Académie française in 1762. On the disgrace of his patron, the duc de Choiseul, he lost his pensions and honours, but soon recovered his position. He was intimate with the chancellor Maupeou, and was suspected of writing on his behalf in defence of the abolition of the parlement. This and some other incidents brought him into general disgrace. Early in 1775 he retired to the château de Voisenon, where he died.

Works
His Œuvres complètes were published by his executrix, fr:Constance de Lowendal, 5 vol. in-8°. in 1781.

Theatre

 * 1738: L'Heureuse Ressemblance, comedy in 1 act and in verse
 * 1739: L'École du monde, comedy in 3 acts and in verse, presented at the Comédie-Française 14 October
 * 1739: Le Retour de l'ombre de Molière, comedy in 1 act and in verse, presented at the Comédie-Française 21 November
 * 1744: Les Mariages assortis, comedy in 3 acts and in verse, premiered by the Italian comedians ordinaires du Roi 10 February (printed in 1746, in-8)
 * 1746: La Coquette fixée, comedy in 3 acts and in verse, with Charles-Antoine Leclerc de La Bruère and the Duke of Nivernais, premiered by the Comédiens italiens ordinaires du Roi 10 March
 * 1749: La Fausse Prévention, comedy in 3 acts and in verse, premiered by the Comédiens italiens ordinaires du Roi 29 December
 * 1750: Le Réveil de Thalie, comedy, premiered by the Comédiens italiens ordinaires du Roi 19 June
 * 1753: Titon et l'Aurore, pastorale héroïque, music by Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville, premiered at the Académie royale de musique 9 January
 * 1756: Les Magots, parody of L'Orphelin de la Chine by Voltaire, in 1 act and in vers, premiered by the Comédiens italiens ordinaires du Roi 19 March
 * 1757: La Petite Iphigénie, parodie de la Grande, premiered by the Comédiens italiens ordinaires du Roi July
 * 1758: L'Amour et Psyché, ballet héroïque, premiered by the Académie Royale de musique 9 May
 * 1759: La parodie au Parnasse, one-act opéra comique, premiered at the Théâtre de l'Opéra comique de la foire saint Germain 20 March (also attributed to Charles-Simon Favart)
 * 1762: La Jeune Grecque, comedy in 3 acts and in free verse (printed in 1762)
 * 1763: Hilas et Zélie, pastorale in 1 act, music by Bernard de Bury, presented at Versailles Palace 12 January
 * 1765: La Fée Urgèle ou Ce qui plaît aux dames, four-act- comedy miongked with ariettes, given at Fontainebleau 26 October
 * 1770: L'Amant déguisé, ou le Jardinier supposé, one-act comedy mingled with ariettes, music by François-André Danican Philidor, premiered by the Comédiens italiens ordinaires du Roi 2 September
 * 1770:  L'Amitié à l'épreuve, comedy in 2 acts and in verse mingled with ariettes, music by André Grétry, presented at Fontainebleau 13 November
 * 1776: Fleur d'Épine, opéra comique in 2 acts and in prose, set in music by Marie Emmanuelle Bayon Louis, mingled with ariettes, from Hamilton, premiered by the Comédiens italiens ordinaires du Roi 22 August.

Novels and tales

 * 1745: Zulmis et Zelmaïde, conte licencieux
 * 1745: Turlubleu, histoire grecque tirée du manuscrit gris-de-lin, trouvé dans les cendres de Troye
 * 1746: Le Sultan Misapouf et la princesse Grisemine, novel, London, 2 vol. in-12
 * 1747: Les Fêtes roulantes et les Regrets des petites rues
 * 1751: Histoire de la Félicité
 * 1760: Tant mieux pour elle, conte plaisant
 * 1767: Romans et Contes, 2 vol. - reed.: 1775, 1798, 1818
 * 1885: Contes légers suivis des Anecdotes littéraires, Paris, E. Dentu, Bibliothèque choisie des chefs-d'œuvre français et étrangers, (complete text on Gallica)

Varia

 * 1739: Le Code des Amants, poème héroïque en trois chants
 * 1758: Les Israélites à la montagne d'Oreb, poème biblique for the Concert Spirituel, set in music by Mondonville
 * 1759: Les Fureurs de Saül, poème biblique for the Concert Spirituel, set in music by Mondonville

title: Claude-Henri de Fusée de Voisenon


text:
List of GTK applications

This is a list of notable applications that use GTK and/or Clutter for their GUI widgets. Such applications blend well with desktop environments that are GTK-based as well, such as GNOME, Cinnamon, LXDE, MATE, Pantheon, Sugar, Xfce or ROX Desktop.

