LADY THATCHER CELEBRATED HER 80TH BIRTHDAY LAST NIGHT WITH 650 GUESTS Andrew Pierce reports The Times Friday, October 14, 2005 BARONESS THATCHER had the perfect excuse to be a little late last night for her 80th birthday party in the presence of the Queen, Tony Blair and some unlikely names from the show-business world. She was delayed by an unexpected telephone call from President Bush wishing her a happy birthday. The ten- minute call from the White House was the latest in a series of tributes that poured in from around the world. It marked yet another highlight in the life of a woman who still casts a huge shadow over the Conservative Party. The red carpet was rolled out for Lady Thatcher, who was dressed in a navy blue cocktail coat and silk chiffon dress designed by Camilla Milton. Lady Thatcher, who looked frail, made no public comment as a crowd of wellwishers lined the streets to catch a glimpse of Britain's first woman Prime Minister. The 650-strong guest list was a roll call of honour from the 1980s Thatcher heyday. Michael Portillo, who was once seen as her anointed heir, made a surprise appearance. He said: "She was influential in her day but not now." But the former Prime Minister also sprinkled the list with some surprise names from both sides of the political divide. The Queen, in a shimmering silver dress, the Duke of Edinburgh, and the Prime Minister were the principal guests at the drinks party in the gold-embossed ballroom of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Hyde Park, in Knightsbridge. The Queen and Lady Thatcher were said to have walked hand in hand to the party. One onlooker said: "It was a magical moment." The sheer size of the guest list was an indication to some of the former Prime Minister's associates that the party would be one of the last big public events that she would host. Joan Collins, Dame Shirley Bas-sey, the actress June Whitfield and the crime writer P. D. James were present. Terry Wogan, Lord Lloyd-Webber, the composer, Sir Jimmy Young, who was one of her favourite interviewers, and the television presenter Jeremy Clarkson mingled with Princess Alexandra and President Cossiga of Italy. Sir John Major, who for years was barely on speaking terms with Lady Thatcher, whom he accused of undermining his premiership, made a surprise appearance with his wife Norma. Sir John changed his travel plans at the last minute in a further sign that the feud between the two was at an end. Angela Merkel, Germany's new Chancellor, sent a handwritten letter paying warm tribute to a fellow woman leader and "her remarkable achievements". There were also messages from Helmut Kohl, the former German Chancellor, John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, his Italian counterpart. The two-hour party reunited Sir Rex Hunt, who was Governor of the Falklands during the Argentine invasion in 1982, with Lord Carrington, 86, who resigned as Foreign Secretary before the recapture of the islands. Lord Carrington made the toast. Virtually all her Cabinet colleagues from the 1980s, with the pointed exceptions of Kenneth Clarke and Lord Heseltine, who ended her chances in the first leadership contest in 1990, were invited. Lord Wakeham, who was injured in the Brighton bomb and whose first wife was killed in the 1984 attack, was one of the first to arrive. Lady Thatcher, who has been told by doctors not to make public speeches after suffering a series of minor strokes, was planning for once to obey orders. But none of her staff would swear to that. Lord McAIpine, who was her Treasurer, flew in from his home in Italy. Lord Bell of Belgravia, the advertising guru who masterminded her election victories, caught up with Lord Parkinson, who was party chairman in her second landslide victory, and Lord Tebbit, the third. John Bolton, the hawkish US ambassador to the UN who is a close ally of President Bush, came in from New York. David Davis and Liam Fox, two would-be Tory leaders, were present along with Michael Howard, the outgoing one, who said: "We all owe her an enormous debt." There were rare appearances from John Profumo who retreated from public life in 1963 after he resigned as War Secretary after lying to the Commons over his relationship with Christine Keeler, and Lord Archer of Weston-super- Mare, who was jailed for perjury. Lady Archer said: "To the outside world, Lady Thatcher may appear to be the Iron Lady, but her friends saw a warm, kind and thoughtful person who does not desert you when you are not in vogue." The hatchet was also buried with Lord Howe of Aberavon, whose resignation speech triggered her downfall. He said: "Her real triumph was to have transformed not just one party but two, so that when Labour did eventually return, the great bulk of Thatcherism was accepted as irreversible." Other foes from the Thatcher era were reunited. Lord Lawson of Blaby, who resigned as chancellor in 1988, came face to face with Sir Alan Walters, the economics adviser whose presence in Downing Street forced his departure. Lord Powell, who was foreign policy adviser to Lady Thatcher, and his brother Jonathan, who is chief of staff to Tony Blair, chatted to Frank Field, her favourite Labour MR. Обратите внимание на перевод этих слов. unlikely highlight casts frail glimpse heyday anointed sprinkled divide gold-embossed sheer undermining feud counterpart contest flew in masterminded landslide hawkish would-be outgoing perjury vogue hatchet triggered downfall bulk irreversible foes

(нем. Angela Dorothea Merkel, урождѐнная Каснер, Kasner; род. 17 июля 1954, Гамбург) — немецкий Angela Merkel политик, лидер ХДС, с 21 ноября 2005 федеральный канцлер Германии от Христианско-демократического союза, одержавшего победу на досрочных парламентских выборах в сентябре 2005. Camilla Milton Christine Keeler (born February 22, 1942) is a former English model and showgirl. Her involvement with a British government minister Christine Keeler discredited the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan in 1963, in what is known as the Profumo Affair. (англ. Shirley Veronica Bassey; родилась 8 января 1937, Кардифф, Уэльс) — британская певица, ставшая Dame Shirley известной за пределами своей родины после исполнения песен к фильмам о Джеймсе Бонде: «Голдфингер» (1964), «Бриллианты Bassey остаются навсегда» (1971) и «Мунрэйкер» (1979). Она единственная записала более одной темы к фильмам о Джеймсе Бонде. Награждена орденом Британской империи. В 2003 году певица отметила 50-летие творческой деятельности в шоу-бизнесе. David Michael Davis (born December 23, 1948) is a British politician, Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Haltemprice and David Davis Howden and Shadow Home Secretary. Премьер-министр получает свою зарплату не как премьер-министр, а как первый лорд казначейства. В настоящее время она Downing Street составляет £127,334, в добавление к тому, что он получает £60,277 как член парламента.[1] Премьер-министр традиционно живѐт на Даунинг-стрит 10 в Лондоне, в доме который Георг II подарил Роберту Уолполу как личный подарок. Уолпол, однако, согласился принять его только как официальную резиденцию Первых лордов, а не как подарок для себя лично, и поселился там в 1735. Хотя большинство Первых лордов жили на Даунинг-стрит 10, некоторые жили в своих частных домах. Обычно так поступали аристократы, которые сами владели большими домами в центре Лондона. Некоторые, такие как Гарольд Макмиллан и Джон Мейджор жили в Доме адмиралтейства пока на даунинг-стрит 10 вѐлся ремонт и реконструкция. В примыкающем доме Даунинг-стрит 11, располагается резиденция второго лорда казначейства. Даунинг-стрит 12 является резиденцией главного «кнута». Премьер-министр также может использовать загородную резиденцию Чекерс в Бакингемшире. Премьер-министр, как и другие министры кабинета, по обычаю является членом Тайного Совета. Frank Field Frank Ernest Field (born July 16, 1942) is a British politician and author. He is the Labour Member of Parliament for Birkenhead. Гельмут Коль (нем. Helmut Josef Michael Kohl; род. 3 апреля 1930, Людвигсхафен) — немецкий политик (ХДС). Helmut Kohl С 1969 по 1976 премьер-министр федеральной земли Рейнланд-Пфальц и с 1982 по 1998 Федеральный канцлер Германии. Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born April 11, 1960) is an English broadcaster and writer who specialises in motoring. He writes weekly Jeremy Clarkson columns for The Sunday Times and The Sun, but is better known for his role on the BBC TV show Top Gear. The show won an International Emmy in 2005. "Not a man given to considered opinion", according to the BBC,[1] Clarkson is known to be opinionated and forthright in his views. In the Daily Mirror of June 19th, 2000, he was described by Tony Parsons as a "dazzling hero of political incorrectness". The Economist, on the subject of road pricing in UK, has also described him as a "skilful propagandist for the motoring lobby".[2] (нем. Bundeskanzler) является председателем федерального правительства Германии. Бундесканцлер German Chansellor избирается бундестагом (парламентом Германии) сроком на 4 года. [править] Права и полномочия Федеральный канцлер председательствует в кабинете министров. Только он имеет право формировать правительство: он отбирает министров и выдвигает обязательное для федерального президента предложение об их назначении или увольнении. Канцлер решает, сколько министров будет в кабинете, и определяет сферу их деятельности. Joan Henrietta Collins OBE (born May 23, 1933) is an English actress and bestselling author. She is most widely known for her role as Joan Collins Alexis Morell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan in the 1980s soap opera Dynasty. John Robert Bolton (born November 20, 1948), an attorney and an American diplomat in several Republican administrations, served as the John Bolton interim[1] U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations with the title of ambassador, from August 2005 until December 2006, on a recess appointment. His letter of resignation from the Bush Administration was accepted on December 4, 2006, effective when his recess appointment ended December 9 at the formal adjournment of the 109th Congress. Bolton is now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.[2][3] John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian politician and the Prime Minister of Australia. He is the second-longest serving John Howard Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies. He previously served as Treasurer in the government led by Malcolm Fraser from 1977– 1983 and was Leader of the Liberal Party from 1985–1989 through the 1987 election against Bob Hawke. Elected again as Leader of the opposition in 1995, Howard became the 25th Prime Minister of Australia after defeating incumbent Paul Keating in the 1996 election. His government was re-elected in the 1998, 2001 and 2004 elections. Джон Профьюмо (англ. John Dennis Profumo, 1915—2006) был военным министром Великобритании и ушел в отставку в 1963 году John Profumo из-за скандала с девушкой по вызову Кристин Килер (так называемое Дело Профьюмо). Журналисты выяснили, что Килер, помимо дружбы с Профьюмо, общалась также с советским военно-морским атташе в Лондоне, по совместительству советским разведчиком Евгением Ивановым. Профьюмо под давлением прессы, которая и раскопала эту историю, заявил в Палате общин британского парламента, что не поддерживал с Килер близких отношений. Опубликованное вскоре письмо, которое он написал ей, привело к отставке министра, а вскоре — и к падению кабинета премьер-министра Гарольда Макмиллана, и к поражению консерваторов на следующих выборах. Это был момент величайшего позора для Джона Профьюмо. Но его жизнь на этом не закончилась. Примерно через год после отставки Профьюмо пришел в Тойнби-Холл, благотворительное заведение для бедных в лондонском Ист-Энде, и предложил свои услуги в качестве посудомойки. Используя свои связи в истеблишменте, Профьюмо также добивался крупных пожертвований в адрес фонда. Впоследствии он столь много сделал для организации, что стал ее председателем. Он работал также в клубе социальной реабилитации алкоголиков. Все эти годы, до своей смерти в 1998 году, рядом с ним была его жена, бывшая актриса Валери Хобсон, работавшая в организации помощи прокаженным. Профьюмо никогда не упоминал больше о позорной истории, которая привела его на путь служения ближнему. Но его дела говорили современникам больше, чем слова. В 1975 году королева сделала его командором Ордена Британской империи. Маргарет Тэтчер, пригласив Профьюмо на свое семидесятилетие, посадила его рядом с королевой. Евгений Иванов умер в безвестности в России в 1994 году. Незадолго до смерти он встречался с Килер в Москве по инициативе одной британской газеты. Сама Килер запомнилась серией известных фотографий 60-х годов и тремя книгами об ее отношениях с Ивановым и Профьюмо. Jonathan Powell (born 1947) is a British television producer and executive. After graduating from the University of East Anglia in 1968, he Jonathan Powell began working in television drama, producing programmes such as Crown Court. He produced several drama series during the 1970s, including literary adaptations such as A Christmas Carol (1977) and Wuthering Heights (1978). However, probably his most famous work was as producer of the Alec Guinness-starring BBC serials Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979) and its sequel Smiley's People (1982). In 1982 he was made Head of Drama Series & Serials at BBC Television, and later became the overall Head of Drama. His most prominent television post came in 1987 when he succeeded Michael Grade as the Controller of BBC One, the Corporation's premier television channel and the oldest station in the UK. He was held responsible for commissioning Eldorado, a new soap opera that lasted only a year and was critically and popularly regarded as a costly fiasco and an embarrassment for the BBC. He was also responsible for the ultimate cancellation of the original series of Doctor Who in 1989. He held this post until 1993, when he left the BBC to join the independent company Carlton Television, where he became Director of Drama & Co-Production. As of December 2005, he still holds this position. June Rosemary Whitfield CBE (born 11 November 1925) is an English actress who is well known for her appearances in four Carry On June Whitfield films, Terry and June and Absolutely Fabulous. Kenneth Harry Clarke, QC, MP, (born 2 July 1940) is a prominent Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He is MP for Kenneth Clarke Rushcliffe, near Nottingham. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1993 until 1997, and a minister throughout all 18 years of Conservative rule from 1979 to 1997. He has contested the leadership of the party three times (in 1997, 2001 and 2005), being defeated each time. Knightsbridge is a street and district spanning the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in the west of Knightsbridge central London, England. The area is famous for its cultural and educational instutions and for its association with the celebrities and Найтсбридж millionaires. Labour John Richard Archer (8 June 1863—July, 1932) was a British race and political activist. In November 1906, he and Sylvester Williams Lord Archer became the first people of African descent to be elected to public office in Britain, with Archer becoming a councillor and later Mayor in Battersea. Archer was born to Richard Archer, from Barbados, and Mary Teresa Burns, from Ireland, in Liverpool. He travelled the world as a seaman, living in the USA and Canada, then settled in Battersea with his wife, Bertha, a black Canadian. He ran a small photographic studio at a time when photography was in its infancy. Archer became involved in local politics and friendly with London radicals. In 1906 he was elected as a Liberal to Battersea Borough Council for Latchmere ward; at the same time, Williams won in Marylebone. He successfully campaigned for a minimum wage of 32 shillings a week for council workers and was re-elected in 1912. In 1913, he was nominated for the position of Mayor. There were negative, even racist, aspects to the campaign, with allegations that he did not have British nationality. He won by 40 votes to 39 and gave a notable victory speech: "My election tonight means a new era. You have made history tonight. For the first time in the history of the English nation a man of colour has been elected as mayor of an English borough. "That will go forth to the coloured nations of the world and they will look to Battersea and say Battersea has done many things in the past, but the greatest thing it has done has been to show that it has no racial prejudice and that it recognises a man for the work he has done." Archer moved to the left during his years in Battersea and was re-elected to the Council as a Labour representative in 1919. He stood without success for parliament the same year. In 1918 he became President of the African Progress Union, working for black empowerment and equality. In 1919 he was a British delegate to the Pan-African Congress in Paris. Two years later he chaired the Pan-African Congress in London. In 1922, Archer acted as Labour Party secretary election agent for Shapurji Saklatvala, a Communist activist standing for parliament in North Battersea. He convinced the Labour Party to endorse Saklatvala and he was duly elected one of the first black MPs in Britain. He and Saklatvala continued to work together, winning again in 1924 until the Communist and Labour parties split fully. In 1929, Archer was agent for the official Labour candidate who won in the general election, beating Saklatvala. Archer served as a governor of Battersea Polytechnic, President of the Nine Elms Swimming Club, Chair of the Whitley Council Staff Committee and a member of the Wandsworth Board of Guardians. At the time of his death in 1932, he was deputy leader of Battersea council. He died on Thursday 14 July 1932, just a few weeks after his 69th birthday. His funeral was held at the Church of Our Lady of Carmel in Battersea Park Road on Tuesday 19 July, and was buried in the Council‘s cemetery at Morden. In 2004, John Archer was chosen for the 100 Great Black Britons list, coming 72nd in a public vote. Liam Fox (born September 22, 1961) is a UK Conservative politician, currently Shadow Defence Secretary and Member of Parliament for Liam Fox Woodspring. Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (born 15 April 1940) is a British author and politician. He is married to Mary Lord Archer of Archer. He was a member of Parliament, Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party and since 1992 is a life peer. His political career ended Weston-super-Mare after an indictment for perjury. Timothy Bell, Baron Bell Lord Bell of From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Belgravia Timothy Bell, Baron Bell (b. 18 October 1941) is a prominent advertising and public relations executive in the United Kingdom, best known for his advisory role in Margaret Thatcher's three successful general election campaigns. Lord Bell worked in various advertising/PR firms before helping to found and becoming Managing Director of Saatchi and Saatchi in 1970 (later serving as chairman and managing director of Saatchi and Saatchi Compton from 1975). He eventually would leave to start his own agency, Lowe Bell Communications, in 1987, and became Chairman of Chime Communications in 1994 (which includes includes the Bell Pottinger Group). While at Saatchi and Saatchi and later his own agency, Bell was instrumental in the Conservative general election campaign victories of Margaret Thatcher. In her first 1979 victory, he advised the future Prime Minister on interview techniques, clothing, and even hairstyle choices. He also courted newspaper editors and worked on devastating attacks on the Labour Party. In 1984 Bell was seconded to the National Coal Board to advise on media strategy at the start of the miners' strike. He did not just work on media relations, however: he also helped set the terms of the negotiations and course of government policy, sensing the Conservatives' strong support on this issue with the public. Bell was knighted in 1990 by Margaret Thatcher and made a Life Peer by Tony Blair as Baron Bell, of Belgravia in 1998. He is now often seen on panels and current affairs programmes discussing the issues of the day, and is Chairman of the Conservative Party's Keep the £ Campaign. He has also served on various arts and public administration bodies. During the the 1997 general election campaign a book was serialised in The Observer newspaper claiming Bell had used cocaine in the 1970s.[citation needed] Tim Bell has recently been an advisor to the Iraqi government on the "promotion of democracy". Lord Bell, a friend of Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, handled the media attention behind poisoned Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, who died in hospital 23 November 2006. The Bell Pottinger Communications agency distributed the famous photograph showing a hairless Litvinenko in his hospital bed. The PR Agency also offered advice to relatives of Mr Litvinenko and his spokesman Alex Goldfarb.[1] In December 2006 Lord Bell successfully lobbied on behalf of the Saudi government to discontinue the Serious Fraud Office investigation into alleged bribes in the Al Yamamah arms deal.[2] [edit] Books Mark Hollingsworth, The Ultimate spin doctor: the life and fast times of Tim Bell, 1997. Sir Archibald Primrose, 1st baronet, Lord Carrington (May 16, 1616-–November 27, 1679) was a Scottish judge. Lord Carrington The son of James Primrose (d. 1641) he joined Montrose and was condemned for treason in 1646; after his release joined Charles II and was made a baronet in 1651 during the march to Worcester. His property was sequestrated after the battle. At the Restoration he was appointed Lord Clerk Register, and in 1661 was appointed a Lord of Session with the judicial title Lord Carrington, a lord of Exchequer, and a Privy Counsellor. He was the principal author of the Rescissory Act of 1661, which ended Presbyterianism until the Act of 1690 re-established it again. In 1676 he was removed from the office of Lord Clerk Register and appointed Lord Justice General. He was deprived of this office in 1678. This article about a Scottish politician is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. This United Kingdom law-related biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, CH, PC (Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council) (born 21 March 1933) is a British Lord Heseltine Conservative politician and businessman. He is a patron of the Tory Reform Group. Richard Edward Geoffrey Howe, Baron Howe of Aberavon, CH, PC, QC (born 20 December 1926), known until 1992 as Sir Geoffrey Lord Howe of Howe, is a senior British Conservative politician. He was Margaret Thatcher's longest-serving Cabinet minister, successively holding the Aberavon posts of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, and finally Leader of the House of Commons and Deputy Prime Minister. His resignation on 1 November 1990 is widely thought to have hastened Thatcher's own downfall three weeks later, in perhaps the most dramatic period of British Conservative politics in recent times Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, PC (born March 11, 1932), is a British politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer between June 1983 Lord Lawson of and October 1989. His tenure in that office was longer than that of any of his predecessors since David Lloyd George (1908 to 1915), though Blaby it was surpassed by Gordon Brown in September 2003. Lawson is the father of journalist and food writer Nigella Lawson, Dominic Lawson, the former editor of The Sunday Telegraph and Tom Lawson, housemaster of Chernocke House at Winchester College. Барон Эндрю Ллойд-Уэббер (англ. Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber; род. 22 марта 1948 г.) — известный британский Lord Lloyd-Webber композитор, который произвел на свет шестнадцать мюзиклов, две темы к кинофильмам и один реквием. Уэббер — лауреат многочисленных наград, в том числе «Оскара» и «Грэмми». [править] Биография Эндрю Ллойд-Уэббер родился 22 марта 1948 года в семье композитора Уильяма Ллойд-Уэббера и учителя игры на фортепиано Джин Джонстоун Ллойд-Уэббер. Первый успех пришел к нему в возрасте 19 лет, когда он и Тим Райс написали оперу Иосиф и его удивительный разноцветный плащ (англ. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) для школьной постановки. Уэббер и Тим Райс, продолжая работать вместе, написали оперы Иисус Христос — суперзвезда (Jesus Christ Superstar) (1970) и Эвита (Evita) (1976). Творческие пути Райса и Уэббера вскоре разошлись. В 1981 Уэббер написал мюзикл Кошки (Cats) на слова нобелевского лауреата Т.С. Элиота. Через два года женился на оперной певице Саре Брайтман, которая исполнила главную партию в его новом мюзикле — Призрак оперы. В последущие годы Уэббер создал ещѐ несколько мюзиклов с большим успехом поставленных на Бродвее. По мотивом мюзиклов Уэббера было снято несколько фильмов, причем главную роль в экранизации Эвиты сыграла Мадонна. В 1997 г. был пожалован королевой в рыцари, через пару лет ему был дарован титул барона. По оценкам воскресного приложения к The Times, состояние композитора перевалило за 700 миллионов фунтов стерлингов; он входит в сотню самых состоятельных жителей Великобритании. [править] Мюзиклы The Likes of Us (1965) Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1968) Jesus Christ Superstar (1971) Jeeves (1975) Evita (1976) Cats (1981) Tell Me On a Sunday (1979) Starlight Express (1984) The Phantom of the Opera (1986) Aspects of Love (1989) Sunset Boulevard (1993) Whistle Down the Wind (1996) Metal Philharmonic (1997) The Beautiful Game (2000) The Woman in White (2004) Robert Alistair McAlpine, Baron McAlpine (14 May 1942–), is often known as Alistair McAlpine. He also joined the Sir Robert McAlpine Lord McAlpine firm and served as a director and Vice-President. He became a life peer in 1984 as Baron McAlpine of West Green of West Green in the County of Hampshire. In the 1990s he had a high- profile business collapse in Australia. McAlpine was a prominent Conservative peer, close in his views to Margaret Thatcher. He had been both Treasurer and Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party. In 1996, he defected to James Goldsmith's Referendum Movement and in 1997 became its leader following Goldsmith's death. He sat as an Independent Conservative for some time in the House of Lords before rejoining the Conservatives. He is a bon viveur, patron of the arts and an author. Cecil Edward Parkinson, Baron Parkinson, PC (born 1 September 1931), is a British Conservative politician and former Cabinet Minister. Lord Parkinson He had humble origins, being the son of a railway worker and educated at Lancaster Royal Grammar School, from where he won a scholarship to Cambridge. He was elected as MP for Enfield West at a by-election in 1970, following the death of Ian Macleod. When that constitituency was abolished for the February 1974 general election he was elected for the new South Hertfordshire constituency. After the 1979 General Election, he was made a junior trade minister. In September 1981 he was made Chairman of the Conservative Party, and Paymaster-General with a seat in the cabinet and in 1982 was given the added official title of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He worked on the Conservative Party's 1983 election campaign, standing in the new Hertsmere constituency after Hertfordshire South's abolition. As a result of his success on the campaign, was promoted to Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. He was forced to resign in October 1983 after it was revealed that his former secretary, Sara Keays, was bearing his child, Flora Keays. Subsequently, as a result of a dispute over child maintenance payments, Parkinson (with Keays' initial consent) was able to gain an injunction in 1993, forbidding the British media from making any reference to their daughter. Flora Keays suffers from learning difficulties and Asperger's Syndrome and had an operation to remove a brain tumour when she was four, which is thought to have caused her problems. This court order was the subject of some controversy, until Flora Keays reached her majority at the end of 2001, when the court order expired. Upon Flora turning 18, it was noted in the press that Parkinson had never met his child and presumably had no intention of doing so. While he had assisted with Flora's education, it was publicly pointed out that he had not ever sent her a birthday card and that her mother assumed that Flora could not ever expect to receive one. At the time of the revelation of Parkinson's relationship with Sara Keays in 1983, Parkinson made much of what he described as the volume of supportive letters which he had received. By 2001, however, the media focussed more upon Flora and her difficulties than in protecting Parkinson's reputation so more voices were raised in criticism of Parkinson. After four years on the back benches, he was appointed Secretary of State for Energy in 1987, and for Transport in 1989. He resigned along with Margaret Thatcher when she was replaced by John Major; possibly because he was known as a favourite of Mrs. Thatcher, a new Conservative leader would not keep him in the Cabinet anyway. He did not contest the 1992 general election. Charles David Powell, Lord Powell KCMG (born 6 June 1941), son of Air Vice-Marshall John Powell OBE. Lord Powell Educated at King's School, Canterbury and New College, Oxford from where he graduated in 1963 with a BA in Modern History. He joined the Diplomatic Service in 1963 where he served in various posts until he became Private Secretary to Margaret Thatcher (1983 to 1990) and then Private Secretary to John Major (1990 to 1991). Since 1992 he has been an international businessman. He is Chairman of Sagitta Asset Management Limited (asset management) and Louis Vuitton U.K. Ltd. (luggage and leather goods). Prior to his current positions, Lord Powell was Chairman of Phillips Fine Art Auctioneers (art, jewelry, and furniture auction) and Senior Director of Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd. and associated companies (multinational business group). Other directorships: Caterpillar Inc.; LVMH Moet-Hennessy Louis Vuitton; Mandarin Oriental International Ltd.; Textron Corporation; Schindler Holding Ltd., and Yell Group plc. Lord Powell has been a director of Caterpillar since 2001. He is also a signatory of the Henry Jackson Society. He currently sits as a life peer in The House of Lords. Although associated with the Conservative Party, Lord Powell sits on the crossbenches. He married Carla Bonardi in 1964. They have two sons. He has two brothers, Chris and Jonathan Powell, the Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Tony Blair, a member of the Labour Party. His surname is pronounced POLE although his brother Jonathan pronounces his POWELL. Norman Beresford Tebbit, Baron Tebbit, CH, PC (born 29 March 1931) is a British Conservative politician and former Member of Lord Tebbit Parliament (MP) for Chingford, who was born in Southgate in Enfield. His wife became permanently wheelchair-bound after the Provisional Irish Republican Army bombing of the 1984 Conservative Party conference in Brighton. John Wakeham, Baron Wakeham, PC (born June 22, 1932), is a businessman and British Conservative politician. Lord Wakeham Since he left government, he has been active in business again, notably being a director of Enron before its collapse. Educated at Charterhouse School, he was a successful accountant and later businessman before his election to the House of Commons for Maldon, Essex in 1974. He became a minister after Margaret Thatcher's victory in 1979. His first wife, Roberta, was killed in the Brighton hotel bombing in October 1984 and he himself was trapped in rubble for seven hours, suffering serious crush injuries to his legs. They had two children together. He married his second wife Alison Ward MBE in 1985[citation needed] and they have a son of their own. She had been his secretary and, before that, was Margaret Thatcher's secretary. During the late eighties he served as Leader of the House of Commons, in which capacity he was responsible for the first televisings of Parliament, and as Energy Secretary (1989-1992), where he drew up plans for the privatisation of electricity. He was appointed a life peer as Baron Wakeham, of Maldon in the County of Essex in 1992 by John Major, and then was Leader of the House of Lords until 1994. He became chairman of the Press Complaints Commission in 1995, retiring in 2001. Tony Blair appointed him in 1999 to head a Royal Commission on reform of the House of Lords — the resulting report suggested a mainly appointed Lords be maintained, with a small elected component. The Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park is set between London‘s Hyde Park and exclusive Knightsbridge. From this central location, the hotel Mandarin Oriental offers access to major business areas as well as the shopping and cultural attractions of the West End. Hotel Hyde Park Built in 1889, originally as a Gentleman‘s Club, the building became a hotel in 1902. Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group purchased the Hyde Park Hotel in November 1996 and renamed it Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, London. Following a GBP 57 million restoration, and its re- opening in May 2000, Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park has been voted Best UK Leisure Hotel 2004 and 2005 by Condé Nast Traveler readers and was rated fifth Best Spa in the World. Foliage has maintained a prestigious Michelin star for five consecutive years. The hotel has 200 luxury guest rooms and suites, many of which overlook the park, with each room individually furnished and decorated. Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, London is wholly owned by the Group (100%) and Christoph Mares is the General Manager.[1] Restaurants and Bars Foliage Stylish restaurant with a raised floor so that every diner has a clear view of Hyde Park. Every morning, one of the wait staff picks leaves from the park and places them under the glass plates. The restaurant serves modern European cuisine with fresh seasonal ingredients and features Vegetarian dishes.[2] Mandarin Bar The actual bar is a catwalk. No bottles are on full view but you can catch a glimpse of them through the frosted and backlit glass walls. Michael Howard QC MP, (born 7 July 1941) is a British politician, an MP since the 1983 General Election for the constituency of Michael Howard Folkestone and Hythe (UK Parliament constituency). Howard is former Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Conservative Party from November 2003 to December 2005. Since his election as an MP at the 1983 General Election, Howard also held a number of positions in successive Conservative governments until their electoral defeat in 1997, most notably Home Secretary under John Major. Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo (born 26 May 1953) is an English journalist, broadcaster, and former Conservative politician and Cabinet Michael Portillo Minister. Dame Norma Major, DBE (born 12 February 1942) is the wife of Sir John Major, the former British Prime Minister. Norma Major She is the daughter of the late Norman Wagstaff and the late Edith Johnson, and was born Norma Christina Elizabeth Wagstaff. Her father was killed in a motorcycle accident a few days after the end of World War II and her mother subsequently changed the family name back to her maiden name, so that she was called Norma Johnson as she was growing up. She was educated at a boarding school in Bexhill-on-Sea, Oakfield School in Dulwich, and Peckham School for Girls where she was Head Girl. She was a skilled dressmaker and trained as a teacher, working at St Michael and All Angels Church of England School, Camberwell. It was at a Conservative Party meeting during the campaign for the 1970 Greater London Council elections that she was introduced to John Major by Peter Golds, a party agent who knew both. After a fast courtship, they were married on 3 October 1970. The Majors have a son, James Major, and a daughter, Elizabeth Major. She kept a low profile during her time as wife to the Prime Minister, doing charity work and writing a book, Chequers: The Prime Minister's Country House and its History. She was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 1999 Queen's Birthday Honours, in recognition of her charity work. There is some debate in the UK as to whether Dame Norma should be known as Dame Norma Major or Norma, Lady Major. If one is to base her correct title on the hierarchy of titles within the order of precedence of the United Kingdom, then it is correct that she should be known by the latter, as the wife of a Knight of the Garter would rank above a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. However, Dame Norma has made it clear on a number of occasions that, as her Damehood was awarded in her own right and not by virtue of her marriage to the former Prime Minister, she should be known as Dame Norma Major. At state and official functions, such as the 80th birthday party of Baroness Thatcher, the couple are announced as Sir John and Dame Norma Major. Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park OBE (born 3 August 1920) is an English writer of crime fiction under the name P. P. D. James D. James and a life peer in the House of Lords. George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the 43rd and current U.S. President. He was elected as Governor of Texas in 1994, serving for President Bush nearly six years in that capacity before being elected President in the contested 2000 Presidential election against Al Gore, one of the closest in U.S. history. Bush was re-elected in 2004, receiving the highest number of votes of any presidential candidate in American history (though his Democratic opponent, John Kerry, received the second largest number of votes in presidential history).[1] Francesco Cossiga (born July 26, 1928) is an Italian politician and former President of the Italian Republic. He was also a professor of law at President Cossiga University of Sassari. Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy (Alexandra Helen Elizabeth Olga Christabel; born 25 December 1936), is a member of the Princess Alexandra British Royal Family, a granddaughter of George V. She was married to the late Sir Angus Ogilvy. Prior to her marriage she was known as Princess Alexandra of Kent. She is known in the family as Alex. Princess Alexandra carries out royal duties on behalf of her cousin, The Queen. She is 33rd in the line of succession to the British throne and at the time of her birth in 1936 was sixth. (итал. Silvio Berlusconi) — родился 29 сентября 1936 в Милане. Премьер-министр Италии (1994—1995, Silvio Berlusconi 2001—2006). Professor Sir Alan Arthur Walters (June 17, 1926) is a British economist, best known as the former Chief Economic Adviser to Prime Sir Alan Walters Minister Margaret Thatcher from 1981 to 1984 and again in 1989 after he had returned from America. His differences with the policies of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, led to the resignation of both men in 1989. Sir Jimmy Young ir Jimmy Young (born on 21 September 1921) is a well-known British disc jockey and radio interviewer. Джон Мейджор (англ. John Major, р. 29 марта 1943) — британский политик, премьер-министр Великобритании с 1990 по 1997. Sir John Major Деятель Консервативной партии; в 1990, после того, как в связи с разногласиями в партии Маргарет Тэтчер подала в отставку со всех постов, был избран лидером партии и вследствие этого назначен королевой премьер-министром. После поражения консерваторов на выборах 1997 Мейджора сменил лейборист Тони Блэр. Sir Rex Masterman Hunt CMG (born 26 June 1926-) was the British Governor of the Falkland Islands between 1980 and September 1985 Sir Rex Hunt with a 3 month gap between 2 April 1982 and 25 June 1982, during the occupation by Argentine armed forces. After attending Coatham School and St Peter's College, Oxford, Rex Hunt joined the Royal Air Force as a cadet in 1941 and was enlisted as an airman in 1944 and commissioned as a pilot in 1945. He transferred to No 5 Squadron in India in August 1946 where he flew Spitfires, before transferring to Germany with No 26 Squadron in August 1947. He left active service in 1948, but remained in the reserves until 1951 where he reached the rank of Flight Lieutenant. In 1952 he joined the Colonial and Diplomatic Services and went on to serve on postings in Uganda, Sarawak, Brunei, Turkey, Indonesia, South Vietnam, Malaysia, British Antarctic Territory and the Falkland Islands. He was portrayed by Ian Richardson in the BBC television drama An Ungentlemanly Act, depicting the 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands. Sir Michael Terence Wogan KBE (b August 3, 1938, County Limerick, Ireland), more commonly known as Terry Wogan, is a radio and Terry Wogan television broadcaster who has mainly worked for the BBC in the United Kingdom for most of his career. Born in Limerick in Ireland, Wogan also took British nationality in 2005. This allowed him to use the style "Sir" following his knighthood. He has been a leading media personality in the UK since the late 1960s, and is often referred to as a national treasure [1][2]. He was educated by the Salesians and the Jesuits at Crescent College Limerick and at Belvedere College in Dublin. He is married with three children and two grandchildren. Because his listeners are perceived as being of a certain age, he jokingly refers to them as "TOGs" (Terry's Old Geezers or Terry's Old Gals), and at BBC Radio 2 he has become known as "The Togmeister". He also nicknames the podcast of his show a 'togcast' [3]. His BBC Radio 1 counterpart, Chris Moyles, got into hot water earlier in 2006, by referring to TOGs as Wogs. Wogan later put the record straight that Moyles had made a genuine mistake and that he forgave him for this hiccough. The modern Conservative Party of the United Kingdom traces its origins back to the "Tory" supporters of Duke of York, later King James the Conservative VII&II, during the 1678-1681 exclusion. The name was originally meant as a pejorative -- a 'Tory' was a type of Irish bandit. Party. The name 'Conservative' was suggested by John Wilson Croker in the 1830s and later officially adopted, but the party is still often referred to as the 'Tory Party' (not least because newspaper editors find it a convenient shorthand when space is limited). The Tories more often than not formed the government from the accession of King George III (in 1760) until the Great Reform Act of 1832. Widening of the franchise in the 19th century led the party to popularise -- some would say vulgarise -- its approach, especially under Benjamin Disraeli, who carried through his own Reform Act in 1867. After 1886 the Conservatives allied with the Liberals who opposed their party's support for Irish Home Rule and held office for all but three of the following twenty years The Conservative suffered a large defeat when the party split over tariff reform in 1906. The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philippos of Greece and Denmark, 10 June 1921) is the husband and consort of Queen the Duke of Elizabeth II. Edinburgh Originally a Prince of Greece and Denmark, Prince Philip abandoned those titles to serve in the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom, but did not renounce them. In 1947, he married Princess Elizabeth, the heiress to King George VI. Prince Philip is a member of the Danish Royal House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. Prior to his marriage, George VI created him Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich with the style of His Royal Highness. In 1957, Philip was created a Prince of the United Kingdom. Prince Philip took the anglicized name of his mother's family, Mountbatten (formerly Battenberg) after becoming a British citizen. In addition to his royal duties, the Duke of Edinburgh is also the patron of many organisations, including The Duke of Edinburgh's Award and the World Wide Fund for Nature, and he is Chancellor of both the University of Cambridge and the University of Edinburgh. In particular, he has devoted himself to raising public awareness of the relationship of humanity with the environment since visiting the Southern Antarctic Islands in 1956, and has published and spoken widely for half a century on this subject. See Wikiquote excerpts from these speeches. The prince continues to fulfil his public duties as a member of the British Royal Family, and is an established public figure in the United Kingdom. He has gained something of a reputation for making "politically incorrect" and often controversial remarks, particularly when meeting the British public or on state visits to other countries (see below). More unusually, a visit to the Pacific island of Vanuatu led him to be worshipped as a divine being by members of the Yaohnanen tribe. (англ. the White House) — резиденция президента США в Вашингтоне (Пенсильвания-авеню, 1600). the White House Представляет собой особняк в неоклассическом стиле (архитектор Джеймс Хобан). Строительство началось в 1792, окончилось 1 ноября 1800. В этот же день первым его хозяином стал второй президент США Джон Адамс. Первоначально именовался «Президентский дворец» или «Президентский особняк», первое разговорное употребление термина «Белый дом» относится к 1811. Официальным название стало лишь в 1901 по распоряжению Теодора Рузвельта. С 1909 рабочее место президента находится в Овальном кабинете в левом крыле здания. В журналистском языке термин «Белый дом» употребляется как синоним администрации президента США (аналогично «Кремль», «Елисейский дворец» и т. п.) Изображѐн на банкноте в 20 долларов. Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born May 6, 1953)[1] is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for Tony Blair the Civil Service, Leader of the Labour Party, and Member of Parliament for the constituency of Sedgefield in the North East of England. As a member of the British Cabinet he is also a Privy Counsellor. His official residence is 10 Downing Street, London, SW1A 2AA.[2] Blair became leader of the British Labour Party in July 1994 following the sudden death of his predecessor, John Smith. Under Blair's leadership, the party won a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, ending 18 years of government by the Conservative Party. Blair is the Labour Party's longest-serving prime minister, the only person to have led the party to three consecutive general election victories, and the only Labour prime minister to serve more than one full consecutive term. On 7 September 2006 Blair publicly stated he would step down as party leader by the time of the TUC conference in September 2007, but has not yet given a date for his departure.[3]