Official GNOME applications
The GNOME Project, i.e. all the people involved with the development of the GNOME desktop environment, is the biggest contributor to GTK, and the GNOME Core Applications as well as the GNOME Games employ the newest GUI widgets from the cutting-edge version of GTK and demonstrates their capabilities.

Shells, user interfaces, application launchers

 * GNOME Shell – the desktop graphical GUI shell introduced with GNOME version 3.0
 * Cinnamon fork of the GNOME Shell
 * GNOME Panel and forks – applications launcher
 * Maynard, a shell for Weston by Collabora originally for the Raspberry Pi
 * Budgie is a distro-agnostic desktop environment

Education software

 * Tux Typing – typing tutor for children
 * DrGeo – geometry software
 * GCompris – educational entertainment for children (legacy version only)

Operating system administration

 * Disk Usage Analyzer – Disk-usage analyzer
 * GNOME Disks – utility for the hard disk; partition editor, S.M.A.R.T. monitoring, formerly known as Gnome Disk Utility or palimpsest
 * GParted – utility for the hard disk; partition editor
 * GDM – X display manager
 * GNOME Keyring Manager – Password manager
 * GNOME Screensaver – Simple screensaver configuration
 * Alacarte – Menu editor

End-user utilities

 * Archive Manager – archive manager
 * Cheese – webcam application
 * Conduit Synchronizer – Photo/music/notes/files etc. synchronization
 * Eye of GNOME – official image-viewer for GNOME
 * Getting Things GNOME! – Personal tasks management software
 * gnee – A GNOME GUI and a panel applet that can be used to record and replay test cases.
 * Hardinfo2 - System information and benchmarking
 * GNOME Boxes – Application to access remote or virtual systems
 * GNOME Screenshot – take screenshots of desktop and windows
 * GNOME Calculator – calculator
 * GNOME Commander – Two-panel graphical file manager
 * GNOME Files – File manager, formerly called Nautilus
 * GNOME Terminal – Terminal emulator
 * Gnote – Note-taking software in C++
 * Guake – drop-down terminal emulator
 * Gucharmap – Character map
 * Guvcview – webcam application
 * Orca – Scriptable screen-reader
 * Scribes – Text editor
 * Seahorse – PGP and SSH key-manager
 * Sushi – File previewer
 * Terminator - Terminal emulator
 * Tilda – drop-down terminal emulator
 * Tomboy – Note-taking software in C#
 * Vinagre – VNC client
 * Vino – VNC server (deprecated)

Games

 * GNOME Games – collection of games in Vala and C, now archived
 * Lutris - video game manager/launcher

Abstract strategy games

 * GNOME Chess – new 2d graphical front-end written in Vala
 * PyChess – Chess implementation

Puzzle games

 * GNOME Mines – Minesweeper-clone
 * gbrainy – Brain teaser game

Graphics editors

 * GIMP – an extensive raster graphics editor
 * Inkscape – an extensive vector graphics editor
 * MyPaint – an extensive raster graphics editor, for digital painters
 * Pinta – a minimalist raster graphics editor

Image viewers

 * Shotwell – Photo manager
 * F-Spot – Photo manager
 * gThumb – Image viewer

Web browsers

 * Web – default GNOME web-browser
 * Midori – default Xfce web-browser
 * Uzbl – minimalist web-browser
 * xombrero – minimalist web-browser