Меркель, Ангела [править] Материал из Википедии — свободной энциклопедии У этого термина существуют и другие значения, см. Меркель.

Ангела Меркель на саммите «большой восьмѐрки» в Петербурге (2006)

(нем. Angela Dorothea Merkel, урождѐнная Каснер, Kasner; род. 17 июля 1954, Гамбург) — немецкий политик, лидер ХДС, с 21 ноября 2005 федеральный канцлер Германии от Христианско-демократического союза, одержавшего победу на досрочных парламентских выборах в сентябре 2005.Содержание [убрать] 1 Биография 2 Политическая карьера 3 «Большая коалиция» 4 Позиции 5 Семейная жизнь 6 Ссылки

[править] Биография

Меркель — третий ребѐнок в семье лютеранского пастора Хорста Каснера и учительницы Герлинды Каснер, родилась в Гамбурге. Вскоре после еѐ рождения семья переехала в ГДР, где еѐ отец возглавил приход в городке Темплин. В юности Меркель состояла в пионерской организации, Союзе свободной немецкой молодежи, и одновременно была членом молодѐжной организации лютеранской церкви. В школе хорошо овладела русским языком. Позднее выучила английский.

В 1978 окончила Лейпцигский университет по специальности физика, в 1986 защитила диссертацию. С 1978 по 1990 работала в Центральном институте физической химии Академии наук ГДР.

[править] Политическая карьера

В 1989 после падения Берлинской стены стала активным участником демократического движения — активистом Партии демократического обновления (ДО). Лотар де Мезьер, последний глава кабинета министров ГДР, доверил ей пост заместителя пресс-секретаря правительства.

В августе 1989 г. партия ДО вступила в находившийся тогда у власти Христианско-демократический союз (ХДС). В декабре того же года Меркель избрана депутатом в Бундестаг, блестяще проведя предвыборную кампанию.

В правительстве Гельмута Коля (всегда называвшего еѐ «девочкой») стала министром по делам женщин и молодѐжи.

С 1991 — вице-председатель Христианско-демократического союза.

В 1994 перешла на должность министра окружающей среды.

В 1998 ХДС был вынужден уйти в оппозицию, а вокруг Гельмута Коля разразился скандал по поводу незаконных внешних пожертвований на счета ХДС. Скандал коснулся также и председателя ХДС Вольфганга Шойбле, который в результате ушѐл в отставку.

Ангела Меркель отреклась от Коля и потребовала от партийного актива сменить руководство ХДС и начать партийное «обновление». В апреле 2000 96 % членов партии избрали еѐ преемницей Шойбле на посту председателя ХДС. Этот успех был особенно примечателен на фоне того, что Меркель, будучи женщиной, восточной немкой и протестанткой, крайне нетипична для этой партии.

В 2002 Меркель согласилась на выставление в качестве единой кандидатуры на пост федерального канцлера от ХДС/ХСС премьер-министра Баварии Эдмунда Штойбера. Штойбер выборы проиграл, что усилило внутрипартийные позиции Меркель. Впоследствии она преуспела в умелом устранении основных политических соперников в партии и укреплении своей ведущей позиции.

В 2003 Меркель демонстративно поддержала американское вторжение в Ирак, поехав в США. В 2004 она сумела добиться избрания еѐ кандидата Хорста Кѐлера на пост президента Германии.

После неожиданной инициативы Герхарда Шрѐдера по досрочным выборам в 2005, Ангела Меркель была избрана ХДС в качестве кандидата на пост федерального канцлера Германии.

Когда Шрѐдер решился пойти на досрочные выборы, отрыв ХДС от социал-демократов составлял почти 30 %. Однако неудачно проведѐнная Ангелой Меркель избирательная кампания привела к тому, что на выборах их разделили всего 300 тыс. голосов — менее 1 %.

По результатам выборов в бундестаг блок ХДС-ХСС и свободных демократов опередил СДПГ с «зелѐными» всего на три голоса. В связи с неспособностью сформировать устойчивое парламентское большинство христианским демократам пришлось пойти на создание «большой» коалиции с СДПГ — во второй раз в истории ФРГ.

[править] «Большая коалиция»

Европейский парламент

10 октября 2005 председатель Христианско-социального союза, премьер-министр Баварии Эдмунд Штойбер сообщил, что на переговорах о формировании «большой» правящей коалиции, которые вели А. Меркель, действующий канцлер Германии Герхард Шрѐдер и председатель СДПГ Франц Мюнтеферинг, было решено, что Ангела Меркель станет новым канцлером Германии.

В обмен на согласие на канцлерство А. Меркель СДПГ получит в будущем кабинете 8 министерских портфелей: иностранных дел, финансов, юстиции, труда, по вопросам охраны окружающей среды, здравоохранения, транспорта, а также экономического сотрудничества и развития.

К ХДС/ХСС — наряду с руководителем ведомства федерального канцлера в ранге министра — отходят посты министров обороны, внутренних дел, экономики, семьи, образования, а также сельского хозяйства.

Между тем, Герхард Шрѐдер заявил о своем предстоящем уходе из правительства ФРГ. Ранее не исключалось, что он может занять в новом правительстве пост вице-канцлера и министра иностранных дел.

См. Правительство Ангелы Меркель (2005)

[править] Позиции

Во внешней политике Ангела Меркель известна своей безоговорочной поддержкой американского курса, выступая за сближение с США. Она неоднократно критиковала Герхарда Шрѐдера за «чрезмерную» дружбу с Владимиром Путиным и заявляла о том, что займѐт более жѐсткую позицию в отношении России в случае еѐ избрания на пост канцлера. Меркель намерена разбить «триумвират» Шрѐдера с Жаком Шираком и Владимиром Путиным и улучшить отношения со странами Восточной Европы. Тем не менее, после того, как Меркель возглавила правительство ФРГ, российско-германские отношения не претерпели никаких особых изменений.

Меркель является последовательным противником принятия Турции в Европейский союз. Самое большее, что она готова предоставить Турции,- это «привилегированное партнѐрство».

Во внутренней политике она намеревается продолжить курс реформ Герхарда Шрѐдера, однако «другими способами». Еѐ главная объявленная цель — создание рабочих мест и поддержка экономики за счѐт уменьшения социальных пособий.

[править] Семейная жизнь

Ангела Меркель вторично замужем, детей не имеет. Первым еѐ мужем, за которого она вышла замуж ещѐ в Лейпциге, был Ульрих Меркель (развелись после переезда в Берлин после университета). После развода оставила его фамилию.

Ширли Бэсси [править] Материал из Википедии — свободной энциклопедии Ширли Бэсси Shirley Bassey

Настоящее имя Ширли Вероника Бэсси Дата рождения 8 января 1937 Место рождения Кардифф, Уэльс Годы 1937 — по сей день Страна Великобритания Профессия певица Жанр джаз блюз эстрада Лейбл Columbia Records, United Artists www.dameshirleybassey.com

(англ. Shirley Veronica Bassey; родилась 8 января 1937, Кардифф, Уэльс) — британская певица, ставшая известной за пределами своей родины после исполнения песен к фильмам о Джеймсе Бонде: «Голдфингер» (1964), «Бриллианты остаются навсегда» (1971) и «Мунрэйкер» (1979). Она единственная записала более одной темы к фильмам о Джеймсе Бонде. Награждена орденом Британской империи. В 2003 году певица отметила 50-летие творческой деятельности в шоу- бизнесе.Содержание [убрать] 1 Жизнь и карьера 1.1 Детство и юность (1937—1960) 1.2 Пик популярности (1960—1980) 1.3 1980-е годы 1.4 С 1990 по сей день 1.5 Личная жизнь 2 Значение и влияние 3 Звания и награды 4 Интересные факты 5 Цитаты 6 Дискография (избранное) 6.1 Альбомы, вошедшие в десятку лучших 6.2 Синглы, вошедшие в десятку лучших 7 Фильмография (избранное) 8 Библиография 9 Источники 10 Ссылки 11 См. также

[править] Жизнь и карьера

[править] Детство и юность (1937—1960)

Бэсси родилась на Бьют Стрит, 182 в районе Тайгер Бэй, г. Кардифф в семье моряка-нигерийца Генри Бэсси (Henry Bassey). Мать Бэсси, Элайза Джейн, в девичестве Меткалф (Elizа Jane Metcalfe) была родом из Йоркшира, Северная Англия. Девочка росла в рабочем квартале и была младшей из семи детей. Отец бросил семью, когда Ширли было два года. Впоследствии девочка стала ходить в начальную школу Мурланд в районе Сплотт, г. Кардифф.

В детстве Ширли часто пела в дуэте с братом на семейных торжествах хиты американских джазовых артистов Сары Воэн (Sarah Vaughan) и Билли Экстайна (Billy Eckstine). Любимым певцом брата был американский певец и актѐр Эл Джолсон (Al Jolson), который также оказал влияние на формирование музыкального стиля певицы. Бэсси вспоминает: «В детстве мы слушали только записи Джолсона. Думаю, я переняла его манеру, потому что мне нравилось, с каким апломбом он говорил публике: „Ничего вы еще не слышали!―. Нужно быть довольно эгоистичным, чтобы говорить такое — и именно это мне нравилось в Эле Джолсоне»[1].

Покинув школу в возрасте пятнадцати лет, Ширли пошла работать упаковщицей на местную фабрику. В свободное время она подрабатывала пением в местных пабах и клубах. В 1953 году Бэсси участвовала в мюзикле под названием «Memories of Jolson», поставленном по биографии певца Эла Джолсона (Al Jolson). Затем Бэсси как профессиональная певица приняла участие в шоу «Hot From Harlem», шедшем вплоть до 1954 года.

К этому времени Бэсси успела устать от шоу-бизнеса. В 16 лет она забеременела дочерью Шэрон и вернулась в Кардифф, устроившись на работу официанткой. Однако в 1955 году по случайной рекомендации еѐ нашел агент по имени Майкл Салливан (Michael Sullivan) и убедил в необходимости продолжать певческую карьеру. Салливан увидел талант Бэсси и решил сделать из неѐ звезду. Певица работала в разных театрах до тех пор, пока не получила приглашение в шоу Эла Рида (Al Read) под названием «Such Is Life». За время работы в этом шоу компания Philips A&R и продюсер Джонни Франц (Johnny Franz) заметили еѐ появление на телевидении и предложили контракт.

Компания Philips выпустила первый сингл Бэсси под названием «Burn My Candle» в феврале 1956 года, когда певице было всего девятнадцать лет. Из-за фривольного текста песни компания BBC запретила еѐ ротацию. Тем не менее, сингл, на второй стороне которого была записана песня «Stormy Weather», хорошо продавался. Вслед за другими синглами певицы последовал первый успех: хитом в феврале 1957 года стало исполнение народной ямайской песни «Banana Boat Song», занявшее восьмую строчку в хит-параде британских синглов. В этом же году певица под руководством американского продюсера Митча Миллера (Mitch Miller) записала в Америке для лейбла Columbia сингл «If I Had A Needle And Thread» / «Tonight My Heart She Is Crying».

Обложка первого альбома певицы «The Bewitching Miss Bassey» (1959)

В середине 1958 года Бэсси записала два сингла, которые впоследствии стали классикой в еѐ репертуаре. Песня «As I Love You» появилась на второй стороне пластинки с балладой под названием «Hands Across The Sea». Вначале сингл плохо раскупался, однако дела пошли лучше после выступления певицы в концертном зале London Palladium. В феврале 1959 года эта песня заняла первую строчку хит-парада и продержалась там четыре недели. В то же время Бэсси записала песню «Kiss Me, Honey Honey, Kiss Me», и одновременно с тем, как «As I Love You» поднималась в хит-парадах, эта песня также обрела популярность: в результате обе вошли в тройку лидеров.

Первый альбом-лонгплей певицы под названием «The Bewitching Miss Bassey» вышел в 1959 году. В него вошли синглы, выпущенные ранее за время контракта с компанией Philips. Несколько месяцев спустя Бэсси подписала контракт с лейблом EMI Columbia, что ознаменовало собой следующий важный период еѐ певческой карьеры.

[править] Пик популярности (1960—1980)

В течение 1960-х годов Бэсси записала несколько песен, ставших хитами в британских чартах. В частности, первым хитом, записанным с момента заключения контракта с EMI, стала песня 1960 года под названием «As Long As He Needs Me». При подготовке к записи песни произошел курьѐзный случай. Продюсер Норман Ньюэлл (Norman Newell) забронировал одну из студий на Abbey Road и вместе с большим оркестром ожидал прибытия певицы. Когда Бэсси не появилась в назначенный час, Ньюэлл стал звонить ей домой и обнаружил, что та забыла про запись и отправилась в кино. Тогда продюсер велел немедленно обзвонить все кинотеатры Лондона, чтобы срочно найти певицу и доставить еѐ в студию. Запыхавшаяся Ширли прибыла на место и в результате записала одну из самых эмоциональных и популярных песен за всю свою карьеру. В 1960 году песня взлетела на второе место британских хит-парадов и продержалась 30 недель среди 50-ти лучших. Ринго Старр The Beatles. Антология.

... нам пришлось пройти школу Ширли Бэсси, это была наша битва. Мы ни за что не попали бы в «Палладиум», если бы не надели костюмы... Многим известным звездам мы по-настоящему нравились. В те дни Ширли Бэсси была очень популярна и всегда участвовала в концертах...[2]

Другим значимым событием в карьере певицы стало сотрудничество в 1963—1964 гг. с Джорджем Мартином (George Martin), продюсером легендарных The Beatles. В 1964 году певица в первый и последний раз покорила вершины американских хит- парадов с песней к фильму о Джеймсе Бонде «Голдфингер». Благодаря этому успеху Бэсси часто появлялась в различных ток- шоу на американском телевидении.

15 февраля 1964 года певица успешно дебютировала в США на сцене знаменитого концертного зала Карнеги Холл, где тремя годами ранее c триумфальным возвращением выступал еѐ кумир — американская актриса и певица Джуди Гарленд (еще до приезда Бэсси в Америку Гарленд присутствовала на одном из еѐ концертов и дала советы, как вести себя с американской публикой и продюсерами). Запись американского концерта Бэсси вначале была признана неудовлетворительной. Впоследствии она была восстановлена и выпущена лишь 30 лет спустя в 1994 году в составе коллекционного издания синглов EMI / United Artists.

Обложка диска «Something» (1970)

В конце 1960-х Бэсси подписала контракт с американским лейблом United Artists и в период с 1966 по 1969 гг. записала четыре пластинки, представлявшие, правда, интерес только для еѐ самых преданных поклонников. Ситуация радикально изменилась в августе 1970 года, когда певица выпустила альбом под названием «Something». Эта пластинка проиллюстрировала обновленный музыкальный стиль певицы и стала самой успешной в еѐ карьере, не считая последующих сборников хитов. Одноимѐнный сингл с этого альбома стал более популярным в британских хит-парадах, чем оригинальная песня Beatles. Оба сингла достигли четвѐртого места в чарт-листе, но версия Бэсси продержалась в Top 50 на 10 недель дольше — 22 недели против 12-ти оригинальной. Успех сингла и альбома способствовал успешности последующих записей Бэсси. Певица вспоминает: «Запись альбома „Something― стала для меня поворотным пунктом. Можно даже сказать, что альбом сделал меня поп-звездой, но в то же время он казался естественным развитием музыкального стиля. Я просто вошла в студию со всеми этими песнями, среди которых была и „Something― Джорджа Харрисона. Впервые я услышала эту песню в исполнении Пегги Ли в американском телешоу Эда Салливана. Я даже не знала, что это песня Beatles и что еѐ сочинил Джордж Харрисон… Застав последний фрагмент выступления Пегги Ли, я была просто потрясена услышанным»[1].

В 1971 году певица записала заглавную песню к очередному фильму из бондианы «Бриллианты остаются навсегда». В 1978 году ВФГ «Мелодия» по лицензии United Artists Records был выпущен альбом из 12-ти номеров Ширли Бэсси, записанных с 1969-го по 1974 годы. Неизбалованные грамзаписями западных звѐзд советские слушатели познакомились с «Diamonds Are Forever», «Something», «The Fool On The Hill» (ещѐ одной песней «Beatles» в репертуаре певицы), «Never, Never, Never» и другими хитами. Песня «Мунрэйкер», вышедшая в 1979 году вместе с одноимѐнным фильмом о Бонде, значительного успеха у публики не имела. Всего за период с 1970 по 1979 гг. Бэсси записала 18 альбомов, ставшими хитами в Британии, а также снялась в двух рейтинговых сериалах на британском телевидении.

[править] 1980-е годы

В 80-х годах Ширли Бэсси занималась благотворительностью, давая концерты в Европе и Америке. В 1985 году певица выступила в качестве гостьи на Международном фестивале польской песни (польск. Międzynarodowy Festiwal Piosenki Polskiej) в Сопоте. Живые выступления Бэсси всегда привлекали большое внимание публики экспрессивной манерой исполнения песен, выразительной жестикуляцией, экстравагантными сценическими костюмами и манерой общения с аудиторией. Ирландский музыкант Мартин Хатчинсон (Martin Hutchinson) вспоминает: «Самая сильная сторона [певицы] — живые выступления, где она всегда выглядела ошеломляюще в изысканных нарядах (ходили слухи, что каждый из них она надевала всего один раз), которые обычно были без бретелек и с глубоким вырезом на спине, что заставляло мужскую часть аудитории замирать от предвкушения, а женскую — от зависти. […] Жестикуляция [Бэсси] на сцене всегда была драматична, и шоу было не просто концертом, а „событием―».[3]

Частота студийных записей Бэсси в 80-х годах значительно сократилась. В 1984 году вышел альбом самых известных песен под названием «I Am What I Am», исполненных с Лондонским симфоническим оркестром. В 1986 году вышел сингл «There‘s No Place Like London» под авторством Линси де Пола (Lynsey De Paul) и Жерарда Кенни (Gerard Kenny). В 1987 году Бэсси сотрудничала со швейцарским дуэтом Yello на записи песни «The Rhythm Divine», сочиненной в соавторстве с шотландским певцом Билли Макензи (Billy Mackenzie). Также в 1987 году певица выпустила альбом на испанском языке под названием «La Mujer».

[править] С 1990 по сей день

Кадр из видеоклипа на песню «History Repeating» (1997)

В 1993 году певица записала альбом кавер-версий хитов из мюзиклов Эндрю Ллойда Уэббера («Призрак оперы», «Кошки», «Иисус Христос — суперзвезда» и др.). В 1996 году Бэсси сотрудничала с Крисом Ри (Chris Rea) на съемках фильма «La Passione», где сыграла саму себя и исполнила песню «Disco La Passione».

В 1997 году песня «History Repeating», записанная вместе с группой Propellerheads, заняла первую строчку танцевальных хит- парадов в Великобритании, знакомя новое поколение поклонников с творчеством певицы. Бэсси вспоминает: «Двое молодых людей из Propellerheads прислали мне песню, и хотя музыка мне понравилась, я подумала, что это больше подходит для Тины Тѐрнер, чем для меня. […] А теперь ко мне на улице подходят 6- и 7-летние дети и говорят: „Мне очень нравится ваша новая запись. Я ваш большой поклонник―».[4] Музыкальный обозреватель Сильвия Паттерсон (Sylvia Patterson) из журнала «New Musical Express» назвала этот сингл «необычайно мощным».[5] В декабре 1997 года на песню был снят видеоклип с участием певицы. В буклете альбома «Decksandrumsandrockandroll» участники группы Propellerheads выразили благодарность Ширли Бэсси за участие в записи, а также отметили, что они «всѐ еще пребывают в шоке».

За время гастрольных туров в Британии в 1998 году 120 тысяч зрителей посетили десять живых концертов Бэсси в лондонском концертном зале Royal Festival Hall, что побило собственный рекорд певицы, установленный ранее. 1 и 6 октября 1999 года Бэсси вместе с уэльским баритональным басом Брином Терфелом (Bryn Terfel) исполнила официальный гимн игр «World In Union» на церемониях открытия и закрытия чемпионата мира по регби в Уэльсе. Церемонии состоялись на новом регби- стадионе в родном городе певицы Кардиффе. Платье, в котором выступала Бэсси, обыгрывало красно-зеленый мотив национального флага Уэльса.

Обложка диска «Thank You For The Years» (2003), посвященного 50-летию карьеры певицы в шоу-бизнесе

31 декабря 1999 года королева Великобритании Елизавета II присвоила Бэсси титул «Дама коммандор» и наградила еѐ орденом Британской империи, что стало признанием заслуг певицы перед королевской семьей — Ширли Бэсси чаще других исполнителей выступала при дворе.[6] В 2002 году певица была также приглашена выступать во дворец на празднование 50- летия правления Елизаветы II.

В июле 2000 года компания EMI выпустила альбом под названием «Diamonds Are Forever — The Remix Album», состоящий из ремиксов на самые известные хиты певицы прошлых лет. Ремиксы представляли собой обработки песен в ключе современной электронной танцевальной музыки с использованием оригинального вокала Бэсси. В записи этого альбома приняли участие такие известные в мире клубной музыки имена как awayTeam, Propellerheads, Nighmares on Wax, Groove Armada, DJ Spinna и Марк Брайдон из британского дуэта Moloko. Ремиксу на песню «Where Do I Begin (Love Story)» в исполнении awayTeam удалось занять первые строчки хит-парадов танцевальной музыки в Великобритании.

В 2003 году Бэсси отметила 50-летний юбилей творческой деятельности, выпустив альбом под названием «Thank You For The Years», который вошел в двадцатку лучших. Благотворительный аукцион Кристи, где были выставлены сценические костюмы певицы, собрал 250 тыс. фунтов стерлингов, которые пошли на именную стипендию Ширли Бэсси в Королевском колледже музыки и драмы в Уэльсе, а также в фонд детской больницы Noah‘s Ark.

Ширли Бэсси была признана самой успешной британской артисткой, имея за 42-летнюю карьеру на своѐм счету 31 популярный сингл и 35 альбомов, попавших в британские хит-парады.[6]

[править] Личная жизнь

Обложка книги «Shirley Bassey: My Life on Record and In Concert» (1998) о жизни и творчестве певицы

Официальной автобиографии певицы не опубликовано. Книга «An Appreciation of the Life of Shirley Bassey» под авторством Мюриэль Бѐрджесс (Muriel Burgess) написана в 1999 году по материалам прессы, однако сама певица не дала добро на эту публикацию из-за фактологических ошибок. В многочисленных интервью Ширли Бэсси предпочитает говорить в первую очередь о своем творчестве и не вдаваться в подробности личной жизни, о чем открыто заявляет журналистам. Единственная одобренная публикация о жизни и творчестве, в написании которой принимала участие сама певица, вышла в 1998 году под названием «Shirley Bassey: My Life on Record and In Concert».

Ширли Бэсси была замужем дважды. Еѐ первым мужем стал продюсер Кеннет Хьюм (Kenneth Hume), который был открытым гомосексуалом[7] и отрицал отцовство дочери Саманты.[6] Их брак продолжался с 1961 по 1965 год, после чего супруги разошлись. В 1967 году Хьюм покончил жизнь самоубийством, что стало для певицы ударом: после развода они оставались близкими друзьями. У Бэсси на это время было запланировано выступление на открытии лондонского кабаре под названием «Talk of the Town», и его владелец, импрессарио Бернард Делфонт (Bernard Delfont), предложил певице отказаться от появления на публике ввиду кончины Хьюма. Однако несмотря на это, Бэсси вышла на сцену. Впоследствии она вспоминала: «Я пела песню, слова которой, казалось, были написаны специально для меня и Кеннета. Я пела: „Прощай, закончилась наша история. Влюбленные навсегда, друзья навсегда―. Мне удалось допеть до конца, и в слезах я поторопилась за кулисы, где медсестра сделала мне укол. Публика сходила с ума. Это было эмоциональным выражением всеобщей любви. Они знали, чего мне это стоило. Все знали, что я похоронила Кена неделю назад».[8]

Вторым мужем Бэсси стал итальянский продюсер Сержио Новак (Sergio Novak). Бэсси и Новак состояли в браке с 1968 года и развелись в 1977 году. Саманта, вторая дочь Бэсси, в 21-летнем возрасте была обнаружена погибшей в 1984 году, как предполагают, после прыжка с моста Clifton Suspension Bridge в Бристоле. Бэсси, однако, настаивала[9], что это не было самоубийством. Трагедия с дочерью привела к потере голоса Бэсси и значительному перерыву еѐ карьеры в середине 80-х годов. Позднее певица вспоминала: «Я так отчаялась и винила себя. Я вся измучилась. Меня не покидала мысль, что я была плохой матерью своей дочери. Это был самый трудный период. Дети должны хоронить родителей, а не наоборот. […] Всѐ это могло бы выбить меня из колеи. Но не выбило. На некоторое время я потеряла голос, но в какой-то момент что-то приказало мне встать и снова выйти на сцену. Если бы я сидела сложа руки и жалела себя — это не помогло бы мне и не вернуло бы Саманту».[8] Спустя несколько недель после гибели дочери Бэсси уже выступала в нью-йоркском концертном зале Карнеги Холл. Бэсси вспоминает: «На мне было простое черное платье, я вышла на сцену, а зрители встали и устроили мне пятиминутную овацию. Невероятно, как публика может оказать поддержку. Всѐ это дает необычайный адреналин. Это как наркотик».[8]

[править] Значение и влияние

В своих интервью Ширли Бэсси признавалась, что еѐ творчество вызывает особый интерес у представителей сексуальных меньшинств. Говоря о преданности этой части своей публики, певица утверждала: «Моим поклонникам-гомосексуалам всегда были близки перипетии моей жизни. Вы понимаете, о чем я: она прошла через всѐ это, и она по-прежнему на высоте».[10]

Ряд музыкальных обозревателей, журналистов и писателей указывают на тот факт, что среди сообщества лесбиянок, геев, бисексуалов и транссексуалов (сокр. ЛГБТ) певица имеет особый статус так называемой гей-иконы — сильной личности, примера мужественного преодоления трудностей. Например, британский обозреватель Артур Дэйвис (Arthur Davis) наиболее вероятную причину этого видит в том, что сценические костюмы Бэсси «экстравагантны, а еѐ шоу (и выбор песен) в значительной степени аппелируют к сообществу гомосексуалов обоих полов. […] Однако также не вызывает никакого сомнения, что у неѐ есть множество поклонников-гетеросексуалов, обожающих еѐ экстраординарный талант».[11] Сама Бэсси, отвечая на вопрос о причинах своей популярности среди гей-сообщества, сказала: «Я думаю, это всѐ из-за гламурности и театральности. Это больше, чем жизнь. В этом также есть сила: я думаю, им нравятся сильные женщины. Геи — очень творческие люди, они уважают творчество других. Они видят искренность и не преклоняются перед кем попало».[12]

Некоторые конкретные песни в исполнении Бэсси приобрели для этой публики особое значение. Так, Уильямсон Хендерсон (Williamson L. Henderson), президент американской некоммерческой общественной организации ветеранов Стоунуоллских бунтов «Stonewall Veteran Association», основанной в 1969 году, в своем издании «Songs of the Stonewall», где упоминается жизнеутверждающая песня Бэсси «This is My Life» (1968), пишет: «Эти песни гей-сообщества эпохи Стоунуолла являются историческим, социальным и культурным фактором, не говоря о музыкальном. […] Эти песни звучали в то время — почти во всех гей-клубах Америки — постоянно и с выразительными вокально-танцевальными компонентами, а усиливающийся музыкальный посыл стал мощным катализатором перемен».[13] Другая песня в исполнении Бэсси под названием «I Am What I Am» («Я такая, какая есть») из бродвейского мюзикла 1983 года об однополой паре «Клетка для чудиков» («La Cage Aux Folles»), повествующая о самоутверждении и преодолении трудностей, стала, по мнению авторов документального фильма о певице на британском телеканале Channel 4, «песней-светочем для гомосексуалов».[14]

Культуролог Энди Медхѐрст (Andy Medhurst) из британского университета в Сассексе также говорит о Бэсси как о гей-иконе и выражает убеждение, что «упоминать Бэсси без еѐ поклонников-геев — то же самое, что говорить о Миллуолле [районе Лондона] без хулиганов. Оцените глубину и давность связей: любой безвкусный травести-номер, начиная с 50-х годов, эксплуатировал еѐ вращательные движения и акцентированную мимику, Фредди Меркьюри отдавал ей дань, продвигая в рок- музыку нередким исполнением песни „Big Spender― на бис, в то время как собственные „фирменные― песни Бэсси восходили к корням гомосексуальной тематики».[15] Музыкальный обозреватель Каролайн Салливан (Caroline Sullivan) подтверждает популярность образа Бэсси у трансвеститов: «Трансвестит не будет настоящим трансвеститом, если в его номере нет Ширли — вместе с Джуди [Гарленд] и Барбры [Стрейзанд]».[16] Популярный в 1980-х годах британский пародист Джо Лонгхорн (Joe Longhorn) также удачно использовал образ Бэсси,[17] однажды певица даже сказала, что Джо пародирует еѐ лучше, чем она есть на самом деле. Сценический образ Бэсси используется в британских травести-шоу до сих пор.[18]

Благотворительная деятельность певицы также не обходит вниманием ЛГБТ-сообщество. Так, в 1997 году певица выступила на концерте против СПИДа в голливудском концертном зале «Univsersal City», организованном «Аmerican Foundation for the AIDS Research» для представителей сексуальных меньшинств. Также в марте 2007 года певица пожертвовала несколько своих сценических костюмов для благотворительного аукциона. По заявлению его устроителей, все вырученные средства направляются в пользу британских подростков-геев, лесбиянок, бисексуалов и транссексуалов.[19]

[править] Звания и награды 1973 — Призѐр в номинации «Лучшая солистка» от TV Times. 1976 — Призѐр в номинации «Лучшая артистка» от «American Guild of Variety Artists». 1977 — Призѐр в номинации «Лучшая британская солистка за последние 50 лет» на церемонии «British Record Industry Award». 1983 — Звание «Командор Британской империи» (CBE) 1999 — Орден Британской империи (DBE — Дама Командор) за популярность и продолжительную карьеру. 2001 — Награда «International Ambassadors Award» от Variety Club за вклад в благотворительность. 2003 — Высшее звание и орден «Legion d‘Honneur» за вклад в культуру Франции. 2003 — Награда «Lifetime Achievement Award» на церемонии «National Music Awards» в Британии. 2004 — Награда ЮНЕСКО «Artist for Peace». 2005 — Именная звезда на «аллее славы» в лондонском Ковент Гарден.

[править] Интересные факты В 1965 году Ширли Бэсси записала песню под названием «Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang», которая должна была войти в очередной одноимѐнный фильм про Джеймса Бонда, однако его название было позднее изменено на «Шаровая молния» (Thunderball). Песня вышла в свет лишь 27 лет спустя на сборнике, посвящѐнном музыке из бондианы.

Ширли Бэсси в юбилейной серии «Маппет-шоу» (1980) В 1979 году Бэсси вела собственное шоу на телеканале компании BBC, имевшее высокие рейтинги. В 1980 году певица появилась в юбилейной 100-ой серии популярного кукольного сериала «Маппет-шоу» и исполнила три песни: «Fire Down Below», «Pennies From Heaven» и «Goldfinger». В 1993 году в г. Кардифф, родном городе певицы, открылось кабаре «У Бэсси» (Bassey's), названное в еѐ честь. Песня «History repeating», записанная Бэсси в сотрудничестве с группой Propellerheads, вернула в 1997 году певицу в хит-парады Великобритании впервые за 24 года со времени еѐ последних хитов. «Королева соул» Арета Франклин в своей автобиографии «From These Roots» (1999) писала: «Я много думала об [эстрадных] дивах. Не всякая, кто поѐт или имеет хит, является дивой. Настоящие дивы — это Сара Воэн, Элла Фитцжеральд, Джуди Гарленд, Грейс Бамри, Лин Хорн, Ширли Бэсси, Патти ЛаБелль и Рени Флеминг». В декабре 2000 года восковая статуя певицы удостоилась чести быть включенной в экспозицию знаменитого музея Мадам Тюссо. Опрос слушателей, проведенный маркетинговой службой BBC Radio 2 в 2001 году о сотне самых узнаваемых голосов XX века, выявил, что голос Бэсси находится на 41-м месте, опередив голоса таких звезд как Лучано Паваротти (46), Мадонна (50), Тина Тѐрнер (52), Род Стюарт (62) и Робби Уильямс (89).

[править] Цитаты На вопрос о том, что еѐ манеру пения часто сравнивают с манерой Эдит Пиаф и Джуди Гарленд, певица ответила: «Я совсем не возражаю [против таких сравнений], потому что они были лучшими… а быть сравненным с лучшими — это хорошо. Они были трагиками, а во мне есть такой инстинкт… когда ты выходишь на сцену и поешь — нужно, чтобы где-то была небольшая грусть. Я должна чувствовать песню, иначе просто не смогу еѐ спеть».[1] «Я никогда не брала уроков пения, не умею читать ноты, так что по всем признакам не должна занимать это место. Я хотела быть медсестрой, но как только я увидела кровь — это был конец моей сестринской карьеры. Я хотела быть стюардессой, но не знаю никаких языков. Еще я хотела быть моделью, но была недостаточно высокого роста».[12]

[править] Дискография (избранное) Основная статья: Дискография Ширли Бэсси

[править] Альбомы, вошедшие в десятку лучших Shirley (№ 9, 1961) Something (№ 5, 1970) Something Else (№ 7, 1971) Never Never Never (№ 10, 1973) The Shirley Bassey Singles Album (№ 2, 1975) 25th Anniversary Album (№ 3, 1978)

[править] Синглы, вошедшие в десятку лучших «Banana Boat Song» (№ 8, 1957) «Kiss Me, Honey Honey, Kiss Me» (№ 3, 1958) «As I Love You» (№ 1, 1959) «As Long As He Needs Me» (№ 2, 1960) «Reach For The Stars» / «Climb Ev‘ry Mountain» (№ 1, 1961) «I‘ll Get By» (№ 10, 1961) «What Now My Love» (№ 5, 1962) «I (Who Have Nothing)» (№ 6, 1963) «Goldfinger» (№ 8, 1964) «Something» (№ 4, 1970) «For All We Know» (№ 6, 1972) «Never Never Never» (№ 8, 1973)

[править] Фильмография (избранное) A Special Lady (1983) Bassey: You Ain't Heard Nothing Yet (1985) Divas Are Forever (1998) Standing Room Only (2004)

[править] Библиография Shirley Bassey. My Life on Record and In Concert. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 1998. ISBN 074754090X Muriel Burgess. Shirley: Appreciation of the Life of Shirley Bassey. Century, 1999. ISBN 0712679189 Gale Group, L. Mpho Mabunda. Contemporary Black Biography. Thomson Gale, 1996. ISBN 0810393190 Peter Gammond. Oxford Companion to Popular Music. Oxford University Press, 1991. ISBN 0193113236

Коль, Гельмут [править] Материал из Википедии — свободной энциклопедии

Гельмут Коль

Гельмут Коль (нем. Helmut Josef Michael Kohl; род. 3 апреля 1930, Людвигсхафен) — немецкий политик (ХДС).

С 1969 по 1976 премьер-министр федеральной земли Рейнланд-Пфальц и с 1982 по 1998 Федеральный канцлер Германии.Содержание [убрать] 1 Жизнь 2 Политическая карьера 2.1 Премьер-министр 2.2 Глава опозиции 2.3 Канцлер

[править] Жизнь

Гельмут Коль родился третьим ребѐнком чиновника финансового отдела Ганса Коля (1887-1975) и его жены Цецилии (1890- 1979) в Людвигсхафене. Его семья была консервативно-католической. Старший брат погиб во Второй мировой войне.

Коль вырос в Людвигсхафене. В 1950 начал изучение права во Франкфурте. В 1951 перешѐл в Гейдельбергский университет, где учил историю и общественно-политические науки. После окончания учѐбы в 1956 работал научным сотрудником в институте им. Альфреда Вебера в гейдельбергском университете. В 1958 защитил кандидатскую работу по теме «Полтитческое развитие Пфальца и возрождение партий после 1945 г.». После этого стал ассистентом директора в литейном заводе города Людвигсхафен и в 1959 референтом «Промышленного союза Химия» в Людвигсхафене. 1960 Коль женился на переводчице Ханнелоре Реннер (Hannelore Renner) (1933-2001), которую он знал с 1948. У них родилось два сына.

[править] Политическая карьера

Ещѐ будучи школьником, Коль вступил в ХДС (1946). Во время учѐбы продолжал быть политически активным. В 1954 Коль был избран заместителем председателя молодѐжной организации ХДС Рейнланд-Пфальц, в 1955 стал членом правления ХДС земли Рейнланд-Пфальц. В 1963 Коль стал председателем фракции ХДС в ландтаге Рейнланд-Пфальц, с 1966 по 1973 был председателем ХДС земли Рейнланд-Пфальц, в 1966 стал членом федерального правления ХДС, в 1969 заместителем председателя ХДС.

Christine Keeler From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christine Keeler (born February 22, 1942) is a former English model and showgirl. Her involvement with a British government minister discredited the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan in 1963, in what is known as the Profumo Affair.

Lewis Morley's photoshoot was one of the most iconic of the 1960sContents [hide] 1 Biography 1.1 The Profumo Affair 1.2 The portrait 2 Publications 3 References

[edit] Biography

Born in Uxbridge, Middlesex, England, she was raised by her mother and stepfather in two converted railway carriages in the Berkshire village of Wraysbury. At age 15, she found work as a model at a dress shop in London's Soho quarter. At 17, she gave birth to a son after an affair with 'Jim', an African-American sergeant from Laleham Air Force base. She discovered she was pregnant only after he had returned to the United States, and she tried to abort the baby herself with a knitting needle, but failed. The child was born prematurely on April 17, 1959, and survived just six days.

That summer, Keeler left Wraysbury, staying briefly in Slough with a friend before heading for London. She initially worked as a waitress at a restaurant on Baker Street and there met Maureen O‘Connor, a girl who worked at Murray‘s Cabaret Club in Soho. She introduced Keeler to the owner, Percy Murray, who hired her almost immediately as a topless showgirl. While at Murray's she met Dr. Stephen Ward. Soon the two were living together with the outward appearance of being a couple, but, according to her, it was a platonic "brother and sister"-type relationship.

[edit] The Profumo Affair Main article: Profumo Affair

In July of 1961, Ward introduced her to John Profumo, the British Secretary of State for War, at a pool party at Cliveden, the Buckinghamshire mansion owned by Lord Astor. Profumo entered into an affair with Keeler, not realising that she was also sleeping with Yevgeny Ivanov, a naval attaché at the embassy of the Soviet Union.

The affair was terminated by the government‘s Cabinet Secretary, Sir Norman Brooke, who spoke to Profumo on the advice of Sir Roger Hollis, the head of MI5. On 9 August 1961, Profumo wrote to Keeler advising her he could no longer see her.

Among Keeler's collection of lovers were two West Indians - Aloysius ‗Lucky‘ Gordon and Johnny Edgecombe. Gordon, with a previous criminal record, was infatuated with Keeler, who would later allege that he had assaulted her in the street and held her captive for two days. She filed charges but was persuaded to drop them by Gordon's brother.

Keeler eventually rejected Gordon's advances and bought a revolver to protect herself from him. Edgecombe was enlisted to act as her minder. On 27 October 1962, Edgecombe and Gordon were involved in a fracas at a Soho club, resulting in Edgecombe slicing Gordon‘s face with a knife, a wound that required seventeen stitches. Following the fight, Edgecombe went into hiding from the police and Keeler changed her address to hide from Gordon. Edgecombe contacted Keeler to request her help in finding a solicitor before the police found him but Keeler refused to help and told him that she intended to testify against him in court.

In the early afternoon of 14 December 1962, Edgecombe arrived at Ward‘s Wimple Mews flat, where Keeler had been visiting her friend, Mandy Rice-Davies, who was living with Ward. Keeler refused to let him in, so Edgecombe shot at the door with the revolver that had belonged to her. The alarm was raised and Wimpole Mews was soon swarming with police and journalists. Edgecombe escaped in a taxi and was arrested later at his Brentford flat.

Keeler was imprisoned for nine months for perjury in a related trial involving 'Lucky' Gordon, meanwhile Stephen Ward was charged with living on the earnings of prostitution, including earnings from Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies. Ward took an overdose of drugs on the last day of his trial and did not recover consciousness to hear the verdicts. He was found guilty of living off immoral earnings, but cleared of procurement. He later died of the overdose.

In 2001, already the author of several books on the affair, Keeler worked with editor Douglas Thompson to write her autobiography titled The Truth at Last: My Story.

In the 1989 film about the Profumo Affair entitled Scandal, actress Joanne Whalley portrayed Keeler.

She is also the subject of songs by Phil Ochs & the Glaxo Babies entitled Christine Keeler, her name appears in the Porcupine Tree song Piano Lessons, in "Street Songs" by Hamish Imlach and in Post World War II Blues by Al Stewart.

Keeler appears alongside fellow scandal-beauty Mandy Smith in the promotion video for Bryan Ferry's 1987 hit single "Kiss and tell".

[edit] The portrait

At the height of the Profumo Affair in 1963, Keeler sat for a portrait which became famous. The photoshoot with Lewis Morley was to promote a film, The Keeler Affair, that was never distributed. Keeler had previously signed a contract which required her to pose nude for publicity photos and was reluctant to continue, but the film producers insisted, so Morley persuaded Keeler to sit astride a bentwood chair such that whilst technically she would be nude, the back of the chair would obscure most of her body.

At the time, Morley and Keeler were already famous, but the photo propelled the Arne Jacobsen model 3107 chair to stardom. However, the actual chair used was one with a hand-hold aperture cut out of the back in order to avoid the legalities of copyright.

The photograph has subsequently been much imitated and satirised. See also a similar earlier pose by Hollywood actress Joan Blondell. People whose portraits have involved inspired poses include [1]:

David Davis (British politician) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For other persons of the same name, see David Davis.

See also David Davies. David DavisImage:Davis p 1101.jpg Constituency Haltemprice and Howden Served 1987 — present Majority 5,116 (10.7%) Political Party Conservative Portfolio Shadow Home Secretary

David Michael Davis (born December 23, 1948) is a British politician, Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Haltemprice and Howden and Shadow Home Secretary.Contents [hide] 1 Early life 2 Political career 3 2005 leadership contest 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Early life

Born to a single mother Betty Brown in York, Davis was initially brought up by his grandparents in York. His grandfather Walter Harrison was the son of a wealthy trawlerman and was disinherited after joining the Communist Party. His father, whom he has never looked for, was Welsh.[1] When his mother married a Polish Jewish printworker, Ronald Davis, he moved to London. They lived initially in a flat in a "slum" in Wandsworth before moving to a council estate in Tooting, South London.

On leaving school (Bec Grammar School in Tooting), his 'A' Level results were not good enough to secure a university place. Davis worked as an insurance clerk and became a member of the Territorial Army's 23 SAS Regiment in order to earn the money to retake his examinations. On doing so he won a place at Warwick University (B.Sc. Joint Hons Molecular Science/Computer Science 1968-1971). He later studied at London Business School (Master's Degree in Business 1971-1973) and Harvard University (Advanced Management Program 1984-1985).

Whilst at Warwick University, he was one of the founding members of the Student Radio station, University Radio Warwick, now known as Radio Warwick.

Davis worked for Tate & Lyle for 17 years rising to become a senior executive having saved a failing subsidiary in Canada.

[edit] Political career The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.

Davis was first elected to Parliament in the 1987 general election as the MP for Boothferry which, in 1997, became the constituency of Haltemprice and Howden. He was a government whip when parliament voted on the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, angering many of the Maastricht rebels on his own right-wing of the party. Davis's progression through the Conservative ranks eventually led to him becoming a Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (1994-1997).

In 1999 Davis presented the Parliamentary Control of the Executive Bill to the House of Commons, in which he proposed to transfer ministerial exercise of the Royal Prerogative to the Commons in the following areas: the signing of treaties, the diplomatic recognition of foreign governments; European Union legislation; the appointment of ministers, peers and ambassadors; the establishment of Royal Commissions; the proclamation of Orders-in-Council unless subject to resolutions of the Commons; the exercise of the powers of the executive not made by statute; the declarations of states of emergency; the dissolution of Parliament.[1], [2]

In the following parliament, Davis held the position of Chairman of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee. In this role he began to build a reputation, and some Conservatives started to mention him as being a potential future leader of the Conservative Party.

Following the resignation of William Hague, he contested the 2001 election for the leadership of the Conservative Party, finishing fourth and being appointed Chairman of the Conservative Party by the eventual winner, Iain Duncan Smith. His most notable action in this post was the suspension of the Monday Club's affiliation with the Conservative Party because of its perceived inflammatory views on race.

In 2002, Duncan Smith replaced Davis with Theresa May. Davis was on a family holiday in Florida at the time and the manner of his sacking ensured a significant amount of sympathy among Conservative Party members. His new position was to shadow the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott as Shadow Secretary of State for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. This was largely viewed as a demotion. When Duncan Smith was removed as Conservative leader by a vote of no confidence, Davis surprised commentators by quickly announcing that he would not stand for the leadership. He lent his support to Michael Howard who was not challenged allowing an uncontested election to take place. He was rewarded for this with a new role as Shadow Home Secretary.

In the role of Shadow Home Secretary, he successfully gained the 'scalp' of the then Immigration Minister Beverley Hughes, who was forced to resign in the wake of allegations that checks on Eastern European migrants had been waived, and for misleading the House of Commons. Davis was praised for his role in holding her to account at that time.

More recently Davis has turned the Conservatives away from the Labour Party's plan to reintroduce Identity cards citing spiralling costs and libertarian issues. He turned initial Conservative support into one of concern and abstention, making the final change to one of opposition much easier. Davis believes that once the true cost and unreliability of the ID card scheme is explained to the general public, they will turn against it. Davis had maintained the Conservative's pledge to curb the moral degradation that he and other front benchers have declared part and parcel of "Blair's Britain".

Davis is perceived to be socially conservative. He expressed support for the restoration of the death penalty as recently as November 2003. He is highly sceptical of the political expansion of the European Union. He voted against the repeal of Section 28 (which banned local government from promoting homosexual relationships in schools). However, he has consistently attracted support on a personal level from all sections of the party. Thus, when the gay Conservative MP Michael Brown was pictured on holiday with a 20-year-old man in 1994 (when the age of consent was still 21), Davis drove to Brown's home to offer his help.

At the 2005 General Election, he was targeted by the Liberal Democrats as part of their "decapitation plan", an attempt to undermine the Conservatives in Parliament by defeating their leading members. The targeting was an outright failure as Davis trebled his majority to over 5,000 votes (5,116, up from 1,903), his share of the votes increasing by 4.3%.

His seat Haltemprice and Howden is in part the seat that was occupied by the fictional Conservative MP Alan B'Stard in the 1980s ITV sitcom The New Statesman.

[edit] 2005 leadership contest

Davis was initially the front runner in the 2005 Conservative leadership contest but after a poorly received speech at that year's Conservative Party Conference his campaign was seen to lose momentum.

In the first ballot of Conservative MPs on 18 October 2005, Davis came top with 62 votes. As this was less than the number of his declared supporters, it became clear that the Davis bid was losing momentum. The elimination of former Chancellor Kenneth Clarke left the bookmakers' favourite, David Cameron, without a rival on the centre of the party. In the second ballot, held two days later on 20 October 2005, Cameron polled 90 votes, David Davis 57 votes and Liam Fox was eliminated with 51 votes [3]so David Davis went through to the next stage with David Cameron.

In spite of a strong performance in a BBC Question Time head-to-head debate in the final stage of the leadership contest, Davis could not match his rival's general popularity. Conservative party members voted to elect Cameron the new Conservative leader, Davis losing by a margin of 64,398 votes to 134,446 votes. Cameron appeased him by keeping him on as Shadow Home Secretary.

Frank Ernest Field (born July 16, 1942) is a British politician and author. He is the Labour Member of Parliament for Birkenhead.

Born in London with a violent father, he was educated at St Clement Danes School in Hammersmith before studying at the University of Hull where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree. He was elected as a councillor in the London Borough of Hounslow for four years from 1964 and in the same year became a further education teacher in Southwark and Hammersmith until he became the Director of the Child Poverty Action Group 1969-79, and of the Low Pay Unit 1974-1980.

Field unsuccessfully contested Buckinghamshire South at the 1966 General Election where he was defeated soundly by the sitting Conservative veteran MP Ronald Bell. He was selected to contest the safe seat at Birkenhead at the 1979 General Election on the retirement of the sitting Labour MP Edmund Dell. Field held the seat safely with a majority of 5,909 and has remained the constituency MP since then.

In Parliament Field was made a member of the Opposition frontbench by Michael Foot as a spokesman on education in 1980 but was dropped a year later. Following the appointment of Neil Kinnock as the Leader of the Opposition in 1983 he was appointed as a spokesman on health and social security for a year. He was appointed the chairman of the social services select committee in 1987, becoming the chairman of the new social security select committee in 1990, a position he held until the 1997 election.