Email clients

 * Balsa – Email client
 * Claws Mail
 * Evolution (software)
 * Geary
 * Modest (email client)
 * Pantheon Mail
 * Sylpheed

Software for inter-person communication

 * Empathy – instant-messaging client, VoIP and videoconferencing
 * Pidgin – Instant messenger
 * Smuxi – User-friendly IRC Client
 * HexChat – IRC client
 * Gajim – Instant messenger

File sharing

 * Deluge — BitTorrent client
 * Transmission – BitTorrent client
 * Gwget – Download manager framework
 * Gwibber – Microblogging client
 * Liferea – RSS feed reader
 * Pan – Usenet news reader

Office software

 * AbiWord – word processor
 * GnuCash – Personal and small business finance manager
 * Gnumeric – Spreadsheet
 * BOND – Database frontend
 * Evince – pdf viewer
 * GNOME Dictionary – Dictionary
 * Evolution – Integrated mail, contacts, and calendar
 * OCRFeeder – a graphical front-end for the Optical character recognition engines CuneiForm, GOCR, Ocrad and Tesseract

Tools for programming and development

 * GNOME Builder – Integrated development environment
 * Anjuta – Integrated development environment
 * Glade Interface Designer – a Graphical user interface builder
 * Gedit – Text editor
 * Leafpad – Lightweight text editor
 * Lazarus - cross-platform visual IDE for RAD using the Free Pascal compiler
 * Devhelp – API documentation browser
 * Nemiver – C and C++ debugger
 * Geany – text editor suitable for programming
 * Meld – diff-viewer
 * PIDA – IDE
 * Xojo – IDE
 * Zenity – execute GTK dialog boxes from shell scripts
 * MonoDevelop – Integrated development environment
 * ActiveState Komodo – Integrated development environment
 * Gtranslator – uses gettext
 * poedit – gettext
 * Scala (software)

Optical disc authoring software

 * Brasero – optical disc authoring software, graphical front-end to burn CDs/DVDs

Optical disc ripping software

 * Grip – CD ripper and player
 * Thoggen – DVD backup utility

Audio

 * Software audio players (free and open-source)
 * SoundConverter (software)
 * GNOME Sound Juicer

Video players

 * GNOME Videos – the GNOME default video player

Video editors

 * Gnome Subtitles – Video subtitling
 * Pitivi – Video editor
 * Cinelerra - Video editor

Chemistry
Despite the immense popularity of Qt, there continues to be science software using the GUI widgets of version 2 of GTK toolkit. Whether this is going to remain that way, or whether the software will be ported to some current version of GTK (maybe GTK 4) remains to be seen.
 * Ghemical – computational chemistry software package

Statistics

 * gretl — an open-source statistical package, mainly for econometrics

Various

 * Beagle – search tool
 * Gramps – Genealogy software

title: List of GTK applications


text:
Erskine May

Thomas Erskine May, 1st Baron Farnborough, (8 February 1815 – 17 May 1886) was a British constitutional theorist and  Clerk of the House of Commons during the Victorian era.

His seminal work, A Treatise upon the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament (first published in 1844) has become known as Erskine May: Parliamentary Practice or simply Erskine May: this parliamentary authority (book of procedural rules) is currently in its 25th revised edition (2019) and is informally considered part of the constitution of the United Kingdom.

Following his retirement as Clerk of the House of Commons in May 1886, May was created "Baron Farnborough, of Farnborough, in the county of Southampton" just a week before his death. Since he left no heirs, the barony became extinct, making it the second-shortest-lived peerage in British history.

Biography
Thomas Erskine May was born in Highgate, Middlesex, on 8 February 1815. He was christened on 21 September 1815 at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster with his parents being registered as Thomas and Sarah May. He was educated at Bedford School.

May began his parliamentary service in 1831, at the age of 16, as Assistant Librarian in the House of Commons Library. He was admitted to the Middle Temple on 20 June 1834 and called to the bar on 4 May 1838. May married Johanna Laughton, of Fareham, on 27 August 1839. May became examiner of petitions for private bills in 1846 and from 1847 to 1856 was Taxing Master for both Houses of Parliament. In 1856 he became Clerk Assistant of the House of Commons.