Following the 1997 election, with Labour in power, Field joined the government of Tony Blair as the Minister of Welfare Reform at the Department of Social Security with the rank of Minister of State. Widely regarded as one of the most intelligent Labour MPs as evidenced by his performances at select committees and a solid performer in the media during the 1980s and 1990s he was given the task of 'thinking the unthinkable' in terms of social security reform.[citation needed]

There were clashes with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, and the Secretary of State for Social Security, Harriet Harman. He resigned his ministerial position in 1998 rather than accept a move from the Department of Social Security offered by Tony Blair in a reshuffle. It was reported that Mr Field argued for Tony Blair to promote him to Secretary of State for Social Security.[citation needed]

After holding office he was a member of the Ecclesiastical and public accounts committees, although since the 2005 General Election he has remained solely on the backbenches. He is now a vocal critic of the government from the backbenches, notably voting against Foundation Hospitals in November 2003. He is a member of the advisory board of the think tank Reform.

Frank Field became a member of the Privy Council in 1997. He is single, a practising Christian, chairman of the Churches Conservation Trust, and member of the General Synod.

Downing Street is the street in London, which contains the buildings that have been, for over two hundred years, the official residences of two of the most senior British cabinet ministers, the First Lord of the Treasury, an office held by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the Second Lord of the Treasury, an office held by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The most famous address in Downing Street is 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the First Lord of the Treasury—and thus, in modern times, the residence of the Prime Minister, since the two roles have been filled by the same person. As a result of this "Downing Street" or "Number 10" is often used as short-hand for the Prime Minister or their office, whilst "Number 11" is likewise a term for the Chancellor of the Exchequer or their office.

Downing Street is located in Whitehall in central London, a few minutes' walk from the Houses of Parliament and on the edge of the grounds of Buckingham Palace. The street was built by and named after Sir George Downing, 1st Baronet (1632–1689). Downing was a soldier and diplomat who served under Oliver Cromwell and King Charles II. In the service of the King he was rewarded with the plot of land adjoining St. James's Park upon which Downing Street now stands. The Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Chief Whip all officially live in houses on one side of the street. The houses on the other side were all replaced by the massive Foreign Office in the nineteenth century. In the 1950s and 1960s, plans were considered to demolish both the Foreign Office and the rest of Downing Street and build "something more modern". However the plans were never implemented and have long since been abandoned.Contents [hide] 1 Who lives where 2 Downing Street gates 3 Security 4 See also

[edit] Who lives where

William Ewart Gladstone moved his family into Numbers 10, 11 & 12

10 Downing Street is the official residence of the First Lord of the Treasury, and thus the residence of the British Prime Minister, as in modern times, the two roles have been filled by the same person.

11 Downing Street is the home of the Second Lord of the Treasury, and thus the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

9 Downing Street was named in 2001 and is the Downing Street entrance to the Privy Council Office and currently houses the Chief Whip's office.

12 Downing Street, formerly the Chief Whip's Office, currently houses the Prime Minister's Press Office, Strategic Communications Unit and Information and Research Unit.

Biography

Born in Doncaster, Clarkson was educated at Repton School, although he claims to have been expelled.[3] His first job was as a travelling salesman for his parents' business selling Paddington Bear toys, after which he trained as a journalist with the Rotherham Advertiser.[4]

In 2004 during an episode of the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are?, Clarkson was invited to investigate his family history; including the story of his great-great-great grandfather John Kilner (1792–1857), who invented the Kilner jar; a receptacle for preserved fruit.[5]

In spite of his penchant for fast driving and high performance cars, Clarkson has been reported as having a clean licence.[6] Nonetheless, he is not reluctant to discuss driving fast. In a November 2005 article in The Sunday Times, Clarkson wrote, while discussing the Bugatti Veyron, "On a recent drive across Europe I desperately wanted to reach the top speed but I ran out of road when the needle hit 240mph", and later, in the same article, "From the wheel of a Veyron, France is the size of a small coconut. I cannot tell you how fast I crossed it the other day. Because you simply wouldn‘t believe me".

It should also be noted that Jeremy has 50,000 people behind him becoming Prime Minister on the website 'facebook'.

[edit] Television career

[edit] Cars

Top Gear DVD cover

Clarkson is most associated with the British motoring programme Top Gear, which he presented from 1989 to 1999 in the programme's original format, and then again from 2002, when it was relaunched in a new format after a brief period off the air. His current co- presenters are James May and Richard Hammond. It is now the most watched TV show on BBC Two, with about 350 million viewers around the world.[7] It won an International Emmy in 2005, for the best non-scripted entertainment show that was not broadcast in the U.S. Clarkson said: "I didn't attend the awards ceremony because I didn't know that we had won, and I only found out after a 4 am text message, whilst I was busy writing the script for the next show....". It then also received a National Television Award for best Factual Programme in 2006 defeating the likes of Planet Earth and Bad Lad's Army.

Clarkson continues to release annual motoring-based videos: his first being "Clarkson - Unleashed on Cars" in 1996. Over the years, his videos have shown him driving many exotic cars, including a Ford GT40 which had been specially adapted to accommodate taller drivers; Clarkson is 6 feet 5 inches (1.96 m). He is also known for destroying his most hated cars in various ways, including catapulting a Nissan Sunny using a trebuchet, dropping onto a caravan a Porsche 911 (after dropping a piano onto the bonnet and dousing it in hydrochloric acid, among other things) and shooting a Chevrolet Corvette with a Gatling gun attached to an airborne helicopter. He has also presented other motoring-related series such as Star Cars, Jeremy Clarkson's Motorworld, and Jeremy Clarkson's Car Years.

[edit] Other

For three years, Clarkson had his own chat show; Clarkson, on which he was most notable for offending the Welsh by placing a 3D plastic map of Wales into a microwave oven and switching it on. He later defended this by saying "I put Wales in there because Scotland wouldn't fit". Similarly, he once removed the USA from a map and renamed the resultant space the 'South Canada Sea'.

Clarkson also hosted a six part series, Jeremy Clarkson Meets the Neighbours, in which he took a Jaguar E-type around Europe visiting France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy. The programme explored the stereotypes of each of the countries to see whether or not they were true.

After the dismissal of Angus Deayton, Clarkson was one of a number of guest hosts recruited to present the topical panel show, Have I Got News For You. He was the first such host never to have previously been a guest of the programme. As of April 13, 2007, he has presented the show five times and been a guest once. Clarkson has also appeared as a guest on the BBC series QI 4 times, 'winning' twice.

Clarkson also presented a programme looking at Victoria Cross winners, in particular focusing on his father-in-law Robert Henry Cain who won the VC during Operation Market Garden at Arnhem in World War 2.

In addition to television, Clarkson also had a small role in the UK release of the 2006 Disney Pixar movie Cars as the voice of Harv, Lightning McQueen's agent. Harv is played by Jeremy Piven in the North American release.[8]

[edit] Engineering interests

Clarkson is passionate about engineering, especially pioneering work, as his television programmes about Isambard Kingdom Brunel and the Colossus computer have shown. Clarkson was awarded an honorary degree from Brunel University on September 12, 2003, partly because of his work in popularising engineering, and partly because of his advocacy of Isambard Kingdom Brunel in the 100 Greatest Britons programme.

In April 2004, he appeared on the talk show Parkinson and mentioned that he was writing a book about the soul he believes many machines have. The book, titled I Know You Got Soul was published in October 2004. He cited Air France Flight 4590 as his primary example: when people heard the plane had crashed, quite aside from the sadness they felt for the loss of human life, there was also almost a sadness for the machine. Clarkson was one of the passengers on the last BA Concorde flight on October 24, 2003. He paraphrased Neil Armstrong to describe the retiring of the Concorde: "This is one small step for a man, but one huge leap backwards for mankind".[9]

Clarkson owns various cars including a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder, a Mercedes-Benz SLK55, a Volvo XC90, a Ford Focus, and an ex-military Land Rover Defender, and used to own a Ford GT. His experiences with his Ford GT are well documented, having had many issues with the satellite tracker/alarm system - he reported that it would tell him the car had been stolen even when he was driving it, among other problems, including the rev limit inexplicably being reset to 600 rpm. As a result of what he called "the most miserable month's motoring possible", he returned it to Ford for a full refund. After a short period, including asking Top Gear fans for advice over the Internet, he bought back his GT. He has called it "the most unreliable car ever made", due to his never being able to complete a return journey using it. In the October 2006 edition of Top Gear Magazine James May stated that Clarkson was looking to purchase a Gallardo Spyder. Clarkson announced at MPH'06 that he had ordered the Gallardo Spyder, with orange seats, and that he sold the Ford GT to make way for it. He also owned a Ferrari F355 for a short while. This was sold to make way for an SL55 AMG in which the SLK55 AMG succeeded it.

He has also owned a 1970s Alfa GTV6, and has a passion for the marque, declaring famously on Top Gear, "You are not a petrol-head until you've owned an Alfa". In his book I Know You Got Soul the Alfa 166 was one of only three cars classified as having that "special something". The Brera, Alfa's latest sports car, has been compared to Cameron Diaz and also been called "filth", or pornographic, by Clarkson.

His known passion for single- or two-passenger high-velocity transport led to his brief acquisition of an English Electric Lightning F.1A jet fighter, which was installed in the front garden of his country home. The Lightning was subsequently removed on the orders of the local council, which "wouldn't believe my claim that it was a leaf blower", according to Clarkson on a Tiscali Motoring webchat. In fact, the whole affair was a setup for the programme Speed, and English Electric Lightning XM172 is now back serving as gate guardian at Booker airfield, High Wycombe.

After winning the challenge between a Bugatti Veyron and a Cessna private aeroplane, he pondered and announced that "It's quite a hollow victory really, because I've got to go for the rest of my life knowing that I'll never own that car. I'll never experience that power again."[10]

[edit] Views

Clarkson is well known for his posturing and deadpan delivery of oddball humour. This frequently includes fairly abrasive and deliberately provocative (if not caustic) remarks that have repeatedly been a source of controversy. However, Clarkson has been known to take as good as he gives, eg. responding to being pied with "Great shot!" As of April 2007, over 45,000 people had joined a group on the social networking site Facebook calling for Clarkson to become Prime Minister.

[edit] Rover

One of Clarkson's most infamous dislikes was of the British car brand Rover. Rover cars were manufactured at Austin Motor Company's Longbridge plant. After BMW pulled out of Longbridge, Rover was bought by the Phoenix Consortium and the English MG and Rover brands merged becoming the last major British owned and built car manufacturer. Clarkson did reserve some sympathy for the Rover workers left jobless, saying in his Sunday Times column, "I cannot even get teary and emotional about the demise of the company itself — though I do feel sorry for the workforce."[11]

[edit] Vauxhall

Clarkson is well known for his criticism of Vauxhall Motors.[12][13] Clarkson has described Vauxhall's parent company General Motors as a "pensions and healthcare" company which sees the "car making side of the business as an expensive loss-making nuisance".[13]

Clarkson has expressed his disdain of the Vauxhall Vectra, including making what The Independent described as a "characteristically clever" film for Top Gear when the Vectra was launched, which it judged may have damaged its sales.[14] Vauxhall complained to the BBC and announced "we can take criticism but this piece was totally unbalanced".[15] He has described it as "One of my least favourite cars in the world. I've always hated it because I've always felt it was designed in a coffee break by people who couldn't care less about cars" and "one of the worst chassis I've ever come across".[16]

However, he has expressed his approval of several Vauxhall models; he has been complimentary about Astra VXR and Astra SRi. Although highlighting that he thinks the VXR torque steers "like an absolute pig" and has poor handling in general,[17] he has also expressed admiration for its looks, speed and price.[18] Regarding the SRi he said, "when a car looks this good it can't be bad".[13] Of the Monaro VXR he said, "It's like they had a picture of me on their desk and said (Australian accent) 'I'm gonna make that bloke a car'" and "I can't believe it... I've fallen in love... with a Vauxhall!". He later commented that the Vauxhall Monaro VXR should have windowipers on the side windows, as you spend most of your time sideways when driving in the car.

[edit] Perodua Kelisa

In April 2007 he was criticized in the Malaysian parliament for having described one of their cars, the Perodua Kelisa as the worst in the world, built in jungles by people who wear leaves for shoes. It was refuted that no complaints were received from UK customers who had purchased the car.[19] The offending remark was shown on one of his video productions, Jeremy Clarkson: Heaven and Hell (2005),[20] in which he purchases a brand new Kelisa, proceeds to attack it with a sledgehammer as soon as he purchases it from a local dealership, tears it apart with a heavy weight while it is hanged and finally blows it up.

[edit] Anti-American remarks

Throughout Top Gear, Clarkson has made Anti-American remarks, often stereotyping Americans as fat and dull-witted. For example, in September 2005, Clarkson wrote an editorial for The Sun, criticizing Americans after the Hurricane Katrina rescue response, and included the comment: "Most Americans barely have the brains to walk on their back legs".[21] In addition, when travelling to New Orleans and stopping to fill up with gas, he said "If you're thinking about coming to America, this is what it's like. You've got your Comfort Inn, you've got your Best Western, you've got your Red Lobster where you eat. Everybody is very fat, everybody is very stupid and everybody is very rude. It's not the holiday programme, it's the truth!" He has also said on Top Gear when comparing a rural British village with a rural American village that "[in rural America, the town] would be full of people doing… whatever it is they do. Incest, mostly".[22]

[edit] Allegations of bigotry

In October 1998, Hyundai Motor Company complained to the BBC about what they described as "bigoted and racist" comments he made at the Birmingham Motor Show, where he was reported as saying that the people working on the Hyundai stand had "eaten a dog" (due to the fact that some Koreans are known for their consumption of dogs), and that the designer of the Hyundai XG had probably eaten a spaniel for his lunch. He also allegedly referred to those working on the BMW stand as "Nazis".[23]

[edit] Allegations of homophobia

In July 2006, Clarkson attracted complaints after agreeing with a Top Gear audience member that a featured car was a bit "gay" or "ginger beer" (rhyming slang for "queer"). The complainants felt that the presenter was using the word pejoratively. In December 2006 the BBC ruled that his remarks had the potential to offend and should not have been broadcast.[24]

[edit] Celebrities

From 2000 to 2006 Clarkson had a public feud with Piers Morgan which began when Morgan published pictures of Clarkson kissing his BBC producer, Elaine Bedel.[25] On the final Concorde flight Clarkson threw a glass of water over Morgan during an argument.[25]

In March 2004, at the British Press Awards, he cursed at Piers Morgan and punched him leaving Morgan with a scar above his left eyebrow.[26] In 2006 Morgan revealed that the feud was over, saying "There should always be a moment when you finally down cudgels, kiss and make up."[25]

[edit] Top Gear

In February 2004 while filming Top Gear, Clarkson rammed a 30-year-old horse chestnut tree with a Toyota Hilux pickup truck to demonstrate how rugged the vehicle was. This led to the BBC having to compensate the local parish council who, until they saw the Top Gear broadcast, thought that the damage had been caused by local vandals.[27]

In 1999, several Members of Parliament criticized Top Gear for being "obsessed with acceleration".[28] The BBC however has rejected numerous complaints about the show and its presenters, "Were the presenters' comments and pranks carried out with any degree of seriousness, rather than being clearly tongue-in-cheek or adopting the deliberate overstatement that is the programme's trademark, we would of course take issue with them".[29]

Clarkson and his fellow presenters have come under increased scrutiny following Richard Hammond's jet-powered car crash in September 2006, leading to concerns that the show may be axed.[28] Minister of State for Transport, Stephen Ladyman MP, has backed the show, stating of Hammond's crash, "I think it would be really sad if a real tragedy like this one was used to attack an entertainment."[30]

Clarkson also reacted to an article in the Daily Mail by Neil Lydon favouring banning Top Gear by describing him as a "sanctimonious, rent-a-soundbite little turd".[31]

[edit] Other

During the 13 November 2005 Top Gear episode, a news segment featuring BMW's Mini Concept from the Tokyo Motor Show showcased what fellow-presenter Richard Hammond quoted as a "quintessentially British" integrated tea set. Clarkson responded by mocking that they should build a car that is "quintessentially German." He suggested turn signals that displayed Hitler salutes, "a sat-nav that only goes to Poland" in reference to the Nazi invasion of Poland that marked the start of World War II in Europe, and "ein fanbelt that will last a thousand years," a reference to Adolf Hitler's propaganda slogan of "the thousand-year Reich". These statements drew negative attention in the British and German news media.[32]

Clarkson hit in the face with a pie after receiving his engineering degree

In 2005, the School of Technology at Oxford Brookes University awarded him an honorary engineering doctorate, leading to an assault from green protestors who objected to his statements about the environment and his advocacy of car use. He has said: "I do have a disregard for the environment. I think the world can look after itself and we should enjoy it as best as we can". After the ceremony, he was hit in the face with a banana-meringue pie by Rebecca Lush of Roadblock.[33] Clarkson took the insult with humour, commented that the pie had too much sugar, and remarked, "Great shot!"[34] In an editorial he wrote for Top Gear in November 2005, he referred to Lush as "Banana Girl." [35]

Clarkson is one of a few celebrities who have been blamed for poor denim sales. Draper's Record, trade magazine to the fashion industry, ran an article on Clarkson's poor fashion image: "For a period in the late Nineties denim became unfashionable. "501s — Levi's flagship brand — in particular suffered from the so-called 'Jeremy Clarkson effect', the association with men in middle youth."[36] He also received a fashion makeover from fashion gurus Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine on a celebrity edition of their style series What Not to Wear.[37] He had previously been named as one of the world's worst-dressed celebrities by the fashionistas.[38]

Clarkson had long been noted for his pro-smoking viewpoint, with him even publicly smoking as much as possible on National No Smoking Day. However, he announced that on 14 April 2006 that he had given up smoking. He cited that he had found a cure for the urge - the Koenigsegg CCX. He also said: "[the cure] is called smoking", in reference to "Smoking the tyres".

[edit] Works

[edit] Other motoring shows Jeremy Clarkson's Motorworld 1995-1996 Clarkson's Car Years 1999-2001

[edit] Non-motoring shows Clarkson (1998-2000): A chat show that ran for three series Jeremy Clarkson's Extreme Machines (1998): where he rode all manner of machines, including a plane, and an airboat. Robot Wars (1997): Clarkson presented the first series of the UK version Jeremy Clarkson Meets The Neighbours (2002): A notorious eurosceptic, Clarkson travelled around Europe, confronting (and in some cases reinforcing) his prejudices Speed (2001): A series about the history of fast vehicles, including aeroplanes, boats and cars. One episode featured Michael Schumacher as a special guest. Have I Got News For You: Clarkson has hosted five episodes, the first in 2002, two in 2005, one in 2006 and one in 2007. He also appeared as a guest in 2003 Inventions That Changed the World (2004): five episodes featuring the invention of the gun/computer/jet engine/telephone/television from a British point of view Top of the Pops: co-hosted one episode on July 24, 2005 with Fearne Cotton. QI: appeared as a guest on four occasions Room 101: appeared on this in 1995 when Nick Hancock was host. Clarkson's choices were caravans; flies; Last Of The Summer Wine; the mentality within golf clubs; and vegetarians Grumpy Old Men (2003-4): Clarkson appeared alongside his friend, the food critic A A Gill, in a Christmas special and then in the second full season of this series Jeremy Clarkson: Who Do You Think You Are? (2004): Clarkson traced his family tree for one episode of the popular documentary series Great Britons : In a poll to find the greatest historical Briton, Clarkson was the chief supporter for Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who came second The Victoria Cross: For Valour (2003): Clarkson presented a one-off documentary about the history of the Victoria Cross, highlighting as an example Major Robert Henry Cain VC - his father-in-law. Never Mind The Buzzcocks: Guest presenter April 10, 2006 Jeremy Clarkson: Greatest Raid of All Time (2007): Clarkson presented a one-off documentary about Operation Chariot.

[edit] Videos/DVDs

Jeremy Clarkson: The good, the bad, the ugly (2006) DVD cover

Every year since 1995, Clarkson has released an annual video release (produced by On The Box), covering a specific motoring theme. With the exception of Shootout, it has been a tradition for him to destroy "some kind of awful car" in each release, from blowing up a Yugo with a tank to shooting down a Chevrolet Corvette with a helicopter gunship, or dismantling a Buick Park Avenue with a Bulldozer. A few other video releases were also made, issued as best of compilations of previous television series that had aired, featuring Motorworld and Extreme Machines. Jeremy Clarkson's Motorsport Mayhem (1995) Jeremy Clarkson - Unleashed On Cars (1996) The Best Of Jeremy Clarkson's Motorworld (1996) More Motorsport Mayhem Featuring Jeremy Clarkson And Steve Rider (1996) Jeremy Clarkson's Extreme Machines (1997) Jeremy Clarkson - Apocalypse Clarkson (1997) The Most Outrageous Jeremy Clarkson Video In The World...Ever (1998) Jeremy Clarkson Head To Head (1999) Jeremy Clarkson - At Full Throttle (2000) Jeremy Clarkson - Top 100 Cars (2001) Jeremy Clarkson - Speed (2001) Jeremy Clarkson - No Limits (2002) Jeremy Clarkson - Shootout (2003) Jeremy Clarkson - Hot Metal (2004) Jeremy Clarkson - Heaven And Hell (2005) Jeremy Clarkson - The Good The Bad The Ugly (2006)

[edit] Books Jeremy Clarkson's Motorworld (1996), ISBN 0-563-38730-0 Clarkson on Cars: Writings and Rantings of the BBC's Top Motoring Correspondent (1996), ISBN 0-86369-964-2 Clarkson's Hot 100 (1997), ISBN 1-85227-730-0 Jeremy Clarkson's Planet Dagenham: Drivestyles of the Rich and Famous (1998), ISBN 0-233-99335-5 Born to Be Riled: The Collected Writings of Jeremy Clarkson (1999)(Re-published 2007), ISBN 0-563-55146-1 Jeremy Clarkson's Ultimate Ferrari (2001), ISBN 1-84065-358-2 The World According To Clarkson (2004), ISBN 0-7181-4730-8 Clarkson on Cars (2004), ISBN 0-14-101788-0 I Know You Got Soul (2004), ISBN 0-7181-4729-4 Motorworld (2004), ISBN 0-14-101787-2 The World According to Clarkson 2: And Another Thing... (2006), ISBN 0-7181-4985-8

Biography

[edit] Family and early life

Collins was born in London to Joseph William "Will" Collins (a South African-born Jewish talent agent, 1902-88) and Elsa Bessant (an English mother, who died at 56 in 1962). She has one full sister, the author Jackie Collins, and a brother Bill Collins. She was educated at the Francis Holland School and then trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) with actors such as Sir Roger Moore and Sir Michael Caine.

[edit] Early film career

At the age of 17 Collins was signed to the J. Arthur Rank Film Company, a highly profitable English studio and charm school.

In 1951, she made her feature debut as a beauty contest entrant in Lady Godiva Rides Again and in 1952 she appeared in the film I Believe in You based on the book Court Circular by Sewell Stokes. In the early 1950s, she did double duty by posing for pin-up photos and acting in B-movies in Britain. After mild success, she was signed by 20th Century Fox in 1954 as their answer to Elizabeth Taylor.

However, after her youthful and highly splashy career as a sultry starlet, Collins became known more for her personal affairs with leading men such as Warren Beatty than her on-screen achievements.[citation needed] After losing such high-profile roles as Cleopatra (Collins was cast when Elizabeth Taylor fell ill, then dumped upon Taylor's recovery), Collins continued to work in films and occasionally in television.

Her notable guest appearances on American TV during the 1960s included Star Trek "The City on the Edge of Forever" , Batman , Mission: Impossible and Police Woman.

In the 1970s, Collins starred in the film versions of her sister Jackie Collins' softcore porn novels The Stud and The Bitch, appearing nude in both. They were smash hits in England, becoming the most profitable films since the James Bond series.[citation needed]

[edit] Dynasty

Collins' career changed dramatically when she was offered a role in the then-struggling prime time TV soap opera Dynasty (1981 - 1989) by producer Aaron Spelling. Created by Esther Shapiro, Spelling wanted Collins to play the role of tycoon Blake Carrington's vengeful ex-wife.

The role of Alexis Morell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan successfully relaunched Collins as a powerful sex symbol and icon of independence in her late 40s. Her performance helped the show beat main rival Dallas to become the No. 1 U.S. TV show in the early 1980s, and she became the highest-paid actress on television at the time. Dynasty was shown in more than 80 countries and is still being re-run today around the world.

She also appeared on the cover of Playboy magazine at the age of 50 to further establish herself as a sex symbol despite the then-popular cultural opinion that older women could not be sexually attractive.

[edit] After Dynasty

After the end of Dynasty in 1989, Collins worked less frequently, making guest star appearances on series such as Roseanne, The Nanny and Will & Grace while dabbling in films like Decadence and A Midwinter's Tale in the mid 1990s.

In 1992 she made her successful Broadway debut in an adaptation of Noel Coward's Private Lives. She also guest starred in six episodes of Aaron Spelling's prime time soap opera Pacific Palisades in 1997.

In the late 1990s she appeared in several theatrical tours with the likes of George Hamilton and Stacey Keach. Additionally, she appeared in a West End production of Over the Moon with eccentric actor Frank Langella in 2000.

In 2002 she appeared in a limited run on the legendary daytime soap opera Guiding Light to favorable reviews. In 2004 she toured the United Kingdom with a revival of the play Full Circle to great success and much critical praise. In 2005 she proved to be a formidable guest host of the popular British quiz show Have I Got News For You, often making quick jokes with the audience.

In early 2006, Collins toured the United Kingdom in A Night With Joan Collins, a one-woman show in which she detailed the highs and lows of her roller coaster career and life, directed by her husband Percy Gibson.

Collins joined the cast of the hit British television series Footballer's Wives for a limited run as a glamorous magazine mogul, aptly named Eva de Woolfe. She also guest starred in the BBC series Hotel Babylon in 2006 as a lonely aristocrat desperate for romance.

In late 2006 she began a tour of North America in the play Legends! with former Dynasty co-star Linda Evans, which is still running.

[edit] Marriage and family

While starring in a handful of Rank productions in 1952, Collins married British screen icon Maxwell Reed, whom she divorced in 1956 on her twenty-third birthday after he attempted to sell her to an Arab sheik. During this time she carried on much-talked-about romances with Conrad Hilton Jr., Dennis Hopper, Ryan O'Neal, Terence Stamp, Sydney Chaplin, and Warren Beatty.

The gossip mills set ablaze when Collins walked away from Hollywood and a successful career in the early 1960s to marry Anthony Newley, an award winning singer, actor and film composer. With Newley she had two children, a daughter, Tara (now a British television broadcaster) and a son, Sacha (who is now a highly regarded artist).

In 1972 Collins married her third husband, Ron Kass, who had been the president of Apple Records during the reign of The Beatles. During their marriage Collins had her third and final child, a daughter, Katyana (a photographer). In 1980, Collins' world was turned upside down when Katy was struck by a speeding car, leaving the young child in a coma. Collins and her husband bought a trailer and parked it in the hospital parking lot in order to be as close to their daughter as possible. Their persistence paid off when Katyana emerged from her coma a few months later, although it would take years for her to fully recover.

Unfortunately, like her other two marriages, Collins' third attempt at matrimony failed as she and Kass divorced in 1983 as he battled substance abuse, although they remained very close until his death, from cancer, in 1986 as Collins was riding the crest of her super stardom on Dynasty.

In 1985, Collins became a bride for the fourth time when she married Swedish singer Peter Holm in a quickie ceremony in Las Vegas. The marriage lasted a year and the divorce proceedings lasted just as long with a media circus ensuing. Collins left Los Angeles and returned to London where she lived with much younger art dealer Robin Hurlstone for over a decade.

In 2001 Collins and Hurlstone ended their relationship and Collins struck up a romance with theatrical company manager Percy Gibson, a man 32 years her junior. ("If he dies, he dies" quipped Collins.) They married on February 17, 2002 at Claridge's Hotel in London.

[edit] Personal politics

After decades of flirting with British politics on May 24, 2004, Collins joined the United Kingdom Independence Party. [1] In October 2004, Collins stated she was not a supporter, but rather a patron of the party.

In early 2005, Collins commented that she had rejoined the Conservative Party, stating, "The Labour Party doesn't care about the British people." [2] In addition, after writing several articles for the UK newspaper The Daily Mail in 2005, it was rumoured that Collins was approached by several members of the Conservative Party in hopes of luring her to run for Parliament.

She also continues to contribute as The Spectator Magazine Guest Diarist, something she has done since the late 1990s. She has been quoted for her sage wisdom in Science of Mind magazine... which qualifies her as a practicing metaphysicist.

She has commented that she was a huge supporter of former prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. Collins is also a devout monarchist, remaining loyal to the British Royal Family.

[edit] Charitable work

Collins has publicly supported several charities for several decades. In 1983 she was named a patron of the International Foundation for Children with Learning Disabilities, earning the foundations highest honour in 1988 for her continuing support. Additionally, 1988 also saw the opening of the Joan Collins Wing of the Children's Hospital of Michigan. In 1990 she was made an honorary founding member of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. In 1994 Collins was awarded the lifetime achievement award from the Association of Breast Cancer Studies in Great Britain for her contribution to breast cancer awareness in the UK. In 2003 she became a patron of the Shooting Star Children's Hospice in Great Britain while continuing to support several foster children in India, something she has done for the past 25 years.

[edit] Homes

Collins has lived, at different times, in London and Los Angeles. In 2001 Collins sold her Los Angeles penthouse, moving to a luxurious Manhattan condo in the Upper East Side. She now divides her time between her New York City home, an apartment in the fashionable neighbourhood of Belgravia (London), and a stylish villa in the south of France.

[edit] Books

Her sister, Jackie Collins, is a well-known novelist, and Joan Collins has also established herself as an author. In addition to her memoirs, Past Imperfect (1978) and Second Act (1996), she has written bestselling novels (Prime Time, Love & Desire & Hate, Infamous, Star Quality, Misfortune's Daughters) and lifestyle books (The Joan Collins Beauty Book, My Secrets, My Friends Secrets, Joan's Way, The Art of Living Well).

In September, 1991, Joan Collins delivered a 690-page manuscript to Random House. However, the publishing firm later demanded the return of its $1.3 million advance from Collins, claiming she failed to deliver completed books as per her contract. In court, Collins stated that Random House had received her novel, The Ruling Passion, in 1991 plus another novel, Hell Hath No Fury, in September, 1992. She also contended that Random House had not provided the editorial assistance she had expected.

Her Random House contract, negotiated by agent Irving Lazar, required that she was to be paid even if her completed manuscripts were not published. On February 29, 1996, a jury determined that she could keep the advance for the first novel, but the publisher did not have to pay for the second manuscript since it was a reworking of the first. Judge Ira Gammerman then ruled that Random House owed Collins $925,000 plus interest for a grand total of $1.3 million.

The Guinness Book of World Records cites Collins as holding the record for retaining the world's largest unreturned payment for an unpublished manuscript.

[edit] TV adverts

Beginning in the early 1970s, Collins appeared in television and magazine advertisements for British Airways, in which she was referred to as their "Most Frequent Flyer of First Class" a title which she has maintained, having promoted the airline for more than three decades. In the late 1970s, she appeared alongside Leonard Rossiter in a series of Cinzano TV commercials in which the drink was spilled down her character's dress. This was named as one of the Top 100 British Adverts in a Channel 4 poll. In the mid 1980s, Collins appeared in print advertisements for Canada Dry Ginger Ale, Sanyo and was the face of Revlon's Scoundrel perfume. In 1992 she appeared in internationally broadcast television commercials for Marca Bravaria beer while also acting as the face of the perfume Spectacular. Since 2000 she has appeared in TV ads for UK retailer Marks & Spencer, Olympus cameras, Old Navy and Marriott hotels.

In February 2007 Collins was announced to be the public face of skincare company Cellex-C.

[edit] Music

In 1956 she sang in the musical The Opposite Sex.

In 1959 she sang It's Great Not To Be Nominated at the Academy Awards with fellow British actresses Angela Lansbury and Dana Wynter.

In 1963 she teamed up with husband, Anthony Newley and Peter Sellers to record the album Fool Britannia which made the UK Top 10.

In 2001 she was featured in the music video for Badly Drawn Boy's Pissing in the Wind which made the Top 30 in the UK Singles chart.

[edit] Titles

In 1997, Collins was granted the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.

Collins is styled in the following ways for official patronage to several charities: Joan Collins OBE. Joan Collins, Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

[edit] Awards 1978: Saturn Award nomination, Best Actress in a Science Fiction film, Empire of the Ants. 1982: Golden Globe nomination, Best Actress in a TV Series (Drama), Dynasty. 1982: Golden Apple Award, Female Star of the Year. 1983: Emmy Award nomination, Best Actress in a TV Series (Drama), Dynasty. 1983: Golden Globe, Best Actress in a TV Series (Drama), Dynasty. 1983: Cable ACE Award nomination, Best Actress in a Drama Series, Faerie Tale Theatre's Hansel and Gretel. 1983: Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Career Achievement. 1984: Soap Opera Digest Award, Outstanding Villainess in a Primetime Drama Series, Dynasty. 1984: Golden Globe nomination, Best Actress in a TV Series (Drama), Dynasty. 1985: People's Choice Award: Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series, Dynasty. 1985: Soap Opera Digest Award, Outstanding Villainess in a Primetime Drama Series, Dynasty. 1985: Golden Globe nomination, Best Actress in a TV Series (Drama), Dynasty. 1986: Soap Opera Digest Award nomination, Outstanding Villainess in a Primetime Drama Series and Outstanding Actress in a Comic Relief Role in a Primetime Drama Series, Dynasty. 1986: Golden Globe nomination, Best Actress in a TV Series (Drama), Dynasty. 1987: Golden Globe nomination, Best Actress in a TV Series (Drama), Dynasty. 1988: Soap Opera Digest Award nomination, Outstanding Villainess in a Primetime Drama Series, Dynasty. 1996: OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) by H.M. Queen Elizabeth II for her contribution to the arts and ongoing charity work. 1999: Millennium Award of Achievement, Golden Camera Film Council. 2001: Golden Nymph, Outstanding Female Actor, Monte Carlo Television Festival. 2002: Icon Award, Maxim Magazine UK. 2005: Lifetime Achievement Award, San Diego International Film Festival.

[edit] Filmography Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951) Judgment Deferred (1952) Cosh Boy (1952) The Woman's Angle (1952) I Believe in You (1952) Decameron Nights (1953) Turn the Key Softly (1953) The Square Ring (1953) Our Girl Friday (1953) The Good Die Young (1954) Land of the Pharaohs (1955) The Virgin Queen (1955) The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955) The Opposite Sex (1956) The Wayward Bus (1957) Island in the Sun (1957) Sea Wife (1957) Stopover Tokyo (1957) The Bravados (1958) Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958) Seven Thieves (1960) Esther and the King (1960) The Road to Hong Kong (1962) Hard Time for Princes (1965) Warning Shot (1967) Wedding of the Doll (1968) (documentary) Besieged (1969) Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (1969) If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969) Subterfuge (1969) The Executioner (1970) Up in the Cellar (1970) Revenge (1971) Quest for Love (1971) Tales from the Crypt (1972) Fear in the Night (1972) Dark Places (1973) Tales That Witness Madness (1973) Football Crazy (1974) I Don't Want to Be Born (1975) Alfie Darling (1975) The Cry of the Wolf (1975) Il Pomicione (1976) The Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones (1976) Magnum Cop (1977) Empire of the Ants (1977) The Stud (1978) The Big Sleep (1978) Zero to Sixty (1978) The Bitch (1979) Sunburn (1979) A Game for Vultures (1979) Nutcracker (1982) Homework (1982) Decadence (1994) In the Bleak Midwinter (1995) Annie A Royal Adventure (1995) The Clandestine Marriage (1999) The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000) Ozzie (2001) Alice in Glamourland (2004)

John Howard From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from John howard) Editing of this article by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled. If you are prevented from editing this article, and you wish to make a change, please discuss changes on the talk page, request unprotection, log in, or create an account.

For other uses, see John Howard (disambiguation).John Winston Howard

25th Prime Minister of Australia Elections: 1987, 1996-2007 Incumbent Assumed office 11 March 1996 Preceded by Paul Keating Succeeded by Incumbent

Born 26 July 1939 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Constituency Bennelong Political party Liberal Spouse Janette Howard Religion Anglican[1]

John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian politician and the Prime Minister of Australia. He is the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies. He previously served as Treasurer in the government led by Malcolm Fraser from 1977–1983 and was Leader of the Liberal Party from 1985–1989 through the 1987 election against Bob Hawke. Elected again as Leader of the opposition in 1995, Howard became the 25th Prime Minister of Australia after defeating incumbent Paul Keating in the 1996 election. His government was re-elected in the 1998, 2001 and 2004 elections.Contents [hide] 1 Early life 2 Rising politician 3 Success, failure, success 4 Prime Minister 4.1 The 1996 election campaign 4.2 First term: 1996–1998 4.3 The 1998 election campaign 4.4 Second term: 1998–2001 4.5 The 2001 election campaign 4.6 Third term: 2001–2004 4.7 The 2004 election campaign 4.8 Fourth term: 2004–present 4.8.1 Political Situation 4.8.2 Industrial Relations 4.8.3 Iraq and Terrorism 4.8.4 AWB Scandal 4.8.5 Mandatory Detention of Refugees 4.8.6 Environment 4.9 Speculation about retirement 5 Honours 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

Early life

Of English, Scottish and Irish heritage which can trace its roots in Australia to the 1840s and '50s, John Howard is the youngest son of Lyall Howard and Mona (nee Kell), an office worker. His parents were married in 1925 and their first son Stanley (later a solicitor and company director) was born in 1926, followed by Walter (1929), and Robert (Bob) (later an academic and member of the Labor Party) (1936).

Howard grew up in the Sydney suburb of Earlwood. His father and his paternal grandfather, Walter Howard, were both veterans of the First AIF in World War I. They later ran a petrol station and mechanical workshop in Dulwich Hill, where John Howard worked as a boy. Lyall Howard died when John was sixteen, leaving his mother to take care of John (or "Jack" as he was known in the family) and his three brothers.

Howard suffered from a hearing impairment in his youth, and this has left him with a slight speech impediment, something that he shares with namesake Winston Churchill.[2]

Howard attended the publicly funded state schools Earlwood Public School and Canterbury Boys' High School. Howard won a citizenship prize in his final year at Earlwood (presented by local politician Eric Willis), and subsequently represented his secondary school at debating as well as cricket and rugby.[3] In his final year at school he took part in a radio show hosted by Jack Davey, Give It a Go broadcast on the commercial radio station, 2GB, and a recording of the show survives.[4] After gaining his Leaving Certificate, he studied law at the University of Sydney. Howard joined the Liberal Party in 1957.

Rising politician

John Howard as "boy Treasurer" in the Fraser government

Howard was a solicitor and held office in the New South Wales Liberal Party on the State Executive and as President of the Young Liberals (1962–64), the party youth organisation.[5] During this period Howard was a supporter of Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, and he remains so today.[6]

At the 1963 Federal Election, Howard acted as campaign manager in his local seat of Parkes for the successful candidacy of Tom Hughes who defeated the 20 year Labor incumbent.

In 1967 with the support of party power brokers, John Carrick and Eric Willis, he was endorsed as candidate for the marginal suburban state seat of Drummoyne, held by the ALP. Howard's mother sold the family home in Earlwood and rented a house with him at Five Dock, a suburb within the electorate. At the election in February 1968, in which the incumbent state Liberal government was returned to office, Howard failed to defeat the sitting member, despite campaigning vigorously. Howard and his mother subsequently returned to Earlwood, moving to a house on the same street where he grew up.

Howard continued living at home until 1971 when he married fellow Liberal Party member Janette Parker, with whom he now has three children. Janette, formerly an English teacher, has maintained a low profile during her husband's prime ministership, possibly in part due to health problems but also to her own expressed preference.[7][8]

Howard's next attempt to enter parliament was at a Federal level and was successful. He was elected to the House of Representatives as the Member of Parliament for the Sydney suburban seat of Bennelong at the Federal election in May 1974. When Malcolm Fraser's government came to power in December 1975, Howard was appointed Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs, and in December 1977 he was appointed Treasurer at the age of 38, for which appointment he became known as "the boy Treasurer". In April 1982 he was elected Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party.

He favoured cuts to personal income tax and business tax, lower government spending, the dismantling of the centralised wage-fixing system, the abolition of compulsory trade unionism and the privatization of government-owned enterprises, views that have dominated his subsequent career. He became frustrated with the more moderate and pragmatic Fraser, who would not embark on these steps. In 1982 Howard nearly resigned in protest at Fraser's big-spending pre-election budget. As Federal Treasurer, John Howard presided over a home lending rate peaking at 13.5% on 8 April 1982.[9][10]

Success, failure, success

Following Fraser's resignation, Howard contested the Liberal leadership, but was defeated by Andrew Peacock. He remained Deputy Leader and became Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Peacock was defeated by Hawke at the 1984 election and although he had lost by less than most commentators expected, Peacock began to worry that Howard was planning to challenge for the leadership. In May 1985 he tried to remove Howard from the Deputy Leadership position, expecting him to challenge for the Leadership. The plan backfired when Howard stood again for the deputy's position, and won. This put Peacock in an untenable position and he resigned, leaving Howard to take the leadership unopposed.

Howard said that "the times will suit me." In addition to his economic views, he became known as a strong social conservative, supporting the nuclear family against the so-called "permissive society", and was also sceptical of the promotion of multiculturalism at the expense of a shared national identity. In 1985, in an interview he gave with The Age published on 30 July, Howard stated that he (like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher at the time - see History of South Africa in the apartheid era) was opposed to economic sanctions against the apartheid government of South Africa.

During 1985 and 1986, with unemployment rising and the economy stagnant, Howard appeared to be making ground on the government. However, Howard's chances of winning the 1987 election were destroyed when the arch-conservative Premier of Queensland, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, launched a populist "Joh for Canberra" campaign, temporarily splitting and discrediting the conservative forces. Hawke won the 1987 election comfortably.

In 1988, Howard's position was weakened by controversy following a speech in which he claimed that the rate of Asian immigration into Australia was too high. In May 1989 Peacock launched a surprise leadership coup against Howard. After a brief stint on the backbench, Howard returned to the Coalition front bench, but his leadership career seemed to be over, particularly when Peacock lost the 1990 election and the Liberals turned to a new, younger leader, Dr. John Hewson. Howard himself compared the possibility of a political comeback to "Lazarus with a triple bypass".

Howard was an enthusiastic supporter of Hewson's economic program, with a Goods and Services Tax (GST) as its centrepiece. After Hewson lost the "unloseable" 1993 election to Paul Keating, Howard unsuccessfully challenged Hewson for the leadership. In 1994, he was again passed over for the leadership, which went to Alexander Downer. Downer failed to dent Keating's dominance and in January 1995 he resigned as leader. The party's Deputy Leader, Peter Costello was unwilling to step up to the leadership, and Howard became leader for the second time.

Prime Minister

The 1996 election campaign

As Opposition Leader, Howard adopted a more pragmatic position than he had done during his first term in the leadership. He repudiated his earlier statements against Medicare and in favour of a GST (saying he would "never ever" introduce a GST).[11] In a "small target" strategy, he attacked the "arrogance" and the "elitist" nature of Keating's "big picture" politics—issues like foreign relations with Asia, Australian republicanism, multiculturalism and reconciliation with indigenous Australians—which, Howard believed, were irrelevant to ordinary voters. He also promised workers would be no worse off under industrial relations changes.[12]

Howard won over many traditional Labor voters, sometimes called the "Howard battlers", and scored a sweeping victory at the 1996 elections over Keating to become Prime Minister of Australia at the age of 56.

In the lead up to the 1996 election, Pauline Hanson, the Liberal candidate for Oxley in Queensland was disendorsed because of comments she made to The Queensland Times. Howard was slow to express views on Hanson; his initial public reaction was to comment that he thought it was good that the years of "political correctness" were finally over.

First term: 1996–1998

John Howard in the USA in 1997

Howard and his cabinet immediately announced the previous government had left behind a 10 billion dollar "budget black hole" that necessitated considerable reduction in almost all areas of government expenditure.[13] Training and education programs developed under the Keating government were scrapped, infrastructure investment was scaled down, funding for indigenous bodies was reduced, and a system of "work for the dole" requiring social security seekers to engage in work was introduced.

Prudent economic management remained the government's strongest claim throughout its term, and a prolonged period of economic growth remains an essential element in its popularity.[14] The government began a trend of budget surpluses which it maintained in most years, the exception being the 2001-2002 financial year where a cash defecit of $1.3 Billion was recorded[8]. By 2006 had completely paid off the 96 billion dollar Commonwealth government net debt which was in place in 1996.

In 1996, Australia was stunned when 35 people were killed by Martin Bryant in the Port Arthur massacre. Howard responded by coordinating action by the state governments to heavily restrict the private ownership of semi-automatic rifles, semi-automatic shotguns and pump-action shotguns. This action and an accompanying "gun buy-back scheme" were popular with the general population but not with gun owners.

The Howard government did not have a majority in the Senate, instead facing a situation where legislation had to be negotiated past either the Australian Democrats or the Independents. The Senate blocked or delayed much of the Government's more controversial legislation, including the partial privatisation of the government-owned telecommunications company, Telstra; the modification of industrial relations laws to promulgate individual contracts; increases in university fees; large funding cuts in the 1996 and 1997 budgets; a 30% private health insurance rebate; and the extinguishment of native title on pastoral leases (following the High Court's Wik decision).

Howard had come to office promising to improve standards of integrity among ministers and politicians, introducing a strict "Code of Ministerial Conduct" at the start of his term. The strictness of his code was enforced when a succession of seven of his ministers (Jim Short, Geoff Prosser, John Sharp, David Jull, Brian Gibson, Bob Woods, and Peter McGauran) were required to resign following breaches of the code, concerning a variety of "travel rorts" (misuse of the ministerial travel allowance) and conflicts of interest between ministerial responsibilities and share ownership. Prosser had attempted to use his ministerial office to further his own business interests. Another two ministers (John Moore and Warwick Parer) were discovered to have breached the code.

The 1998 election campaign

The 1998 election campaign was dominated by two issues. One was reform of the tax system, including the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST; a broad-based value-added tax).[15] At the October 1998 election, the Liberal-National Coalition, suffered a large swing, largely driven by an opposition campaign against the Goods and Services Tax. Labor leader Kim Beazley won 51% of the national two-party preferred vote, but the Liberals ran an effective marginal electorate campaign and were returned with a comfortable majority in parliament.

Although One Nation had previously surprised commentators with a resounding performance in the Queensland state election, its national campaign was poorly administered and One Nation failed to win any House of Representatives seats. An electoral redistribution had rendered Pauline Hanson's seat of Oxley unwinnable. She stood in neighbouring electorate Blair but was defeated.

Second term: 1998–2001

Despite Howard's essentially domestic focus, external issues intruded significantly into Howard's second term when the people of East Timor voted for independence in a United Nations sponsored referendum. Indonesian militia, covertly backed by Indonesian troops, began a brutal campaign of repression. After enormous public pressure, Howard (with bi-partisan support) broke with the long-standing Australian policy of unquestioning support for Indonesia, and Australia lead a peacekeeping/policing force to protect the inhabitants against pro-Indonesian militias, attracting praise domestically and in several countries, but angering some Indonesians and Islamists. A side effect of these actions was that Osama Bin Laden later called Australia a "crusader force", and that the Bali bombings were retribution for leading the action.[16][17][18][19][20]

John Howard's government also considered the issue of a national apology to Aboriginal Australians for their treatment by previous generations following the European settlement of the country. Howard refrained from making a national apology (although all State and Territory Governments did so) and instead personally expressed "deep sorrow" while maintaining that "Australians of this generation should not be required to accept guilt and blame for past actions and policies."[21]

The other major issue during Howard's second term was the implementation of the GST, replacing a range of taxes on specific goods with a flat rate on almost all goods and services. All GST revenue is distributed to the states. This was intended to give the States responsibility for their own finances and end the annual funding squabble between the States and the Federal Government. The Federal Government continues to determine the share of GST revenue received by each state.

Howard was only able to pass the GST legislation through the Senate after making a deal with Australian Democrats' leader Senator Meg Lees to exclude a number of items from the GST, most notably fresh food such as fruit and vegetables. This increased the complexity of the GST, which had already increased the frequency and detail of reporting required by small businesses.

As a partial offset for the GST, a $7,000 "first home buyers grant" was introduced in 2000.[22] The grant was paid at settlement, and Australian banks chose to count it towards a buyer's deposit, increasing the borrowing limit of applicants by approximately $70,000 and feeding a housing boom already sparked by world-wide low interest rates.

Although some of the resentment for the GST fell on the Democrats, the Howard government was trailing in the polls in 2001. The government lost a by-election in the normally safe electorate of Ryan in Queensland, and Labor governments were elected in all the states and territories (except South Australia, which fell to Labor in 2002). In response to the declining position at this time, a number of policy changes were made, including the abandonment of petrol excise indexation and increased government benefits to self-funded retirees.

The 2001 election campaign

In August 2001, the government refused permission for the Norwegian freighter MV Tampa, carrying a group of asylum seekers picked up in international waters, to enter Australian waters. Howard ordered the ship be boarded by Australian special forces and spoke strongly of the need for Australia to "decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come". This brought censure from the government of Norway as failure to meet obligations to distressed mariners under international law at the United Nations.[23]

The government introduced tough "border protection" legislation. Kim Beazley and the Labor opposition offered half-hearted support to Howard's legislation, allowing the Howard government to portray itself as tough on border protection. The issue gave the Howard governent a big lift in the polls,[24] and most commentators agree it was the decisive issue in the 2001 election.[25][26][27]

It was during October 2001 that pictures released by the Navy sparked the Children Overboard Affair. The pictures which had been purported to show that children had been thrown into the sea were taken during a rescue after SIEV-4 had sunk. When this was discovered, Howard claimed that he was acting on the intelligence he was given at the time. It was later revealed that Minister Reith had been informed on 7 November by Air Marshal (now Air Chief Marshal) Angus Houston that the claim was false. On 26 February 2006 Howard said,

"They irresponsibly sank the damn boat, which put their children in the water".

The subsequent Senate inquiry later found that passengers aboard other SIEVs had threatened children, sabotaged their own vessels, committed self-harm, and, in the case of SIEV-7 on 22 October, a child had been thrown overboard and rescued by another asylum seeker.[28]

At the November 2001 elections the Coalition was re-elected, with a larger majority than in 1998.

Third term: 2001–2004

In the two years after the 2001 election the Howard government continued its tough line on national security and "border protection" issues, while seeking to further its agenda of conservative social policies and pro-business economic reforms. Despite its victory in 2001, the government did not have a Senate majority, and its ability to pass planned legislation was restricted.

Howard faced a difficult issue in the allegations that his choice as Governor General, Dr. Peter Hollingworth, in his previous job as Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, had refused to investigate Anglican priests who were accused of paedophilia in various churches: eventually Hollingworth was forced to resign the governor-generalship amidst a storm of controversy that threatened to damage the credibility of his office.

So long as the issue of national security was prominent in the minds of voters and the Australian economy remained strong[citation needed], Howard retained a clear political advantage over his opponents. Throughout 2002 and 2003 he kept his lead in the opinion polls over the then Labor leader, Simon Crean. Following the October 2002 Bali bombing, Howard placed a renewed emphasis on his government's approach to national security.

In March 2003, Howard joined 40 countries including the United Kingdom and the United States, in sending troops and naval units to support in the invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. He told parliament: "Full disclosure by Iraq of its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs and immediate and total cooperation by Iraq with the provisions of resolution 1441 of the Security Council will remove the need for military action."[29]

Australian opinion was deeply divided on the war and large public protests against the war occurred.[30] Several senior figures from the Liberal party, including John Valder, a former president of the Liberal Party, and Howard's former friend and colleague, former Opposition Leader John Hewson and former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser publicly criticised Howard over Iraq.[31][32][33] John Valder's criticism was particularly strong, claiming that Howard should be tried and punished as a war criminal.[34]

On Anzac Day 2004, Howard made a surprise visit to Australian defence personnel in Iraq. This came amid a bitter debate in Australia over the war following opposition leader Mark Latham's promise to return Australian troops by Christmas. Howard portrayed Latham as a threat to the U.S.-Australia alliance.

The 2004–05 budget increased family payments and tax cuts for middle income earners[citation needed], and contributed to a recovery by the government in the opinion polls[citation needed].

On 6 May 2004 representatives of the Australian government and John Howard met with a group of representatives of industry called the Lower Emissions Technology Advisory Group (LETAG). Minutes from the meeting were leaked and describe how both groups are worried that mandatory renewable energy targets were working too well and were "market skewed" towards wind power.[35][36]

In August 2004, Howard's proposed amendment to the Marriage Act—to prevent foreign and domestic same-sex unions from being recognised as marriages within Australia—was passed with the support of the Australian Labor Party, although several Labor Left MPs had expressed their opposition to the amendment, and the Premier of Western Australia Dr. Geoff Gallop. The Greens and Democrats opposed the amendment. Howard has since ruled out recognising gay marriages.[37]

The 2004 election campaign

On 29 August 2004, Howard called an election for 9 October. The Labor opposition, after the resignation of Simon Crean and the election of Mark Latham as leader in December 2003, had established a large lead in some opinion polls by March 2004, and the government entered the election campaign behind Labor in all the published national opinion polls. Howard himself still had a large lead over Latham as preferred Prime Minister in those same polls and most commentators regarded the result as being too close to call.

During the campaign, Howard attacked Latham's economic record as Mayor of Liverpool City Council. Howard also attacked Labor's economic history.

"It is an historic fact that interest rates have always gone up under Labor governments over the last 30 years, because Labor governments spend more than they collect and drive budgets into deficit," he said. "So it will be with a Latham Labor government... I will guarantee that interest rates are always going to be lower under a Coalition government."[38]

In the closing period of the election campaign, Howard promised a large spending program on health, education, small business and family payments with the aim of trumping Latham's policy strengths.

The election resulted in an increased Coalition majority in the House of Representatives and also a government majority in the Senate, the first government majority in that chamber since 1981. The strength of the Australian economy under Howard's leadership[citation needed] may have helped him to retain the "battler" vote which, combined with his strong conservative base, gave the Coalition a comfortable election victory of 52.74% of the vote on a two party preferred basis against Labor's result of 47.26%.[39]

Fourth term: 2004–present

John Howard with U.S. President George W. Bush on 16 May 2006, during Howard's seventh official visit to the White House as Prime Minister. From left to right: the Prime Minister's wife Janette Howard, U.S. First Lady Laura Bush, Howard, and Bush.

Political Situation

The Government response to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was widely acclaimed in Australia and abroad, including by then Opposition shadow foreign affairs spokesperson and current Opposition leader, Kevin Rudd, who said that an Australian Labor Party government could not have done more.

On 1 July 2005 the new Senate came into effect, giving the Government control of both houses. This is the first Australian government since the Fraser government that is able to pass any legislation it wishes, without having to first gain the approval of another party or hold a double dissolution election. With a majority of, arguably, one senator, this is subject to achieving the necessary Coalition discipline, which has appeared to be quite fragile on certain issues.

Legislation which had previously been blocked and has now been passed includes: Industrial relations changes; Voluntary Student Unionism which removed compulsory student union fees at universities.

Overruled Legislation: ACT Civil Unions Act.

Other legislation which had previously been blocked in the Senate includes: Revising media ownership laws so as to remove restrictions on media companies having control over multiple different media.

On Monday 4 December 2006 Kevin Rudd replaced Kim Beazley as leader of the opposition.[40]

Industrial Relations Main article: Workchoices

In 2005, Howard announced fundamental and wide-ranging changes to industrial relations laws which have since been the subject of a national campaign by community groups, the union movement and state Labor governments.

Despite the coalition's majority in the Senate, a number of the proposed laws were in doubt, due to the opposition that had been voiced by Queensland National Party Senator Barnaby Joyce who had threatened to vote against the sale of Telstra. Joyce raised concerns in relation to the industrial relations announcements but eventually supported the legislation.

On 15 November 2005 protest rallies were held to protest against the workplace relations laws around the country, in opposition to the Howard government‘s planned changes to industrial relations laws. A large crowd, estimated at between 100-175,000 people, turned out at the protests in Melbourne, with large numbers attending around 300 meetings and rallies that were held concurrently across the country.[41][42] These meetings[43] were organised by various unions and community organisations with the help of Labor and the Greens. The laws were passed without substantial change.

Iraq and Terrorism

On 22 February 2005 Howard announced that Australia would increase its military commitment to Iraq with an additional 450 troops, telling John Laws, "I‘m openly saying that some small adjustment at the margin might happen".[44][45]

In mid 2005, John Howard and his cabinet began discussions of new anti-terror legislation which includes modification to the Crimes Act 1914. In particular, sections relating to sedition are to be modified. On 14 October 2005, Jon Stanhope (Chief Minister of the ACT) took the controversial step of publishing the confidential draft of the Federal Anti-Terrorism Bill 2005 on his website.[46][47] This action was both praised and criticised.[48][49] Citing concerns about civil rights raised by the Australian National University as well as concerns over the speed of the legislation's passage through parliament, he later refused to sign off on a revised version of the legislation, becoming the only State and Territorial leader not to sign.[50][51] The House of Representatives passed the anti-terrorism legislation which was debated in the Senate before its final implementation in December 2005.

On 2 November 2005 Howard held a press conference to announce that he had received information from police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) that indicated an imminent terrorist attack in Australia. Within a week, on 8 November, anti- terrorist raids were held across Melbourne and Sydney, with 17 suspected terrorists arrested, including Abdul Nacer Benbrika. These raids, according to Howard, demonstrated the need for his Anti-Terrorism Bill. According to the Greens and Democrats, the raids demonstrated that no further legislation was needed as even the current legislation was sufficient to allow ASIO and the Australian Federal Police to act in some cases. Critics have also said that the press conference was held on the same day as the changes to industrial relations laws were introduced to Parliament.

AWB Scandal Main article: Cole Inquiry

In October 2005, the Volcker Inquiry into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme revealed that Australian company AWB Ltd had paid the single largest illicit "kickback" to the Iraq regime. Howard, resisting calls for a Royal Commission, subsequently established a Commission of Inquiry under Terence Cole QC to determine if Australian companies had broken the law.[52] Howard rejected criticisms that the Inquiry Terms of Reference were too narrow (i.e. did not permit adequate investigation into the role played by Government Ministers and their delegates).[53]

Mandatory Detention of Refugees Main article: Mandatory detention in Australia

Throughout the first half of 2005, the Howard government faced pressure regarding the controversial mandatory detention program. It was revealed in February that a mentally ill German citizen and Australian resident, Cornelia Rau, had been held in detention for nine months. The government then established the closed non-judicial Palmer Inquiry promising that the findings would be made public. In May, it was revealed that another Australian, subsequently identified as Vivian Alvarez, had been deported from Australia and that the department responsible was unable to locate her. By late May, it was revealed that an additional 200 cases of possible wrongful detention had been referred to the Palmer Inquiry.[54] Also at this time Howard faced backbench revolt from small numbers of his own party demanding that reforms be made.[55] On 9 June Australia's longest serving detainee, Peter Qasim, was moved to a psychiatric hospital.[56]

Environment

A talk given on 20 February 2006 by Clive Hamilton, the director of the Australia Institute, described the Howard as being influenced by the "dirty dozen", a group of industry lobbyists with considerable influence over Australian policy.[57] On 6 June 2006, Howard announced a task force to conduct the "Uranium Mining, Processing, and Nuclear Energy Review", the terms of reference of which include "the extent to which nuclear energy will make a contribution to the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions".[58] Howard announced on 10 December 2006 the formation of a Prime Ministerial Task Group on Emissions Trading.[59][60] On 3 February 2007, the Australian government announced that it could not by itself have a significant effect on mitigation of global warming, though it would continue to make efforts to cut greenhouse gases; it would be necessary for Australia to find means of adaptation.[61]

Speculation about retirement

In the lead up to the 2001 election, Howard did not commit to serving a full term if he won the election. Instead, he said he would consider the question of retirement when he turned 64, which would be in July 2003.[62] When July 2003 came, he announced that the party was strongly in favour of him continuing, so he stayed on.[63]

In the lead up to the 2004 election, Howard again did not commit to serving a full term.[64] In 2006, there was mounting speculation that he would retire that year.