May was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) on 16 May 1860 and promoted to Knight Commander (KCB) on 6 July 1866. On 16 February 1871, he was appointed Clerk of the House of Commons by letters patent.

In 1873, he was elected a bencher of the Middle Temple and awarded an honorary Doctorate of Civil Law by the University of Oxford in 1874. In 1880, he was made a Reader of the Middle Temple and sworn of the Privy Council in 1884.

On 10 May 1886, shortly after his retirement as Clerk of the House of Commons, May was created "Baron Farnborough, of Farnborough, in the county of Southampton". He died just a week later on 17 May 1886. Since he left no heirs, the barony became extinct, making it the second-shortest-lived peerage in British history, after the Barony of Leighton.

Sir William McKay, who edited Erskine May's private journal, has suggested that May was possibly an unacknowledged son or grandson of The 1st Baron Erskine.

Notable works
May's most famous work, A Treatise upon the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament (now popularly known as Erskine May: Parliamentary Practice or simply Erskine May), was first published in 1844. The book is currently in its 25th edition (2019). It is informally considered part of the constitution of the United Kingdom. The guide is authoritative in many Commonwealth nations, often with strong influence on constitutional convention.

Another notable work is The Constitutional History of England since the Accession of George III, 1760–1860. May's work was disputed by some later historians, such as Herbert Butterfield who wrote, "Erskine May must be a good example of the way in which an historian may fall into error through an excess of brilliance. His capacity for synthesis, and his ability to dovetail the various parts of the evidence ... carried him into a more profound and complicated elaboration of error than some of his more pedestrian predecessors ... he inserted a doctrinal element into his history which, granted his original aberrations, was calculated to project the lines of his error, carrying his work still further from centrality or truth."

title: Erskine May


text:
John Townend

John Ernest Townend (12 June 1934 – 18 August 2018) was a British politician who was a Member of Parliament for the Conservative Party.

Early years
The son of Charles Hope and Dorothy Townend, he was born on 12 June 1934 in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, and educated at Hymers College in Hull. He studied accountancy from 1951 to 1957 as an articled clerk, and received the Plender Prize for the top prize when he became a Chartered Accountant. He then served in the Royal Air Force as a commissioned Pilot Officer from 1957 to 1959. In the latter year, he joined his family business as commercial secretary and finance director, becoming managing director (1961–1979) and then chairman of House of Townend wine merchants in Hull. He was Chairman of the Yorkshire and Humberside Wine and Spirit Merchants' Association (1975–76). In 1977, he became an Underwriter at Lloyds.

Politics
Townend was active in local politics and unsuccessfully contested the parliamentary seat of Hull North at the 1970 general election. He was then elected to Humberside County Council in 1973, becoming the Leader of the Conservative Group and shadow chairman of the policy committee. He also became a member of the Conservative National Advisory Committee on local Government. He subsequently became leader of the county council, chairman of its policy committee, and member of the policy committee of the Association of County Councils, 1977. He was a member of Hull City Council from 1966 to 1974.

At the 1979 general election, Townend was elected as the Conservative Party Member of Parliament for Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire, a seat which he held until his retirement in 2001. He served as secretary of the Conservative Back-bench finance committee and was a member of the Select Committee on Treasury and Civil Service affairs and vice-chairman of the Back-bench finance committee. He was also principal private secretary to Hugh Rossi, the Minister of Pensions and the Disabled. He became chairman of the Small Businesses Committee, a Fellow of the Industry and Parliament Trust, and a member of the executive committee of IPU. His main interests while in Parliament were Treasury and taxation, small businesses, employment, and Southern Africa.

Views on immigration
Townend was renowned for his outspoken views on race and immigration. In 1984, he suggested that foreigners employed in industries should be replaced by unemployed Britons, and in 1989 he stated that "England must be reconquered for the English. They (Muslims opposed to Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses) should go back from whence they came." In 2001, shortly before his retirement as an MP, he became engulfed in a row within the Conservative Party when, referring to a statement by Foreign Secretary Robin Cook that there was no such thing as a British race, he said that his constituents in Bridlington would not agree, and asked whether Cook therefore thought instead that the British were a "mongrel race". He was chairman of the right-wing 92 Group.