In July 2006, as part of a redistribution of New South Wales electoral divisions, a proposal was made to change the boundaries of Howard's electorate of Bennelong on Sydney's Lower North Shore. It has been suggested that these changes may make Bennelong one of the most marginal seats in the state with only a 3% majority, however these figures have been disputed by political commentators such as Malcolm Mackerras, and also Shane Easson of the NSW Labor Party, who argue that the impact of the changes will be minimal.[65][66][67]

In July 2006, it was alleged that a deal had been struck with Peter Costello in 1994 with Ian McLachlan present, that if the Liberal party were to win the next election, Howard would serve one and a half terms of office and then allow Costello to take over. Mr. McLachlan's version of the conversation is that Mr. Howard said something like, "I can't guarantee this to you Peter, but my intention is not to hang around forever. If I win, I'll serve two terms and hand over to you."[68] Howard denied that this constituted a deal, yet Costello and McLachlan insisted it did;[69][70][71] and there were calls for Costello to either challenge or quit.[72][73]

The impasse was resolved at the end of July when Howard, again citing strong party room support for him as leader, stated that he would remain to contest the 2007/2008 election, and that he and Costello would remain in their current roles.[74] Costello declared that he would not be seeking the top position in the Liberal Party while Howard was standing as its leader, saying on The 7.30 Report he would be handing down the 2007 Budget.[75]

Honours Centenary Medal In January 2001 The Star of the Solomon Islands together with Helen Clark as Prime Minister of New Zealand on 15 June 2005 for their respective roles in restoring law and order in the Solomon Islands.[76]

June Rosemary Whitfield CBE (born 11 November 1925) is an English actress who is well known for her appearances in four Carry On films, Terry and June and Absolutely Fabulous.Contents [hide] 1 Early life 2 Early career 3 Televison fame 4 Recent years 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Early life

June Rosemary Whitfield was born in Streatham, London in 1925.[1] She attended Streatham High School and in 1944 Whitfield graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art with a diploma.[1] In 1955, June Whitfield married Tim Aitchison and they had one daughter, Suzy, who later became an actress.[1]

[edit] Early career

In the 1950s, June Whitfield become well known on radio for starring as Eth in the Jimmy Edwards comedy Take It From Here.[1] In 1951, she had her first credited television role in The Passing Show. During the next 15 years Whitfield had many small roles on television, including appearances in The Tony Hancock Show, Hancock's Half Hour, Dixon of Dock Green, Arthur's Treasured Volumes, The Arthur Askey Show, Faces of Jim, Hancock, The Benny Hill Show, Steptoe and Son and Frankie Howerd. One of three episodes of Hancock's Half Hour, later shortened to Hancock, was the episode "The Blood Donor", in which she played the nurse. In 1959, Whitfield appeared in Carry On Nurse.[1]

[edit] Televison fame

In 1966, Whitfield got the first starring role, in the sitcom Beggar My Neighbour[1] playing Rose Garvey. The year after Beggar My Neighbour finished in 1968, Whitfield then appeared on Scott On... for six years until 1974.[2] This started a working relationship with Terry Scott that would last until 1987. During Scott On... she had also appeared in The Best Things In Life, The Goodies, The Dick Emery Show, Bless This House and The Pallisers. In 1972 she appeared in the Bless This House film, with Terry Scott as her husband, and Carry On Abroad, followed by an appearance in 1973 in Carry On Girls.[1]

In 1974, Whitfield starred in a Comedy Playhouse sitcom pilot called Happy Ever After alongside Terry Scott. Later that year a first series of this was made, and it continued for five series until 1979. That year they appeared together in the first series of Terry and June. Happy Ever After and Terry and June were very similar programmes, with a only a change of surname, from Fletcher to Medford, and a new house and family.[3] Both sitcoms had Scott and Whitfield as a suburban middle-class married couple. Terry and June ran for 65 episodes until 1987. Five years later in 1992, Julian Clary created Terry and Julian, a Channel 4 sitcom which spoofed the title of Terry and June, and Whitfield made an appearance in one episode.[4] During the eight-year run of Terry and June, Whitfield also appeared in It Ain't Half Hot Mum and Minder.

During the 1980s, June Whitfield went back to working on radio. From 1984 she appeared with Roy Hudd on the satire programme The News Huddlines,[1] which finished in 2001. On The News Huddlines she often impersonated people, and was well known for her impersonation of the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.[1] During the 1980s and 1990s, June Whitfield made several stage appearances, including plays such as An Ideal Husband and Babes in the Wood.[1] In 1982, Whitfield was made a Freeman of the City of London and was made an OBE in 1985.[1]

[edit] Recent years

Having appeared in an episode of French & Saunders in 1988, from 1992 June Whitfield played Mother/Gran in Jennifer Saunders's sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, a role she continued until the show end in 2003. In 2000, she starred with the rest of the Absolutely Fabulous cast in the pilot Mirrorball. From 1993 to 1995, June Whitfield played Miss Marple in three radio adaptations of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple books.[4] In recent years, she has appeared in films such as Carry On Columbus, Jude and Faeries, as the voice of Mrs. Combs. In 1998, Whitfield played the housekeeper in the London-set episode of Friends "The One with Ross's Wedding, Part Two".[5]

In 1994 June Whitfield was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the British Comedy Awards,[1] and in 1998 she was upgraded to a CBE.[5] Whitfield's husband Tim Aitchson died in 2001.[4] Since 2000, Whitfield has appeared in The Royal, Midsomer Murders, Marple and Last of the Summer Wine, which she had also appeared in back in 1973.

Kenneth Harry Clarke, QC, MP, (born 2 July 1940) is a prominent Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He is MP for Rushcliffe, near Nottingham. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1993 until 1997, and a minister throughout all 18 years of Conservative rule from 1979 to 1997. He has contested the leadership of the party three times (in 1997, 2001 and 2005), being defeated each time.Contents [hide] 1 Early life 2 Parliament and Cabinet 3 Since 1997 3.1 Interests outside politics and business 4 External links

[edit] Early life

Born in Nottingham, England in 1940, Clarke was educated at Nottingham High School (then a "direct grant" school) and went on to study law at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge where he graduated with a 2:1. He had joined the Conservatives while at university, where he was chairman of the Cambridge University Conservative Association. As a student, he controversially invited the former British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley to speak for a second year in succession,[1] leading some Jewish students (including his future successor at the Home Office Michael Howard) to resign from CUCA in protest. Clarke was defeated for the presidency of the Cambridge Union Society by Howard, although he was subsequently elected President of the Union a year later. In an early 1990s documentary journalist Michael Cockerell played Clarke tape recordings of himself speaking at the Cambridge Union as a young man; Clarke displayed amusement at the stereotypically upper class accent with which he spoke at the time. On leaving Cambridge, Clarke was called to the Bar in 1963. He married Gillian Edwards, also a Cambridge graduate, in November 1964. They have two children.

[edit] Parliament and Cabinet

Clarke sought election to the House of Commons almost immediately after university. He cut his teeth by fighting the Labour stronghold of Mansfield in the 1964 and 1966 elections. In June 1970, at the age of 29, he gained the East Midlands constituency of Rushcliffe, south of Nottingham, from Labour MP Tony Gardner. Labour has never come close to winning the seat since, but Gardner's 1966 victory was partly due to the unpopular sitting Tory MP whom he defeated. Clarke has sat for Rushcliffe (on changed boundaries) ever since, making him by 2005 one of the longest serving of all MPs.

He was soon appointed a Government whip - from 1972 to 1974 - where he helped ensure that the Heath administration won key votes on entry to the European Community with the assistance of Labour rebels. Even though he opposed the election of Margaret Thatcher as party leader in 1975, he was appointed as her industry spokesman from 1976 to 1979, and then occupied a wide range of ministerial positions during her premiership, from 1979 onwards. He was appointed QC in 1980.

Clarke served as junior transport minister, and then as Minister of State for Health (1982-85). He joined the Cabinet as Paymaster General and Employment Minister (1985-87) (his Secretary of State, Lord Young, was in the Lords), and served as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister at the DTI (1987-88), with responsibility for the Inner Cities ("because," as one wag put it, "he looked like he lived in one"). He was appointed Health Secretary in 1988, introducing the 'internal market' concept in the NHS, before being appointed Education Secretary in the final weeks of Thatcher's government, in the reshuffle caused by Sir Geoffrey Howe's resignation (the job had been offered to Norman Tebbit, who declined to return to the Cabinet). He was famously the first Cabinet minister to advise Thatcher to resign after her inadequate first-round performance in the November 1990 leadership contest; she referred to him in her memoirs as a "candid friend". He supported Douglas Hurd in the next round.

Despite the victory of John Major in that contest, he came to work with Thatcher's successor very closely, and quickly emerged as a central figure in his government. After continuing as Education Secretary (1990-92), where he introduced a number of reforms, he was appointed as Home Secretary in the wake of the Conservatives' unexpected victory at the 1992 general election. In May 1993, seven months after the impact of 'Black Wednesday' had terminally damaged the credibility of Norman Lamont as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Major forced Lamont to resign from that office and appointed Clarke in his place.

At first Clarke was seen as the dominant figure in the Cabinet, and at the October 1993 Conference he "defended" Major from his critics by announcing "Any enemy of John Major is an enemy of mine" in a manner widely seen as overbearing. By the time of the Redwood leadership challenge in June 1995 there were even rumours (always denied) that Major had offered the Exchequer to Heseltine.

Clarke enjoyed an increasingly successful record as Chancellor, as the economy recovered from the recession of the early 1990s and a new monetary policy was put into effect after Black Wednesday. He was able to reduce the basic rate of Income Tax from 25 to 23%, as well as reduce the share of GDP consumed by government spending, and halve the budget deficit[citation needed].

Differences of opinion within the Cabinet on European policy, on which Clarke was one of the leading pro-Europeans, complicated his tenure as Chancellor. Whereas other ministers such as Malcolm Rifkind wished to imply that British euro membership was unlikely, Clarke fought successfully to maintain the possibility that Britain might join a European single currency under a Conservative government, but conceded that such a move could only take place on the basis of a referendum. When the 'Eurosceptic' Party Chairman, Brian Mawhinney, (allegedly) briefed against him, on one occasion, Clarke memorably declared: "Tell your kids to get their scooters off my lawn" - an allusion to Harold Wilson's rebuke of trade union leader Hugh Scanlon in the late 1960s.

Clarke is president of the moderate, pro-European ginger group within the Conservative Party, Tory Reform Group.

[edit] Since 1997

Since the Conservatives entered Opposition in 1997, Clarke has stood for the leadership of the Conservative Party three times. In 1997, a vote exclusively among Members of Parliament, he topped the poll in the first and second rounds. In the third and final round he formed an alliance with Eurosceptic John Redwood, who would have become Shadow Chancellor and Clarke's deputy if Clarke had won the contest. This alliance of opposites earned Clarke little support from the eurosceptic right; Redwood was not able to deliver the votes of many of his followers after Lady Thatcher publicly endorsed Clarke's rival William Hague in a photocall outside the House of Commons, and the latter won the vote comfortably. The contest was criticised for not involving, except in an advisory role, the rank-and-file members of the party, where surveys showed Clarke to be more popular.

Ironically, in 2001, after coming first in the parliamentary ballot, Clarke lost in a final round among the rank-and-file membership—a new procedure introduced by Hague—to a much less experienced, but strongly Eurosceptic rival, Iain Duncan Smith. This loss, by a margin of 62% to 38%, was attributed to the former Chancellor's pro-European views being increasingly out of step with the dominant Euroscepticism of the party membership. In Opposition, Clarke has so far refused to accept any Shadow Cabinet position, having first been offered a senior role by Hague in 1997.

When Michael Howard stepped down after the Conservative's 2005 general election defeat, Clarke confirmed he would stand again for the position of party leader in autumn 2005, against the other expected contenders including Malcolm Rifkind, David Cameron, David Davis and Liam Fox. Refuting suggestions that at 65 he was too old to lead the party Clarke said that he was "overwhelmingly more popular" (amongst the voters at large) than his potential rivals. [2] Lord Tebbit accused Clarke of being "lazy" and said that voters would find his connections with the tobacco industry distasteful. [3]

Clarke's lack of involvement in front bench politics since 1997 meant that, unlike his leadership rivals, he was not associated with the policies and electoral failures of the Tory party under the leaderships of William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard. In his campaign speeches Clarke attacked Tony Blair's "catastrophic error" in involving the UK in the war with Iraq [4] and accused the government of being "autocratic". "We have a Prime Minister who is more George III than Clement Attlee", he said.[5]

An ICM opinion poll conducted for Newsnight on 5 September 2005 gave Clarke a 40% approval rating for leader (amongst the public) as against 10% for the man then perceived as his nearest rival, David Davis. Nevertheless, Clarke was knocked out in the first round of the 2005 leadership contest, effectively ending his ambition to become party leader. Clarke polled 38 votes against 42 for Liam Fox, 56 for David Cameron and 62 for David Davis. David Cameron became Conservative Leader after a run off with Davis in December 2005.

Cameron appointed Clarke to head a Democracy task force as part of his extensive 18-month policy review in December 2005, exploring issues such as the reform of the House of Lords and party funding.

As a backbencher, Clarke has taken a number of non-executive directorships and engaged in non-political media work, including serving as Deputy Chairman of British American Tobacco (BAT) (1998-2005) and Deputy Chairman of Alliance Unichem, and has faced allegations over the activities of BAT in lobbying the developing world to reject stronger health warnings on cigarette packets and evidence that his corporation has been involved in smuggling.[6] He has presented several series of jazz programmes on BBC Radio Four, including one on his namesake, bebop drummer Kenny Clarke.

[edit] Interests outside politics and business

Ken Clarke's principal interests are jazz, birdwatching, reading political history and watching most kinds of sport (he is a big fan of Nottingham Forest). He attended the 1966 World Cup final and claims (with a little jest) to have been influential in persuading the man known vernacularly as "the Russian linesman" Tofik Bakhramov (who was actually from Azerbaijan), to award a goal to Geoff Hurst when the England striker had seen his shot hit the crossbar of opponents West Germany and bounce down, leaving doubt as to whether the ball had crossed the line. Clarke's position in the Wembley crowd was right behind the linesman at the time, and he shouted at the official to award a goal. Clarke makes this claim in jest as Bakhramov understood no English at all.

Clarke is a former President of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club and a keen follower of Formula one motorsport. As a director of the tobacco giant BAT he was involved with their Formula One team British American Racing and has attended Grands Prix in support of the BAR team. BAR was sold to Honda in 2005.

Clarke is a lover of Real Ale and has been a member of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).

Residents

Knightsbridge is notable for its eclectic mix of rich, famous, and international residents including several billionaires Roman Abramovich, oligarchs from Russia, China and India, international businessman Lord Marshall of Knightsbridge, trend setters like Charles Saatchi, famed fashion designers Valentino and Tom Ford of Gucci, supermodels, Saudi and several other Middle Eastern Royal Dynasties, American investment bankers and hedge fund managers such as John Duffield of New Star Asset Management, French, German and Scandinavian industrialists, Greek shipping magnates, designers at the top of their field, diplomats from all over the world, together with many television personalities Sir David Frost and Nigella Lawson, film stars such as Hugh Grant and Joan Collins, music stars like Donna Air, and the late Freddie Mercury, John Barry, alongside many artists, rappers, newspaper and magazine publishers Nicholas Coleridge, writers, journalists, IT entrepreneurs, and charity organisers/ fundraisers such as Arpad Busson and Sally Farmiloe Neville, infamous as the mistress of Lord Archer.

A number of high profile people were raised in the area including Princess Diana, Sienna Miller, Amanda de Cadenet, and Ian Fleming creator of James Bond. Knightsbridge is a shoppers paradise and home to many expensive shops, including the exclusive department stores Harrods, owned by billionaire Egyptian tycoon Mohammed Al Fayed, Peter Jones, traditionally favoured by the Sloane Rangers, and Harvey Nichols, made famous by the antics of Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone in the classic British comedy Absolutely Fabulous. Victoria Beckham is a regular shopper in the area and Harrods is her outlet of choice for her own label fashion line VB Rocks.

In addition to upper class Londoners, Knightsbridge is home to large numbers of super wealthy people from the all around the world. It forms an International Community where English is the common language but conversations can regularly be heard in one of 300 languages from around the world - notably American, Arabic, Chinese, European and Eastern European languages, Indian dialects, Russian, and Hispanic languages. It is one of the two International Centres identified in the London Plan; the other is the West End.

Just the other side of the road from the Quinlan Estate, a roll call of some the richest families from the Middle East have placed deposits on flats in the world's most luxurious property development being undertaken by Candy and Candy and Lord Richard Rogers of Riverside at One Hyde Park with the financial backing of Sheik Hamad bin Jassem bin Jaber Al-Thani, the Foreign Minister of Qatar. The north side of Knightsbridge, known as Knightsbridge Green is home to another ultra prime new development, The Knightsbridge, the trendy sushi restaurant - Zuma - the offices of New Star Asset Management, where the glamourous secretaries are millionaires following its recent flotation, and at Prince's Gate the offices of Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One.

In Lowndes Square is the property where Sven Goran Erikson was reported to have met with Roman Ambramovich. The square is favoured generally by Russian oligarchs, and Chelsea F.C. football players who are known to entertain lavishly in the nearby The Berkeley, Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, and Lanesborough Hotels, and shop prodigiously in nearby Sloane Street. Jose Mourinho and Terry Venables are regularly seen in this area.

Liam Fox (born September 22, 1961) is a UK Conservative politician, currently Shadow Defence Secretary and Member of Parliament for Woodspring.Contents [hide] 1 Early life and career 2 Parliamentary career 3 Failed leadership bid 4 Allegations of bisexuality 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Early life and career

He was born and raised in East Kilbride, Scotland and brought up in a council house that his parents later bought. He attended St. Bride's High School. He studied medicine at the University of Glasgow Medical School, graduating with MB ChB in 1983. Raised as a Roman Catholic, he lapsed whilst a student, but considers himself a Christian and holds political positions (e.g. on abortion) that are consonant with conservative morality. Dr Fox is a general practitioner, a former Civilian Army Medical Officer and Divisional Surgeon with St John Ambulance. He is a member of the Royal College of General Practitioners.

Whilst studing at the University of Glasgow, he become President of the University Club. From there he advanced through the Conservative ranks. Fox contested the Hairmyres Ward of East Kilbride District Council in May 1984, coming second – 210 votes – to the incumbent Labour Councillor, Ed McKenna.

He contested Roxburgh and Berwickshire in the 1987 General Election.

Fox has been the MP for Woodspring since 1992. He lives in Bishop Sutton, which due to a boundary change is in the neighbouring constituency of Wansdyke – represented by Dan Norris, Labour.

On June 10, 2005, he announced his engagement to long-term girlfriend Jesme Baird, 37, a fellow doctor who works at the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation and is also an alumna of the University of Glasgow. They married at St Margaret's Church opposite Parliament on 17 December 2005[1]. This ended some of the media speculation surrounding his private life.

[edit] Parliamentary career

He was elected as Member of Parliament for Woodspring in April 1992. In June 1993, Dr Fox was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Rt. Hon. Michael Howard, the then Home Secretary. In July 1994, he was appointed an Assistant Government Whip. Following a limited government reshuffle in November 1995, he was appointed a Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury – a Senior Government Whip. He was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1996 to 1997.

In June 1997, Fox was appointed Opposition Front Bench Spokesman on Constitutional Affairs. Between 1999 and 2003 he was the Shadow Secretary of State for Health.

In December 2000, he issued a qualified apology[2] for making a joke about the Spice Girls. The joke, which was addressed to fellow Conservative MPs at a Christmas party, was: "What do you call three dogs and a blackbird? The Spice Girls.".

In November 2003, Fox was appointed campaign manager for Michael Howard following the no-confidence vote against the Conservative leader, Iain Duncan Smith. Dr. Fox was made co-chairman of the party by Michael Howard when he became party leader in November 2003. After the 2005 general election he was promoted within the Shadow Cabinet to become Shadow Foreign Secretary. On December 7 2005 he was moved to Defence by new Leader of the Opposition David Cameron MP.

He voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

He is a strong supporter of Israel and is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel.

[edit] Failed leadership bid

In September 2005, Fox announced he would join the contest to be the next leader of the Conservative party.

He is considered to be on the right of the party, with staunchly Eurosceptic and Atlanticist views. Although no longer religious, he is critical of abortion and supports the family – for sociological, not moral, reasons. His campaign theme for the 2005 leadership race was based on the "broken society" theme, which he says Conservatives can address by returning emphasis to marriage and reforming welfare.

His patriotic speech at the 2005 Party Conference improved his standing amongst members of the party.

In the initial ballot of Conservative MPs, on 18 October, he gained enough support (42 votes) to avoid coming last, and put himself through to the second ballot to be held two days later (see[1]).

He was eliminated with 51 votes in third place behind David Cameron (90 votes) and David Davis (57 votes).

[edit] Allegations of bisexuality

Unsubstantiated rumours about Liam Fox's bisexuality emerged in print only hours before the ballot of MPs on 20 October [3].

In an Evening Standard interview he suggested that his impending marriage to Jesme Baird should end any gossip about his private life. However, he refused to deny that he might have had a gay relationship and said "If someone accused me of doing something against the law I might feel bound to answer it. Otherwise I would have no comment to make".

Dr Fox voted against proposals to allow gay couples to adopt children and against the equalling of the age of consent. He did not vote on the Civil Partnerships Bill.[2]

Early life

Jeffrey Howard Archer was born in the City of London Maternity Hospital. When he was two weeks old he and his family moved to the seaside town of Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, where he spent most of his early life. In 1951 he won a scholarship to Wellington School, in Somerset.

Archer left school after passing three O-levels, in English Literature, Art, and History. He worked in a number of jobs, including training with the army and for the police. He lasted only a few months in either position, but he fared very well as a Physical Education teacher at Dover College. As a person and teacher he was very popular with his pupils and was reported to have had very good motivational skills.

[edit] Oxford

He gained a place at Brasenose College, Oxford to study for a one-year diploma in education, though he eventually stayed there for three years, gaining an academic qualification in teaching awarded by Oxford University.

While at Oxford he was successful in athletics, competing in sprinting and hurdling. He also made a name for himself in raising money for the then little-known charity Oxfam, famously managing to obtain the support of The Beatles in a charity fundraising drive. The band accepted his invitation to visit the Senior Common Room of his Brasenose College, where they were photographed with Archer and dons of the college, although they didn't play there. It was during this period that he met his wife, Mary. They married in July 1966.

[edit] Early career

After leaving Oxford, he continued as a charity fundraiser, working for the National Birthday Trust, a medical charity. He also began a career in politics, serving as a councillor on the Greater London Council from 1967 onwards.

[edit] Member of Parliament

At the age of 29, he was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Lincolnshire constituency of Louth, holding the seat for the Conservative Party in a by-election on 4 December 1969. Archer beat Ian Gow to the selection after winning over a substantial proportion of younger members at the selection meeting. Archer's campaign colour was a dayglo orange/pink with a blue arrow; the political parties in Lincolnshire had not abandoned local colours which were different from the party national colours. His agent was Jean Blackbourne.

The Louth constituency consisted of three key areas: Louth, Cleethorpes, and Immingham. During his time as a Member of Parliament, Archer was a regular at the Immingham Conservative Club in what was traditionally the most working class part of the constituency. His flamboyant personality and professionalism (he always drank orange juice) won him many friends in the town and the local party and public reaction to his possible bankruptcy was to encourage him to carry on regardless. Membership and activity within the local Conservative Party increased dramatically with Archer as MP, due to his energy and campaigning skills.

Archer remained as Honorary President of the Immingham Conservative Party until he withdrew from the 2000 election for Mayor of London in 1999.

Archer is to this day considered to be a local celebrity by the people of Immingham who were around when he was their Member of Parliament (although Archer has no family or business connections with the area). His increasingly rare visits to northern Lincolnshire continue to attract considerable local public interest.

In Parliament, Archer was on the left of the Conservative Party, rebelling against some of his party's policies. He urged free TV licences for the elderly and was against museum charges. Archer voted against restoring the death penalty saying it was barbaric and obscene. In 1971 he employed David Mellor, then needing money for his bar finals, to deal with his correspondence. He tipped Mellor to reach the cabinet in the future, which he did, in November 1990. In an interview on the Internet on Monday 1st February 1999, Archer said "I hope we don't return to extremes. I'm what you might call centre-right but I've always disliked the right wing as much as I've disliked the left wing".

In 1974, Archer became heavily insolvent after falling victim to a fraudulent investment scheme involving Aquablast, a Canadian company. Faced with likely bankruptcy, he stood down as an MP at the October 1974 general election, and turned to writing paperbacks.

Archer was succeeded as Conservative MP for Louth by Michael Brotherton from 1974 to 1983 when the constituency was the subject of boundary changes. The towns of Cleethorpes and Immingham were represented by another colourful MP, Michael Brown, from 1979 to 1997 as part of the Brigg & Cleethorpes constituency.

[edit] Politics and writing

His first book, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less was a success, and he ultimately avoided bankruptcy, never being legally declared bankrupt. Kane and Abel proved to be his best-selling work, reaching number one on the New York Times bestsellers list. It was made into a television mini-series. Archer purchased the Old Vicarage, Grantchester, a house associated with the poet Rupert Brooke.

Archer's political career revived once he became well known for his writing. He was made Deputy Chairman of the Conservative party by Margaret Thatcher in 1985 and was made Norman Tebbit's deputy, despite the latter's misgivings, before he had to resign because of yet another scandal in October 1986 which would be infamous in later years. In the summer of 1986 Archer suggested that John Major would be a future Prime Minister.[citation needed] His judgement was vindicated just over four years later.

Archer was created a life peer as Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare, of Mark in the County of Somerset in 1992 by John Major, having become a confidante of the then Prime Minister[citation needed].

Though against the death penalty, in a speech at the 1993 Conservative party conference, Archer urged the then Home Secretary Michael Howard, to "Stand and deliver" saying "Michael, I am sick and tired of being told by old people that they are frightened to open the door, they're frightened to go out at night, frightened to use the parks and byways where their parents and grandparents walked with freedom ... We say to you: stand and deliver!".

In the speech, Archer attacked violent films. He urged tougher prison conditions to prevent criminals from re-offending and slammed the role of do-gooders. He finished off the speech by criticizing the opposition parties Law and Order policies.[citation needed] Source: The Times newspaper (7 October 1993).

[edit] Libel case

In 1987 Archer sued the Daily Star for libel when they alleged that he had had sex with a prostitute named Monica Coghlan in September 1986. He won the case and was awarded £500,000 damages.

There also was widespread astonishment caused by the description by the judge (Mr Justice Caulfield) of Mrs. Archer[citations needed] in his jury instructions, "Remember Mary Archer in the witness-box. Your vision of her probably will never disappear. Has she elegance? Has she fragrance? Would she have, without the strain of this trial, radiance? How would she appeal? Has she had a happy married life? Has she been able to enjoy, rather than endure, her husband Jeffrey?" The judge then went on to say of Jeffrey Archer, "Is he in need of cold, unloving, rubber-insulated sex in a seedy hotel round about quarter to one on a Tuesday morning after an evening at the Caprice?"

The editor of the Daily Star, Lloyd Turner, was sacked six weeks after the trial by the paper's owner Lord Stevens of Ludgate.[1] He died of a heart attack in September 1996. Coghlan was killed by a stolen car in April 2001. The car which crashed into Coghlan was driven by a drunken drug addict after committing an armed robbery. [2]

[edit] Share dealings

In January 1994, Mary Archer, a director of Anglia Television, attended a directors' meeting at which an impending takeover of Anglia Television by MAI, who owned Meridian Broadcasting, was discussed.[3] The following day, Jeffrey Archer bought 50,000 shares in Anglia Television, acting on behalf of a friend, Mr. Broosk Saib.[1] Shortly after this, it was announced publicly that Anglia Television would be taken over by MAI. As a result the shares jumped in value, whereupon Archer sold them on behalf of his friend for a profit of £77,219.[3] The arrangements he had made with the stockbrokers, which he had never used before[citation needed], meant that he did not have to pay at the time of buying the shares.[1]

An inquiry was launched by the Stock Exchange into possible insider trading. The Department of Trade and Industry, headed by Michael Heseltine, later announced that Archer would not be prosecuted.[3]

[edit] Perjury and downfall

Archer had been selected by the Conservative Party as their candidate for the London mayoral election of 2000. He was forced to withdraw from the race when it was revealed that he was facing a charge of perjury.

In November 1999 Ted Francis, a friend (who claimed Archer owed him money) and Archer's former personal assistant Angela Peppiatt (whom Archer had been semi-maintaining) claimed that he had fabricated an alibi in the 1987 trial. They were apparently concerned that Archer was standing as Mayor of London and doubted that he was suitable for the post. The personal secretary had apparently kept a secret diary of Archer's movements. This formed the basis of the case against Archer.