Personal life
Townend married Jennifer Ann Lawson in 1963. The couple had two sons and two daughters. Outside politics, he listed his recreations as swimming and tennis. He lived in Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire, and was a member of the Conservative-affiliated Carlton Club.

He died on 18 August 2018, aged 84.

title: John Townend


text:
Donald Gorrie

Donald Cameron Easterbrook Gorrie OBE (2 April 1933 – 25 August 2012 ) was a Scottish Liberal Democrat politician. He was a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Central Scotland region from 1999 to 2007. He also sat in the British House of Commons from 1997 to 2001 as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Edinburgh West.

Personal life
Gorrie was educated at the independent Oundle School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he read classics and modern history. A former athlete, he held the Scottish record for the 880 yards in his youth. He won the 880 yards and mile run at the 1957 Canadian Track and Field Championships. He was married to Astrid and had two sons and a number of grandchildren.

His son Robert Gorrie was a Liberal Democrat councillor in Haringey, London, 2006–2014 and was Leader of the Opposition 2008–2011. He also stood for the Scottish Parliament seat of Airdrie and Shotts in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election.

Early career
After starting his professional career as a schoolteacher, he was Secretary of the Scottish Liberal Party, before becoming an Edinburgh City councillor in 1971. He remained a member of Edinburgh Council until its dissolution in 1976, when he became a member of Lothian Regional Council 1976–96, Edinburgh District Council 1978–96 and the new Edinburgh City Council 1995–97. During this time he stood for election to Westminster in the Edinburgh West constituency four times before finally winning it and becoming the area's MP in 1997.

Scottish Parliament
But his lifelong passion in politics was to see the establishment of a Scottish Parliament, and sit as a Member of it. So when the Scottish Parliament was established by the referendum of 1997, he announced he would retire from Westminster after just one term as an MP to stand for the new Scottish Parliament. He was therefore elected in 1999, as Liberal Democrat MSP for the Central Scotland region (retiring from Westminster at the next General Election in 2001).

Opponents
A feisty and independent-minded politician, he was always fiercely loyal to his liberal instincts, and had a particular mistrust of the Labour Party, which he saw as centralist and corrupt. He was firmly on the radical left of the Liberal Democrats, believing in full-scale political reform and significant increases in spending on public services. This put him at odds with the more cautious party leadership at the time, and he was often seen as a renegade member of the 'awkward squad,' for example in his implacable opposition to the coalition with the Labour Party formed after the 1999 elections (he was one of only three of his party's MSPs to vote against it).

Gorrie disliked his characterisation as a rebel, pointing to the fact that (unlike the pro-coalition MSPs) he was merely sticking to the Liberal Democrats' manifesto commitments.

Second term
As time passed, and particularly after he was re-elected for a second term as MSP in 2003, he mellowed, however, and – confined to the backbenches with no hope of ministerial appointment – he concentrated on campaigning on a number of particular themes which interested him. His boldness and eye for publicity endeared him to a media corps that was often starved of stories by the cautious and tightly-controlled party machines that operated at Holyrood, and he became associated with a number of individual causes, like the spiralling cost and mismanagement of the Holyrood building project, and later his campaign against the sectarianism that plagued Scottish society. Though controversial at first, this latter campaign raised the profile of the issue until eventually it was taken up by First Minister Jack McConnell, who instigated a series of legislative attempts to deal with the issue.

Disliked by some (mainly those in what he would term 'the establishment') for the uncompromising stances he has taken, Donald Gorrie is nevertheless widely respected for his consistency of principle and his long record of service to liberal politics and public life in general. He retired from the Scottish Parliament at the 2007 elections. He upset the party leadership during the campaign by saying the Lib Dems should 'never say never' to an independence referendum – as that would resign them to another coalition with the Labour Party.

title: Donald Gorrie