The News of the World printed the allegations on 21 November 1999 and Archer withdrew his candidacy the following day. Conservative leader William Hague said "This is the end of Politics for Jeffrey Archer. I will not tolerate such behaviour in my party".[4] On 8 October he had described Archer as a candidate of "Probity and integrity. I'm going to back him all the way" at the Conservative party conference. Hague was never keen on Archer's running for the job in the first place[citation needed] but as Archer was voted top of the poll by the Conservative associations he backed him.

On 4 February 2000 Archer was expelled from the Conservative Party for five years. On 26 September 2000 he was charged with perjury and perverting the course of justice (i.e., obstruction of justice) during the 1987 libel trial.

A few months before the beginning of the perjury trial, Archer began performing in the star role in a courtroom play (which he also wrote) called The Accused. The play was staged at London's Theatre Royal Haymarket and concerns the court trial of an alleged murderer from beginning to end. The play used the innovation of assigning the role of jury in the trial to the audience, with theatre-goers voting on whether Archer's character was innocent or guilty at the end of each night's performance. Archer would attend his real trial during the day and be judged in his fictional trial at the theatre in the evening.

The real life trial began on 30 May 2001. On 19 July 2001 Lord Archer was found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice at the 1987 trial. He was sentenced to a total of four years' imprisonment by Mr. Justice Potts. The most ironic aspect of his trial was that he had fabricated the alibi for the wrong date. Archer never spoke during the trial. Ted Francis was found not guilty of perverting the course of justice.

Archer's mother died on 11 July 2001 aged 87, and he was released for the day on 21 July to attend the funeral.

Archer originally was sent to Belmarsh Prison, but was moved to the category "C" Wayland Prison in Norfolk on 9 August 2001, and to HMP North Sea Camp, an open prison in October 2001. From there he was let out to work at the Theatre Royal in Lincoln, England, and was allowed occasional home visits. Reports in the media, which showed a continuing interest in him, claimed that he had been abusing this privilege by attending lunches with friends, and in September 2002 he was transferred to Lincoln Prison for a month.

In October 2002 Archer repaid the Daily Star the £500,000 damages he had received in 1987, as well as legal costs of £1 million (under the British legal system, losing claimants must re-pay the defendant's legal costs). That month, he was suspended from Marylebone Cricket Club for seven years for his behaviour.

On 21 July 2003 he was released on licence, after serving half of his sentence, from HMP Hollesley Bay, Suffolk.

Many of Lord Archer's friends remained loyal to him. He and Lady Archer were invited guests to the Memorial Service for Norris McWhirter at Saint Martin-in-the-Fields on Thursday, 7 October 2004 where they were observed sitting in the same pew as former head of the Conservative Monday Club, Gregory Lauder-Frost, and directly in front of Lady Thatcher, who made a point of embracing Lady Archer.

On 26 February 2006 on Andrew Marr's Sunday AM programme, Archer said he had no interest in returning to politics: he would pursue his writing career instead.[5]

[edit] Themes found in his work

Archer seems to be a big fan of interweaving characters; Kane and Abel is the obvious example, where two men, born on different sides of the world in completely opposite surroundings eventually meet in stories which span a lifetime; similar situations occur in Sons of Fortune, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, and The Fourth Estate. He uses this device with heroes and villains, too, as found in As the Crow Flies and First Among Equals.

Archer very often takes his characters from the upper classes of the UK or New England, discussing mannerisms and sensitivities from that layer of society. The majority of his works are set in the U.S..

His "non-epic" works (A Matter of Honour, a chase story, and Shall We Tell the President?, a detective thriller) usually are set within a much shorter time frame and have fewer characters.

Art also is a theme in his works. Several novels and short stories have had a focus around works of art. A Matter of Honour focused around a work of art, plus the secret it held. First Among Equals also featured a work of art as a plot device. Sons of Fortune had one main character collecting "Painted Mistresses", and As the Crow Flies featured an art expert and a collector of art as main characters. In Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less the victim of the con game buys a fake Van Gogh picture as one of the schemes to get even with the man the protagonists were defrauded by. A Van Gogh painting is at the centre of False Impression while the short story "Not for Sale" is centred around a talented young artist having her first exhibition. Additionally, the short story "Chalk and Cheese" centred on the differing lives of two brothers, one of whom was an artist, and the other of whom was an art collector. Archer's love of art was revealed in his Prison Diaries, where he talked about how he tried to buy a Botero from another inmate. Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The other prevailing theme among Archer's works is his twist endings. It happens in his thrillers, his novels, and his short stories. For example, in his short story "Just Good Friends" the first-person narrative describes somebody who went home with some guy she met in a pub and stayed with him ever since. Her own life was that of abandonment by her mother (who only left her a fur coat), impregnation by somebody who never saw her again, her children taken away by the authorities, and never telling anything to the guy she is living with. She also doesn't respond to the alarm clock, letting the guy get up and fix food for them. Only in the end do we realize the narrator is a female cat.

[edit] Bibliography 1975 - In the Lap of the Gods 1976 - Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less 1977 - Shall We Tell the President? 1979 - Kane and Abel 1980 - Willy visits the Square World 1980 - A Quiver Full of Arrows (Short story collection) 1982 - The Prodigal Daughter 1984 - First Among Equals 1986 - A Matter of Honour 1988 - A Twist in the Tale (Short story collection) 1991 - As the Crow Flies 1993 - Honour Among Thieves 1994 - Twelve Red Herrings (Short story collection) 1996 - The Fourth Estate 1998 - The Eleventh Commandment 2000 - To Cut A Long Story Short (Short story collection) 2002 - Sons of Fortune 2002 - A Prison Diary 2003 - A Prison Diary Volume 2 2004 - A Prison Diary Volume 3 2006 - False Impression 2006 - Cat O'Nine Tales (Short story collection) 2007 - The Gospel According to Judas (with Francis J. Moloney)

Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, CH, PC (born 21 March 1933) is a British Conservative politician and businessman. He is a patron of the Tory Reform Group.Contents [hide] 1 Before politics 2 Life as an MP 3 Life at the backbench, and his return 4 Retirement 5 External links 6 Publications

[edit] Before politics

Heseltine was born in Swansea, Wales. He is a distant descendant of Charles Dibdin, from whom one of his middle names was taken. Heseltine was educated at Shrewsbury School and campaigned briefly as a volunteer in the October 1951 General Election before going up to Pembroke College, Oxford, where, in frustration at his inability to be elected to the committee of the Oxford University Conservative Association, he founded the breakaway Blue Ribbon Club. Julian Critchley recounts a story from his student days of how he plotted his future on the back of an envelope, concluding as Prime Minister in the 1990s; another more detailed apocryphal version lists 'millionaire 25, cabinet member 35, party leader 45, prime minister 55'. He did become a member of the shadow cabinet at the age of 41 - but failed to achieve the last two (although he would, under John Major, be appointed Deputy Prime Minister at the age of 62).

Heseltine's biographers Critchley and Crick recount how, despite not being a natural speaker, he became a competent orator through much practice, including practising in front of a mirror, listening to tape recordings of the speeches of Charles Hill and taking speaking lessons from a vicar's wife. In the 1970s and 1980s Heseltine's conference speech was often to be the highlight of the Conservative Party Conference, despite his views being well to the left of the then party leader.

He was eventually elected to the committee of the Oxford Union after five terms at the University. The following year (1953-4) he served in top place on the committee, then as Secretary, then Treasurer, during which post he reopened the Union cellars for business and persuaded the visiting Sir Bernard and Lady Docker to contribute to the cost. After graduating with a second class degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (described by his own tutor as "a great and undeserved triumph"), he was permitted to stay on for an extra term to serve as President of the Oxford Union in Michaelmas 1954, having been elected with the assistance of leading Oxford socialists Anthony Howard and Jeremy Isaacs.

After graduating he built up a property business in partnership with his Oxford friend Ian Josephs, and with financial support from the families of both men, starting with a boarding house in Clanricarde Gardens and progressing to various other properties in the Bayswater area. He also attempted to train as an accountant but did not qualify, and after failing his accountancy exams could no longer postpone National Service. He was called up in January 1959 and became a Second Lieutenant in the Welsh Guards; he left early to contest the General Election that year, and on business grounds was exempted from the remaining sixteen months of his service. During the 1980s his habit of wearing a Guards tie, sometimes incorrectly tied with red showing on the knot, was the subject of much acerbic comment from military figures and older MPs with extensive war records; Michael Crick estimates that he must have worn the tie on more days than he actually served in the Guards.

Besides building a housing estate at Tenterden in Kent, which failed to sell and which was beset with repairs problems until after his election to Parliament, he founded the magazine publishing company Haymarket in collaboration with another Oxford friend Clive Labovitch, and early in the 1960s acquired the famous (but never profitable) magazine "Man About Town", which he changed to "Town". In 1962 he also briefly published a well-received weekly newspaper, "Topic", which folded but whose journalists later became the "Sunday Times Insight" Team. Between 1960 and 1964 he also somehow found the time to be a part-time interviewer for ITV.

After such rapid expansion, Heseltine's businesses were badly hit by the Selwyn Lloyd credit squeeze of 1962; he owed £250,000 (millions in 2006 prices), and claims that he was lent £60,000 by a bank manager who retired the same day. During the 1990s Heseltine was later to joke about how he had avoided bankruptcy by such stratagems as only paying bills when threatened with legal action, or by sending out insufficiently completed cheques, although it has never been suggested that he did not pay off all his debts eventually. It was during this period of stress that he took up gardening as a serious hobby.

In 1967 Heseltine secured Haymarket's financial future by selling a majority stake to the British Printing Corporation, retaining a large shareholding himself. Although his associates have testified to Heseltine's entrepreneurial courage and deal-making skills, it was only after Heseltine's election to Parliament that Haymarket, under the management of Lindsay Masters, grew into the company which has made Heseltine very rich, publishing a series of profitable yet unglamorous management and advertising journals.

[edit] Life as an MP

He contested Gower (safe Labour) in 1959, then a Coventry seat (marginal) in 1964, before being elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) in 1966 for Tavistock in Devon, subsequently representing Henley from 1974. Following the Conservative victory in the 1970 General Election, he was promoted to the ranks of government by Prime Minister Edward Heath. In 1970, he served briefly as a junior minister at the Department of Transport, before moving to the Department for the Environment, where he was partly responsible for shepherding the Local Government Act 1972 through Parliament. He then moved to the Department of Industry from 1972 onwards.

As Minister for Aerospace in 1973 Heseltine was responsible for flying around the world attempting to persuade other governments to buy Concorde, but was accused of misleading the House of Commons when he stated that government were still considering giving financial support to the Hovertrain, when the decision to pull the plug had already been taken by the Cabinet. Although his chief critic Airey Neave disliked Heseltine as a brash arriviste, his real target, in the view of Heseltine's PPS Cecil Parkinson, was the Prime Minister Edward Heath, whom Neave detested and later helped to topple as party leader in 1975.

He became Shadow Industry Secretary in the Conservative's 1974 - 1979 opposition, gaining notoriety following a 1976 incident in the House of Commons during the debate on measures introduced by the Labour Government to nationalise the shipbuilding and aerospace industries. Accounts of exactly what happened vary, but the most colourful image portrayed Heseltine seizing the mace and brandishing it towards Labour left-wingers who were celebrating their winning the vote by singing the Red Flag, his long fair hair flowing elegantly behind him. Heseltine subsequently acquired the nickname Tarzan or, on occasion, Hezza, in imitatation of "Gazza". He was portrayed on the satirical TV puppet show, Spitting Image, as a flak-jacket wearing psychopath, in a reference to an occasion when, as Defence Secretary, he had been persuaded to don a flak jacket over his suit while inspecting troops in the rain.

He was appointed to the cabinet of Margaret Thatcher as Secretary of State for the Environment in 1979. He was a key figure in the sale of council houses and was sent in as a troubleshooter to deal with the explosion of violence in Britain's inner cities in the aftermath of the Brixton and Toxteth riots during the early 1980s. Heseltine was responsible for developing the policies that led to five bi-annual National Garden Festivals, starting in 1984. He established Development Corporations that were directly appointed by the minister and empowered to circumvent local authority planning controls. This measure proved controversial as in areas such as East London, Merseyside and North East England the local authorities were Labour strongholds. He then served as Secretary of State for Defence from January 1983 - his presentational skills were used to take on the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the June 1983 General Election - until 1986, when he resigned over the bitter dispute with the prime minister over the Westland Affair.

[edit] Life at the backbench, and his return

He then returned to the backbenches, where he became increasingly critical of Margaret Thatcher's performance as prime minister, although he abstained in November 1989 when Sir Anthony Meyer challenged for the party leadership. At one point during a carefully worded statement he repeatedly insisted that he could "not foresee the circumstances" in which he would challenge her for the leadership. But circumstances altered dramatically following Sir Geoffrey Howe's resignation speech [1] in November 1990, and Heseltine announced his candidature. He did well enough in the first round of voting to prevent an outright Thatcher victory, and at one point appeared on course to beat her in the second ballot; but faced with humiliation and the bitter prospect of a Heseltine premiership, Thatcher resigned and the second ballot – which Douglas Hurd also entered – was topped by John Major. As Major was only two votes short of an overall majority, Heseltine immediately and publicly conceded defeat, announcing that he would vote for Major if the third ballot went ahead (it did not). Although for the rest of his career Heseltine's role in Mrs Thatcher's downfall earned him raw hatred from certain sections of the Conservative Party, this was not universal: in a reference to the reluctance of the Cabinet to support her on the second ballot, Thatcherite Edward Leigh said of Heseltine "At least he stabbed her in the front".

Afterwards Heseltine returned to government as Secretary of State for the Environment (with particular responsibility for replacing the poll tax; he allegedly declined an offer of the job of Home Secretary). After the 1992 general election, he was appointed Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, but chose to be known by the archaic title of President of the Board of Trade promising to intervene "before breakfast, dinner and tea" to help British companies. In 1992, when plans were made for the privatisation of British Coal, Heseltine announced that 31 collieries were to close[2], including many of the mines in Nottinghamshire that had worked on during the 1984-5 strike under the impression that their future was safe. Although this policy was seen as a betrayal by the Nottinghamshire miners and the threatened miners had much more public sympathy than in 1984, there was hardly any organised resistance to the programme. This may have been partly due to the Board's threat to cut redundancy payments to any miners who would attempt a strike and partly due to a general lack of union organisation and energy after the 1985 defeat.

The government believed that since the pits were money losers they could only be sustained through unjustifiable subsidies. Mine supporters pointed to the mines' high productivity rates and to the fact that their monetary losses were due to the large subsidies that other European nations were supplying their coal industries. Whilst Heseltine is generally seen as a moderate in the whole of Britain, his reputation in the coalfields is somewhat different and he is largely thought of as heartless.[citation needed] The band Chumbawamba released the critical song "Mr Heseltine meets the public" that portrayed him as an out-of-touch figure; the same group had once dedicated a song to the village of Fitzwilliam, West Yorkshire, which was reduced to a ghost town following the closure of local pits.

In June 1993, Heseltine suffered a heart attack whilst in Venice, leading to concerns on his ability to remain in government after he was televised leaving hospital in a wheelchair. In 1994, Chris Morris implied on BBC Radio 1 (as a joke) that Heseltine had died, which was sufficiently plausible that fellow MP Jerry Hayes broadcast an on-air tribute. Morris was subsequently suspended for the prank. Nonetheless Heseltine - who after being seen as a brash arriviste in his younger days was now seen as something of a grandee and elder statesman - reemerged as a serious political player in 1994, helped by his flirting with the idea of privatising the Post Office and by his testimony at the Arms to Iraq Inquiry (at which it emerged that he had refused to sign the certificates attempting to withhold evidence): the cover of "Private Eye" announced "A Legend Lives" and one major newspaper ended an editorial by proclaiming that "balance of probability" was that Heseltine would be Prime Minister before the end of the year. The truth of this prediction will never be known, as no leadership election emerged that autumn.

In the summer of 1995, John Major, having found himself consistently opposed by a minority of Eurosceptics in his party, challenged them to "put up or shut up" by resubmitting himself to a leadership election in which he was unsuccessfully opposed by the Secretary of State for Wales, John Redwood. There was speculation that Heseltine's supporters would engineer Major's downfall in the hope that their man would take over, but in the event they stayed loyal, and Heseltine (who voted for Major and showed his ballot paper to the returning officers) was rewarded by promotion to Deputy Prime Minister. In this capacity he chaired a number of key Cabinet committees and was also an early key enthusiast for the Millennium Dome. In December 1996 Heseltine, to the fury of the eurosceptic press, joined with Chancellor Kenneth Clarke in preventing any movement away from the government's official refusal to decide on whether or not to join the Single Currency.

After Labour won the 1997 election, he suffered further heart trouble and was unable to stand for the Conservative Party leadership again, although there was still speculation that Clarke might have stood aside for him to stand as a compromise candidate. He became active in promoting the benefits for Britain of joining the single European Currency, appearing on the same stage as Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Robin Cook as part of an all-party campaign to promote Euro membership. He was also made a Companion of Honour by John Major in the 1997 resignation Honours List.

[edit] Retirement

He resigned his Henley-on-Thames constituency at the 2001 Election but remained outspoken on British politics. He was given a life peerage as Baron Heseltine, of Thenford in the County of Northamptonshire.

In December 2002, Heseltine controversially called for Iain Duncan Smith to be replaced as leader of the Conservatives by the "dream- ticket" of Kenneth Clarke as leader and Michael Portillo as deputy. He suggested the party's MPs vote on the matter, rather than party members as currently required by party rules. Without the replacement of Duncan Smith, the party has not "a ghost of a chance of winning the next election", he said. Duncan Smith was removed the following year. In the 2005 party leadership election, he backed the young moderniser, David Cameron.

Following Cameron's elevation to the leadership, he set up a wide-ranging policy review, covering many issues. Chairmen of the various policy groups included ex-Chancellor Kenneth Clarke and other former cabinet ministers John Redwood, John Gummer, Stephen Dorrell and Michael Forsyth, as well as ex-leader Iain Duncan Smith. Heseltine was appointed to head the cities task force, having been responsible for urban policy twice as Environment Secretary under Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

Member of Parliament from 1966 to 2001: MP for Tavistock, Devon 1966–1974 MP for Henley-on-Thames 1974–2001 (in which seat he was succeeded by Boris Johnson)

He was ranked 170th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2004, with an estimated wealth of £240 million.

He is now a keen gardener and arboriculturalist and his arboretum is one of the most important private collections of specimens in the UK. It was featured in a one off documentary on BBC Two in December 2005.[3]

Margaret Thatcher From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Editing of this article by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled. If you are prevented from editing this article, and you wish to make a change, please discuss changes on the talk page, request unprotection, log in, or create an account.

"Thatcher" redirects here. For other meanings see Thatcher (disambiguation).The Rt Hon. The Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom In office May 4, 1979 – November 28, 1990 Deputy William Whitelaw (1979 - 1988) Geoffrey Howe (1989 - 1990) Preceded by James Callaghan Succeeded by John Major

Born October 13, 1925 (age 81) Grantham, Lincolnshire, England Political party Conservative Party Spouse Sir Denis Thatcher, Bt. Profession Research chemist and Lawyer Religion Methodist Signature

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC (born October 13, 1925), former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in office from 1979 to 1990. She was leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 until 1990. She is the only woman to have held the office of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Thatcher was the longest-serving British Prime Minister since Lord Salisbury and had the longest continuous period in office since Lord Liverpool in the early 19th century. She was the first woman to lead a major political party in the UK, and the first woman to have held any of the four great offices of state.Contents [hide] 1 Early life and education 2 Political career between 1950 and 1970 3 In Heath's Cabinet 4 As Leader of the Opposition 5 As Prime Minister 5.1 1979–1983 5.1.1 The Falklands 5.1.2 1983 General Election 5.2 1983–1987 5.3 1987–1990 5.4 Fall from power 6 Post-political career 7 Legacy 8 Titles and honours 8.1 Titles from birth 8.2 Honours 8.3 Foreign honours 9 See also 10 Notes 11 References 11.1 Books 11.2 Biographies 11.3 Ministerial autobiographies 12 External links

Early life and education

Thatcher was born in the town of Grantham in Lincolnshire, England. Her father, Alfred Roberts, owned a grocer's shop in the town and was active in local politics and religion, serving as an Alderman and Methodist lay preacher. Roberts came from a Liberal family but stood—as was then customary in local government—as an Independent. He lost his post as Alderman in 1952 after the Labour Party won its first majority on Grantham Council in 1950. He married Beatrice Roberts, née Stephenson, and they had two daughters (Thatcher and her older sister Muriel (1921-2004)). Thatcher was brought up a devout Methodist and has remained a Christian throughout her life.[1] Thatcher performed well academically, attending Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School and subsequently attending Somerville College, Oxford in 1944 to study Chemistry, specifically crystallography. She became President of the Oxford University Conservative Association in 1946, the third woman to hold the post. She graduated with a degree and worked as a research chemist for British Xylonite and then J. Lyons and Co., where she helped develop methods for preserving ice cream. She was a member of the team that developed the first soft frozen ice cream. Thatcher was also a member of the Association of Scientific Workers.

Political career between 1950 and 1970

At the 1950 and 1951 elections, Margaret Roberts fought the safe Labour seat of Dartford, and was at the time the youngest ever female Conservative candidate for office. While active in the Conservative Party in Kent, she met Denis Thatcher, whom she married in 1951. Denis was a wealthy divorced businessman and he funded his wife's studies for the Bar. She qualified as a barrister in 1953, the same year that her twin children Carol and Mark were born. As a lawyer she specialised in tax law.

Thatcher then began to look for a safe Conservative seat and was narrowly rejected as candidate for Orpington in 1954. She had several other rejections before being selected for Finchley in April 1958. She won the seat easily in the 1959 election and took her seat in the House of Commons. Unusually, her maiden speech was in support of her Private Member's Bill (Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960) to force local councils to hold meetings in public, which was successful. In 1961 she went against the Conservative Party's official position by voting for the restoration of birching.

She was given early promotion to the front bench as Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance in September 1961, retaining the post until the Conservatives lost power in the 1964 election. When Sir Alec Douglas-Home stepped down Thatcher voted for Edward Heath in the leadership election over Reginald Maudling, and was rewarded with the job of Conservative spokesman on Housing and Land. In this role she adopted the policy of allowing tenants to buy their Council Houses, an idea first developed by her colleague James Allason. The policy would prove popular.[2] She moved to the Shadow Treasury team after 1966.

Thatcher was one of few Conservative MPs to support Leo Abse's Bill to decriminalise male homosexuality, and she voted in favour of David Steel's Bill to legalise abortion. She supported retention of capital punishment and voted against loosening the divorce laws. Thatcher made her mark as a conference speaker in 1966, with a strong attack on the high-tax policies of the Labour Government as being steps "not only towards Socialism, but towards Communism". She won promotion to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Fuel Spokesman in 1967, and was then promoted to shadow Transport and, finally, Education before the 1970 election.

In Heath's Cabinet

When the Conservative party under Edward Heath won the 1970 general election, Thatcher became Secretary of State for Education and Science. In her first months in office, forced to administer a cut in the Education budget, she was responsible for the abolition of universal free milk for school-children aged seven to eleven (Labour had already abolished it for secondary schools). This provoked a storm of public protest, and led to one of the more unflattering names for her: "Thatcher Thatcher, Milk Snatcher". However, papers later released under the Thirty Year Rule show that she spoke against such a move in Cabinet, but was forced, due to the concept of collective responsibility, to implement the will of her fellow ministers.[3] She also successfully resisted the introduction of library book charges.

Her term was marked by support for several proposals for more local education authorities to close grammar schools and adopt comprehensive secondary education, even though this was widely perceived as a left-wing policy. Thatcher also saved the Open University from being abolished. The Chancellor Anthony Barber actually wanted to abolish it as a budget-cutting measure, for he viewed it as a gimmick by Harold Wilson. Thatcher believed it was a relatively inexpensive way of extending higher education and insisted that the University should experiment with admitting school-leavers as well as adults. In her memoirs, Thatcher wrote that she was not part of Heath's inner circle, and had little or no influence on the key government decisions outside her department.

After the Conservative defeat in February 1974, Heath appointed her Shadow Environment Secretary. In this position she promised to abolish the rating system that paid for local government services, which proved a popular policy within the Conservative Party.

As Leader of the Opposition

Margaret Thatcher as Leader of the Opposition in 1975

Thatcher agreed with Sir Keith Joseph and the CPS that the Heath Government had lost control of monetary policy — and had lost direction — following its 1972 U-turn. After her party lost the second election of 1974, Joseph decided to challenge Heath's leadership but later withdrew. Thatcher then decided that she would enter the race on behalf of the Josephite/CPS faction. Unexpectedly she out- polled Heath on the first ballot, forcing him to resign the leadership. On the second ballot, she defeated Heath's preferred successor William Whitelaw, by 146 votes to 79, and became Conservative Party leader on 11 February 1975. She appointed Whitelaw as her deputy. Heath remained bitter towards Thatcher to the end of his life for what he perceived as her disloyalty in standing against him.

On 19 January 1976, she made a speech in Kensington Town Hall in which she made a scathing attack on the Soviet Union. The most famous part of her speech ran:

"The Russians are bent on world dominance, and they are rapidly acquiring the means to become the most powerful imperial nation the world has seen. The men in the Soviet Politburo do not have to worry about the ebb and flow of public opinion. They put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns."

In response, the Soviet Defence Ministry newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda ("Red Star") gave her the nickname "Iron Lady", which was soon publicised by Radio Moscow. She took delight in the name and it soon became associated with her image as an unwavering and steadfast character.

Thatcher appointed many Heath supporters to the Shadow Cabinet, for she had won the leadership as an outsider and had little power base of her own within the party. One, James Prior got the vital brief of shadow Employment Secretary. Thatcher had to act cautiously to convert the Conservative Party to her monetarist beliefs. She reversed Heath's support for devolved government for Scotland. In an interview for Granada Television's World in Action programme in January 1978, she said "people are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture", arousing particular controversy at the time.[4] She received 10,000 letters thanking her for raising the subject and the Conservatives gained a lead against Labour in the opinion polls, from both parties at 43% before the speech to 48% for Conservative and 39% for Labour immediately after.[5]

The Labour Government ran into difficulties with the industrial disputes, strikes, high unemployment, and collapsing public services during the winter of 1978-9, dubbed the 'Winter of Discontent'. The Conservatives used campaign posters with slogans such as "Labour Isn't Working" [6] to attack the government's record over unemployment and its over-regulation of the labour market.

James Callaghan's Labour government fell after a successful Motion of no confidence in spring 1979.

In the run up to the 1979 General Election, most opinion polls showed that voters preferred James Callaghan as Prime Minister even as the Conservative Party maintained a lead in the polls. The Conservatives would go on to win a 44-seat majority in the House of Commons and Margaret Thatcher became the United Kingdom's first female Prime Minister. On arriving at 10 Downing Street, she famously said, in a paraphrase of St. Francis of Assisi:― Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope. ‖

As Prime Minister

1979–1983

Margaret Thatcher and Kenneth Kaunda

Thatcher became Prime Minister on 4 May 1979, with a mandate to reverse the UK's economic decline and to reduce the role of the state in the economy. Thatcher was incensed by one contemporary view within the Civil Service, that its job was to manage the UK's decline from the days of Empire, and she wanted the country to assert a higher level of influence and leadership in international affairs. She was a philosophic soul mate of Ronald Reagan, elected in 1980 in the United States, and to a lesser extent Brian Mulroney, who was elected in 1984 in Canada. Conservatism now became the dominant political philosophy in the major English-speaking nations, apart from Australia. In contrast her relationship with Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke was rather strained due to their contrasting views on South Africa and the Commonwealth (Hawke was a republican), and Thatcher did not endorse previous Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser as Secretary General of the Commonwealth.[7]

In May 1980, one day before she was due to meet the Irish Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, to discuss Northern Ireland, she announced in the House of Commons that "the future of the constitutional affairs of Northern Ireland is a matter for the people of Northern Ireland, this government, this parliament, and no-one else."

In 1981, a number of Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Irish National Liberation Army prisoners in Northern Ireland's Maze Prison (known in Northern Ireland as 'Long Kesh', its previous name) went on hunger strike to regain the status of political prisoners, which had been revoked five years earlier under the preceding Labour government. Bobby Sands, the first of the strikers, was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Fermanagh and South Tyrone a few weeks before he died.

Thatcher refused at first to countenance a return to political status for republican prisoners, famously declaring "Crime is crime is crime; it is not political."[8] However, after nine more men had starved themselves to death and the strike had ended, some rights relating to political status were restored to paramilitary prisoners.

Thatcher's public hard line on the treatment of terrorists was reinforced during the 1981 Iranian Embassy Siege where for the first time in 70 years British armed forces were authorised to use lethal force on the mainland.

Thatcher also continued the policy of "Ulsterisation" of the previous Labour government and its Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Roy Mason, believing that the Unionists of Northern Ireland should be at the forefront in combating Irish republicanism. This meant relieving the burden on the mainstream British army and elevating the role of the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

As a monetarist, Thatcher started out in her economic policy by increasing interest rates to slow the growth of the money supply and thus lower inflation. She had a preference for indirect taxation over taxes on income, and value added tax (VAT) was raised sharply to 15%, with a resultant actual short-term rise in inflation.[citation needed] These moves hit businesses -- especially the manufacturing sector -- and unemployment quickly passed two million, doubling the one million unemployed under the previous Labour government.

Political commentators harked back to the Heath Government's "U-turn" and speculated that Mrs Thatcher would follow suit, but she repudiated this approach at the 1980 Conservative Party conference, telling the party: "To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catch-phrase—the U-turn—I have only one thing to say: you turn if you want to; the Lady's not for turning."[9] That she meant what she said was confirmed in the 1981 budget, when, despite concerns expressed in an open letter from 364 leading economists,[10] taxes were increased in the middle of a recession. In January 1982, the inflation rate had dropped back to 8.6% from earlier highs of 18%, and interest rates were then allowed to fall. Unemployment continued to rise, reaching an official figure of 3.6 million — although the criteria for defining who was unemployed were amended allowing some to estimate that unemployment in fact hit 5 million. However, Norman Tebbit has suggested that, due to the high number of people claiming unemployment benefit whilst working, unemployment never reached three million. By 1983, manufacturing output had dropped 30% from 1978.

The Falklands Main article: Falklands War

On 2 April 1982, a ruling military junta in Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory that Argentina had claimed since an 1830s dispute on their British settlement. Within days Thatcher sent a naval task force to recapture the islands. Despite the huge logistical difficulties the operation was a success, resulting in a wave of patriotic enthusiasm and support for her government at a time when Thatcher's popularity had been at an all-time low for a serving Prime Minister[citation needed], with The Sun newspaper declaring "The Empire Strikes Back".

1983 General Election

The 'Falklands Factor', along with an economic recovery in early 1983, bolstered the government's popularity. The Labour party at this time had split, and there was a new challenge in the SDP-Liberal Alliance, formed by an electoral pact between the Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Party. However, this grouping failed to make its intended breakthrough, despite briefly holding an opinion poll lead.[citation needed] In the June 1983 general election, the Conservatives won 42.4% of the vote, the Labour party 27.6% and the Alliance 25.4% of the vote. Although the Conservatives' share of the vote had fallen slightly (1.5%) since 1979, Labour's vote had fallen by far more (9.3%) and in Britain's first past the post system, the Conservatives won a landslide victory. Under Margaret Thatcher, the Conservatives now had an overall majority of 144 MPs.

1983–1987

Thatcher was committed to reducing the power of the trades unions but, unlike the Heath government, adopted a strategy of incremental change rather than a single Act. Several unions launched strikes in response, but these actions eventually collapsed. Gradually, Thatcher's reforms reduced the power and influence of the unions. The changes were chiefly focused upon preventing the recurrence of the large- scale industrial actions of the 1970s, but were also intended to ensure that the consequences for the participants would be severe if any future action was taken. The reforms were also aimed, Thatcher claimed, to democratise the unions, and return power to the members. The most significant measures were to make secondary industrial action illegal, to force union leadership to first win a ballot of the union membership before calling a strike, and to abolish the closed shop. Further laws banned workplace ballots and imposed postal ballots.

The confrontation over strikes carried out in 1984-85 by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in opposition to proposals to close a large number of mines proved decisive. The government had made preparations to counter a strike by the NUM long in advance by building up coal stocks, ensuring that cuts in the electricity supply — the legacy of the industrial disputes of 1972 — would not be repeated.

Police tactics during the strikes came under criticism from civil libertarians,[citation needed] but the images of crowds of militant miners attempting to prevent other miners from working proved a shock even to some supporters of the strikes. The mounting desperation and poverty of the striking families led to divisions within the regional NUM branches, and a breakaway union, the Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM), was soon formed. A group of workers, resigned to the impending failure of the actions and worn down by months of protests, began to defy the Union's rulings, starting splinter groups and advising workers that returning to work was the only viable option.

The Miners' Strike lasted a full year before the NUM leadership conceded without a deal. The Conservative government proceeded to close all but 15 of the country's pits, with the remaining 15 being sold off and privatised in 1994. Private companies have since then acquired licences to open new pits and open-cast sites, with the majority of the original mines destroyed and the land redeveloped. The defeat of the miners' strike led to a long period of demoralization in the whole of the trade union movement.[citation needed]

At the end of March 1984, four South Africans were arrested in Coventry, remanded in custody, and charged with contravening the UN arms embargo, which prohibited exports to apartheid South Africa of military equipment. Mrs Thatcher took a personal interest in the Coventry Four, and 10 Downing Street requested daily summaries of the case from the prosecuting authority, HM Customs and Excise.[11] Within a month, the Coventry Four had been freed from jail and allowed to travel to South Africa – on condition that they returned to England for their trial later that year. In April 1984, Thatcher sent senior British diplomat, Sir John Leahy, to negotiate the release of 16 Britons who had been taken hostage by the Angolan rebel leader, Jonas Savimbi. At the time, Savimbi's UNITA guerrilla movement was financed and supported militarily by the apartheid regime of South Africa. On April 26, 1984 Leahy succeeded in securing the release of the British hostages at the UNITA base in Jamba, Angola.[12] In June 1984 Thatcher invited apartheid South Africa's president, P. W. Botha, and foreign minister, Pik Botha, to Chequers in an effort to stave off growing international pressure for the imposition of economic sanctions against South Africa, where Britain had invested heavily. She reportedly urged President Botha to end apartheid; to release Nelson Mandela; to halt the harassment of black dissidents; to stop the bombing of African National Congress (ANC) bases in front-line states; and to comply with UN Security Council resolutions and withdraw from Namibia.[13] However Botha ignored these demands. In an interview with Hugo Young for The Guardian in July 1986, Thatcher expressed her belief that economic sanctions against South Africa would be immoral because they would make thousands of black workers unemployed.[14] In August 1984, foreign minister, Pik Botha, decided not to allow the Coventry Four to return to stand trial, thereby forfeiting £200,000 bail money put up by the South African embassy in London. The Coventry Four affair, and Mrs Thatcher's alleged involvement in it, would hit the headlines four years later when British diplomat, Patrick Haseldine, wrote a letter to the Guardian newspaper.[15]

On the early morning of 12 October 1984, the day before her 59th birthday, Thatcher escaped injury in the Brighton hotel bombing during the Conservative Party Conference when her hotel room was bombed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Five people died in the attack, including Roberta Wakeham, wife of the government's Chief Whip John Wakeham, and the Conservative MP Sir Anthony Berry. A prominent member of the Cabinet, Norman Tebbit, was injured, and his wife Margaret was left paralysed. Thatcher herself would have been injured if not for the fact that she was delayed from using the bathroom (which suffered more damage than the room she was in at the time the IRA bomb detonated). Thatcher insisted that the conference open on time the next day and made her speech as planned in defiance of the bombers, a gesture which won widespread approval across the political spectrum.[16]

On 15 November 1985, Thatcher signed the Hillsborough Anglo-Irish Agreement with Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald, the first time a British government gave the Republic of Ireland a say (albeit advisory) in the governance of Northern Ireland. The agreement was greeted with fury by Northern Irish unionists. The Ulster Unionists and Democratic Unionists made an electoral pact and on 23 January 1986, staged an ad-hoc referendum by resigning their seats and contesting the subsequent by-elections, losing only one, to the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). However, unlike the Sunningdale Agreement of 1974, they found they could not bring the agreement down by a general strike. This was another effect of the changed balance of power in industrial relations.

Thatcher's political and economic philosophy emphasised reduced state intervention, free markets, and entrepreneurialism. Since gaining power, she had experimented in selling off a small nationalised company, the National Freight Company, to its workers, with a surprisingly positive response. After the 1983 election, the Government became bolder and, starting with British Telecom, sold off most of the large utilities which had been in public ownership since the late 1940s. Many people took advantage of share offers, although many sold their shares immediately for a quick profit and therefore the proportion of shares held by individuals rather than institutions did not increase. The policy of privatisation, while anathema to many on the left, has become synonymous with Thatcherism and has also been followed by Tony Blair's government. Wider share-ownership and council house sales became known as "popular capitalism" to its supporters (a term coined by John Redwood). By 1987, inflation had fallen further to 4.2%.

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher at Camp David, 1986.

In the Cold War, Mrs Thatcher supported Ronald Reagan's policies of deterrence against the Soviets. This contrasted with the policy of détente which the West had pursued during the 1970s, and caused friction with allies who still adhered to the idea of détente. US forces were permitted by Mrs. Thatcher to station nuclear cruise missiles at British bases, arousing mass protests by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. However, she later was the first Western leader to respond warmly to the rise of the future reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, declaring that she liked him and describing him as "a man we can do business with" after a meeting in 1984, three months before he came to power. This was a start of a move by the West back to a new détente with the USSR under Gorbachev's leadership, which coincided with the final erosion of Soviet power prior to its eventual collapse in 1991. Thatcher outlasted the Cold War, which ended in 1989, and those who share her views on it credit her with a part in the West's victory, by both the deterrence and détente postures.

In 1985, as a deliberate snub, the University of Oxford voted to refuse her an honorary degree in protest against her cuts in funding for higher education. [17] This award had always previously been given to Prime Ministers that had been educated at Oxford.

In the aftermath of a series of terrorist attacks on U.S. military personnel in Europe, which were believed to have been executed at Colonel Qaddafi's command, President Reagan decided to carry out a bombing raid on Libya. Both France and Spain refused to allow U.S. aircraft to fly over their territory for the raid. Thatcher herself had earlier expressed opposition to "retaliatory strikes that are against international law" and had not followed the U.S. in an embargo of Libyan oil. However Thatcher felt that as the U.S. had given support to Britain during the Falklands War but she had opposed the U.S. invasion of Grenada and that America was a major ally against a possible Soviet attack in Western Europe, she felt obliged to allow U.S. aircraft to use bases situated in Britain.[18] Later that year in America, President Reagan persuaded Congress to approve of an extradition treaty which closed a legal loophole by which IRA terrorists escaped extradition by claiming their murders were "political". This had been previously opposed by Irish-Americans for years but was passed after Reagan used Thatcher's support in the Libyan raid as a reason to pass it.[19]

Her liking for defence ties with the United States was demonstrated in the Westland affair when she acted with colleagues to allow the helicopter manufacturer Westland, a vital defence contractor, to refuse to link with the Italian firm Agusta in order for it to link with the management's preferred option, Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation of the United States. Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine, who had pushed the Agusta deal, resigned in protest after this, and remained an influential critic and potential leadership challenger. He would eventually prove instrumental in Thatcher's fall in 1990.

In 1986, her government controversially abolished the Greater London Council (GLC), then led by radical left-winger Ken Livingstone, and six Metropolitan County Councils (MCCs). The government claimed this was an efficiency measure. However, Thatcher's opponents held that the move was politically motivated, as all of the abolished councils were controlled by Labour, had become powerful centres of opposition to her government, and were in favour of higher local government taxes and public spending. Several of them had however rendered themselves politically vulnerable by committing scarce public funds to causes widely seen as political and even extreme. [specify][citation needed]

Thatcher had two notable foreign policy successes in her second term. In 1984, she visited China and signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration with Deng Xiaoping on 19 December, which committed the People's Republic of China to award Hong Kong the status of a "Special Administrative Region". Under the terms of the One Country, Two Systems agreement, China was obliged to leave Hong Kong's economic status unchanged after the handover on 1 July 1997 for a period of fifty years – until 2047. At the Dublin European Council in November 1979, Mrs Thatcher argued that the United Kingdom paid far more to the European Economic Community than it received in spending. She famously declared at the summit: "We are not asking the Community or anyone else for money. We are simply asking to have our own money back". Her arguments were successful and at the June 1984 Fontainbleau Summit, the EEC agreed on an annual rebate for the United Kingdom, amounting to 66% of the difference between Britain's EU contributions and receipts. This still remains in effect, although Tony Blair later agreed to significantly reduce the size of the rebate. It periodically causes political controversy among the members of the European Union.[citation needed]

1987–1990

By leading her party to victory in the 1987 general election with a 102 seat majority, riding an economic boom against a weak Labour opposition advocating unilateral nuclear disarmament, Margaret Thatcher became the longest continuously serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since Lord Liverpool (1812 to 1827), and the first to win three successive elections since Lord Palmerston in 1865. Most United Kingdom newspapers supported her—with the exception of The Daily Mirror, The Guardian and The Independent—and were rewarded with regular press briefings by her press secretary, Bernard Ingham. She was known as "Maggie" in the tabloids, and her opponents chanted the well-known protest slogan "Maggie Out!". Her unpopularity on the left is evident from the lyrics of several contemporary pop-music songs (see below: Margaret Thatcher in popular culture)

Though an early backer of decriminalization of male homosexuality (see above), Thatcher, at the 1987 Conservative party conference, issued the statement that "Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay". Backbench Conservative MPs and Peers had already begun a backlash against the 'promotion' of homosexuality and, in December 1987, the controversial 'Section 28' was added as an amendment to what became the Local Government Act 1988. This legislation has since been abolished by Tony Blair's Labour administration.

Welfare reforms in her third term created an adult Employment Training system that included full-time work done for the dole plus a £10 top-up, on the workfare model from the US.

Thatcher, the former chemist, became publicly concerned with environmental issues in the late 1980s. In 1988, she made a major speech [20] accepting the problems of global warming, ozone depletion and acid rain. In 1990, she opened the Hadley Centre for climate prediction and research. [21]. In her book Statecraft (2002), she described her later regret in supporting the concept of human-induced global warming, outlining the negative effects she perceived it had upon the policy-making process. "Whatever international action we agree upon to deal with environmental problems, we must enable our economies to grow and develop, because without growth you cannot generate the wealth required to pay for the protection of the environment" [22].

At Bruges, Belgium, in 1988, Thatcher made a speech in which she outlined her opposition to proposals from the European Community for a federal structure and increasing centralisation of decision-making. Although she had supported British membership, Thatcher believed that the role of the EC should be limited to ensuring free trade and effective competition, and feared that new EC regulations would reverse the changes she was making in the UK. "We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level, with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels". She was specifically against Economic and Monetary Union, through which a single currency would replace national currencies, and for which the EC was making preparations. The speech caused an outcry from other European leaders, and exposed for the first time the deep split that was emerging over European policy inside her Conservative Party.

Thatcher's popularity once again declined, in 1989, as the economy suffered from high interest rates imposed to temper a potentially unsustainable boom. She blamed her Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, who had been following an economic policy which was a preparation for monetary union; in an interview for the Financial Times, in November 1987, Thatcher claimed not to have been told of this and did not approve.[23]

At a meeting before the Madrid European Community summit in June 1989, Lawson and Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe forced Thatcher to agree to the circumstances under which she would join the Exchange Rate Mechanism, a preparation for monetary union and the abolishment of the Pound Sterling. At the meeting, they both claimed they would resign if their demands were not met.[24] Thatcher responded by demoting Howe and by listening more to her adviser Sir Alan Walters on economic matters. Lawson resigned that October, feeling that Thatcher had undermined him.

That November, Thatcher was challenged for the leadership of the Conservative Party by Sir Anthony Meyer. As Meyer was a virtually unknown backbench MP, he was viewed as a "stalking horse" candidate for more prominent members of the party. Thatcher easily defeated Meyer's challenge, but there were sixty ballot papers either cast for Meyer or abstaining, a surprisingly large number for a sitting Prime Minister. Her supporters in the Party, however, viewed the results as a success, claiming that after ten years as Prime Minister and with approximately 370 Conservative MPs voting, the opposition was surprisingly small.[25]

Thatcher's new system to replace local government taxes, outlined in the Conservative manifesto for the 1987 election, was introduced in Scotland in 1989 and in England and Wales in 1990. The rates were replaced by the Community Charge (more widely known as the "poll tax"), which applied the same amount to every individual resident, with discounts for low earners. This was to be the most universally unpopular policy of her premiership and had the effect of limiting the number of people on the electoral register.

Additional problems emerged when many of the tax rates set by local councils proved to be much higher than earlier predicted. Opponents of the Community Charge banded together to resist bailiffs and disrupt court hearings of Community Charge debtors. The Labour MP, Terry Fields, was jailed for 60 days for refusing on principle to pay his Community Charge. As the Prime Minister continued to refuse to compromise on the tax, up to 18 million people refused to pay,[citation needed] enforcement measures became increasingly draconian, and unrest mounted and culminated in a number of riots. The most serious of these happened in London on 31 March 1990, during a protest at Trafalgar Square, London, which more than 200,000 protesters attended. The huge unpopularity of the tax was seen as a major factor in Thatcher's downfall.[citation needed]

One of Thatcher's final acts in office was to put pressure on US President George H. W. Bush to deploy troops to the Middle East to drive Saddam Hussein's army out of Kuwait. Bush was somewhat apprehensive about the plan, but Thatcher famously told him that this was "no time to go wobbly!"

On the Friday before the Conservative Party conference in October 1990, Thatcher ordered her new Chancellor of the Exchequer John Major to reduce interest rates by 1%. Major persuaded her that the only way to maintain monetary stability was to join the Exchange Rate Mechanism at the same time, despite not meeting the 'Madrid conditions'. The Conservative Party conference that year saw a large degree of unity; few who attended could have imagined that Mrs Thatcher had only a matter of weeks left in office.

Fall from power See also: Conservative Party (UK) leadership election, 1990

Mrs. Thatcher's political "assassination" was, according to witnesses such as Alan Clark, one of the most dramatic episodes in British political history. The idea of a long-serving prime minister — undefeated at the polls — being ousted by an internal party ballot might at first sight seem bizarre. However, by 1990, opposition to Thatcher's policies on local government taxation, her Government's perceived mishandling of the economy (in particular the high interest rates of 15% that eroded her support among home owners and business people), and the divisions opening in the Conservative Party over European integration made her seem increasingly politically vulnerable and her party increasingly divided. Her distaste for consensus politics and willingness to override colleagues' opinions, including that of Cabinet, emboldened the backlash against her when it did occur.[26]

On 1 November 1990, Sir Geoffrey Howe, one of Thatcher's oldest and staunchest supporters, resigned from his position as Deputy Prime Minister in protest at Thatcher's European policy. In his resignation speech in the House of Commons two weeks later, he suggested that the time had come for "others to consider their own response to the tragic conflict of loyalties" with which he stated that he had wrestled for perhaps too long. Her former cabinet colleague Michael Heseltine subsequently challenged her for the leadership of the party, and attracted sufficient support in the first round of voting to prolong the contest to a second ballot. Though she initially stated that she intended to contest the second ballot, Thatcher decided, after consulting with her Cabinet colleagues, to withdraw from the contest. On 22 November, at just after 9.30 a.m., she announced to the Cabinet that she would not be a candidate in the second ballot. Shortly afterwards, her staff made public what was, in effect, her resignation statement:― Having consulted widely among my colleagues, I have concluded that the unity of the Party and the prospects of victory in a General Election would be better served if I stood down to enable Cabinet colleagues to enter the ballot for the leadership. I should like to thank all those in Cabinet and outside who have given me such dedicated support. ‖

Neil Kinnock, Leader of the Opposition, proposed a motion of no confidence in the government, and Margaret Thatcher seized the opportunity this presented on the day of her resignation to deliver one of her most memorable performances:― ...a single currency is about the politics of Europe, it is about a federal Europe by the back door. So I shall consider the proposal of the Honourable Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). Now where were we? I am enjoying this." ‖

She supported John Major as her successor and he duly won the leadership contest, although in the years to come her approval of Major would fall away. After her resignation a MORI poll found that 52% agreed that "On balance she had been good for the country", with 48% agreeing that she had been "bad".[27] In 1991, she was given a long and unprecedented standing ovation at the party's annual conference, although she politely rejected calls from delegates for her to make a speech. She did, however, occasionally speak in the House of Commons after she was Prime Minister. She retired from the House at the 1992 election, at the age of 66 years. Her continued presence in the House of Commons after the resignation was thought to be a destabilising influence on the Conservative government.

Post-political career

In 1992, Margaret Thatcher was raised to the House of Lords by the conferment of a life peerage as Baroness Thatcher, of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire. She did not take an hereditary title, as she had recommended for Harold Macmillan, later Earl of Stockton, on his ninetieth birthday in 1984. She has explained that she thought she hadn't sufficient financial means to support an hereditary title[citation needed]. By virtue of the life barony, she entered the House of Lords. She made a series of speeches in the Lords criticising the Maastricht Treaty, describing it as "a treaty too far" and in June 1993 told the Lords: "I could never have signed this treaty".[28] She had also advocated a referendum on the treaty when she returned to the backbenches in 1991, citing A. V. Dicey, since all three main parties were in favour of it and that therefore the people should have their say.[29]

In August 1992, she called for NATO to stop the Serbian assault on Gorazde and Sarajevo in order to end ethnic cleansing and to preserve the Bosnian state. She claimed what was happening in Bosnia was "reminiscent of the worst excesses of the Nazis".[30] In December of that same year she warned that there could be a "holocaust" in Bosnia and, after the first massacre at Srebrenica in April 1993, Thatcher thought it was a "killing field the like of which I thought we would never see in Europe again". She reportedly said to Douglas Hurd, the Foreign Secretary: "Douglas, Douglas, you would make Neville Chamberlain look like a warmonger".[31]

Margaret Thatcher had already been honoured by the Queen in 1990, shortly after her resignation as Prime Minister, when awarded the Order of Merit, one of the UK's highest distinctions. In addition, her husband, Denis Thatcher, had been given a baronetcy in 1991 (ensuring that their son Mark would inherit a title). This was the first creation of a baronetcy since 1965. In 1995, Thatcher was raised to the Order of the Garter, the United Kingdom's highest order of Chivalry.

In July 1992, she was hired by tobacco company Philip Morris Companies, now the Altria Group, as a "geopolitical consultant" for US$250,000 per year and an annual contribution of US$250,000 to her Foundation.

From 1993 to 2000, she served as Chancellor of the College of William and Mary, Virginia, USA, which was established by Royal Charter in 1693. She was also Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, the UK's only private university. She retired from the post in 1998.

She wrote her memoirs in two volumes, The Path to Power and The Downing Street Years. In 1993 The Downing Street Years were turned into a documentary series by the BBC, in which she described the Cabinet rebellion that brought about her resignation as "treachery with a smile on its face".

Although she remained supportive in public, in private she made her displeasure with many of John Major's policies plain, and her views were conveyed to the press and widely reported. She was critical of the rise in public spending under Major, his tax increases, and his support of the European Union. After Tony Blair's election as Labour Party leader in 1994, Thatcher gave an interview in May 1995 in which she praised Blair as "probably the most formidable Labour leader since Hugh Gaitskell. I see a lot of socialism behind their front bench, but not in Mr Blair. I think he genuinely has moved".[1]

In the Conservative leadership election in the aftermath of the Conservatives' landslide defeat at the hands of New Labour, Thatcher voiced her support for William Hague after Kenneth Clarke entered into an alliance with John Redwood. Thatcher reportedly then toured the tea room of the House of Commons, urging Conservative MPs to vote for Hague.

Margaret Thatcher visits former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet who had been arrested in England

In 1998, Thatcher made a controversial visit to the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, while he was under house arrest in Surrey. Pinochet was fighting extradition for human rights abuses committed during his tenure as President. Thatcher expressed her support and friendship [32]. Pinochet had been a key ally during the Falklands War and a fierce anti-communist [he died in Chile in 2006]. Also in 1998, she made a £2,000,000 donation to Cambridge University for the endowment of a Margaret Thatcher Chair in Entrepreneurial Studies. She also donated the archive of her personal papers to Churchill College, Cambridge where the collection continues to be expanded.

Margaret Thatcher actively supported the Conservative general election campaign in 2001. In the Conservative leadership election shortly after, Lady Thatcher came out in support of Iain Duncan Smith because she believed he would "make infinitely the better leader" than Kenneth Clarke due to Clarke's "old-fashioned views of the role of the state and his unbounded enthusiasm for European integration".[33]

In 2002, she published Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World detailing her thoughts on international relations since her resignation in 1990. The chapters on the European Union were particularly controversial; she called for a fundamental renegotiation of Britain's membership to preserve the UK's sovereignty and, if that failed, for Britain to leave and join NAFTA. These chapters were serialised in The Times on Monday, 18 March and caused a political furor for the rest of the week until Friday, 22 March when it was announced she had been advised by her doctors to make no more public speeches on health grounds, having suffered several small strokes.[34] According to her former press spokesman Bernard Ingham, Thatcher has no short-term memory as a result of the strokes.[35]

She remains active in various groups, including Conservative Way Forward, the Bruges Group and the European Foundation. She was widowed on 26 June 2003.

On 11 June 2004, Thatcher attended the funeral of, and delivered a tribute via videotape to, former United States President Ronald Reagan at his state funeral at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

Thatcher attends the official Washington, D.C. memorial service marking the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, pictured with Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne Cheney.

In December 2004, it was reported that Thatcher had told a private meeting of Conservative MPs that she was against the British Government's plan to introduce identity cards. She is said to have remarked that ID cards were a "Germanic concept and completely alien to this country".[36]

On 13 October 2005, Thatcher marked her 80th birthday with a party at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hyde Park where the guests included Queen Elizabeth II, The Duke of Edinburgh, and Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy. There, Geoffrey Howe, now Lord Howe of Aberavon, commented on her political career: "Her real triumph was to have transformed not just one party but two, so that when Labour did eventually return, the great bulk of Thatcherism was accepted as irreversible."

In September, 2006, Thatcher attended the official Washington, D.C. memorial service marking the 5th anniversary of the September 11th terror attacks . She attended as a guest of the U.S. Vice President, Dick Cheney, and met with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit. It marked her first visit to the United States since the funeral for former U.S. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger in April 2006. [2]

On 12 November 2006, she appeared at the Remembrance Day parade at the Cenotaph in London, leaning heavily on the arm of former Prime Minister, John Major. One week later, she released an effusive statement of condolence on the death of her friend and economic mentor, Milton Friedman, the man often described as the inspiration behind Thatcherism. On 10 December she announced she was 'deeply saddened' by the death of the former Chilean dictator General Pinochet [37].

On 21 February 2007 as a statue of her was unveiled in the UK Parliament, Lady Thatcher made a rare and brief speech in the members' lobby of the House of Commons. She said: "I might have preferred iron - but bronze will do... It won't rust. And, this time I hope, the head will stay on." (A previous statue in stone had been attacked and decapitated while on public exhibition.)[38].

Legacy

Margaret Thatcher has undoubtedly made a great impact on British and global politics. Her policies were emulated around the world, and, though divisive, even left-wing politicians such as Tony Benn have stated their admiration for the straight-forward, unflinching way in which she conducted her policies. The first woman to hold the post of Prime Minister, she was also one of the longest serving Prime Ministers ranking with the likes of the Lord Salisbury. Her departure was one of the most dramatic events in British political history.

She has been credited for her macroeconomic reforms with "rescuing" the British economy from the stagnation of the 1970s, and is admired for her committed radicalism on economic issues. She was a divisive figure, and some still hold her responsible for destroying much of the UK's manufacturing base, consigning many to long-term unemployment (reaching 4 million in the decade she was in power). However, supporters of privatisation and of the free market cite the recovery of the economy during the mid-1980s and the present-day success of the British economy, with its relatively low unemployment and structural shift away from manufacturing towards the service sector. An unfortunate effect of her policies was that many of the publicly supported industries and industrial plants that shrank or closed down were the predominant employers in their areas, thus causing pockets of very high unemployment, while the growth of new services and technologies normally took place in other usually more prosperous areas.

The UK was known as the "sick man of Europe" in the 1970s[citation needed]. However, the UK emerged from the 1980s as one of the most successful economies in modern Europe. While the unemployment rate did eventually come down, it came after initial job losses and radical labour market reforms. These included laws that weakened trade unions and the deregulation of financial markets, which certainly played a part in returning London to a leadership position as a European financial centre, and her push for increased competition in telecommunications and other public utilities.

Perceptions of Margaret Thatcher are mixed among the British public. Few would argue that there was any woman who played a more important role on the world stage in the 20th century. In perhaps the sincerest form of flattery, Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair, himself a thrice-elected Prime Minister, has acknowledged her importance. Thatcher herself indirectly acknowledged Blair during a Conservative leadership contest when she said "The Conservative Party doesn't need someone that can beat Mr Blair. They need someone like Mr Blair."

Through the Common Agricultural Policy, British agriculture was (and remains) heavily subsidised while other failing parts of the economy did not receive similar tax revenue support.[citation needed] This geographical imbalance in Thatcher's support contributed directly to the growth of devolution movements in those areas.[citation needed]

Former U.S. First Lady Nancy Reagan awards the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award to Thatcher in 1998.

Perceptions abroad broadly follow the same political divisions. Critical satirists have often caricatured her. For instance, French singer Renaud wrote a song, Miss Maggie, which lauded women as refraining from many of the silly behaviours of males – and every time making an exception for "Mrs Thatcher". She may be remembered most of all for her remark "There is no such thing as society" [39] to the reporter Douglas Keay, for Woman's Own magazine, 23 September 1987. This remark has frequently been quoted out of its full context and the surrounding remarks were as follows:

"I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."[40]

In 1996, the Scott Inquiry into the Arms-to-Iraq affair investigated the Thatcher government's record in dealing with Saddam Hussein. It revealed how £1bn of Whitehall money was used in soft loan guarantees for British exporters to Iraq. The judge found that during Baghdad's protracted invasion of Iran in the 1980s, officials destroyed documents relating to the export of Chieftain tank parts to Jordan which ended up in Iraq. Ministers clandestinely relaxed official guidelines to help private companies sell machine tools which were used in munitions factories. The British company Racal exported sophisticated Jaguar V radios to the former Iraqi dictator's army on credit. Members of the Conservative cabinet refused to stop lending guaranteed funds to Saddam even after he executed a British journalist, Farzad Bazoft, Thatcher‘s cabinet minuting that they did not want to damage British industry.

Many on both the right and left agree that Thatcher had a transformative effect on the British political spectrum and that her tenure had the effect of moving the major political parties rightward. Will Hutton, author of the best selling The State We're In, argues that her necessary economic changes could have been achieved with more consensus and less hardship by a leader less enamoured of US hegemonic power.

New Labour and Blairism have incorporated much of the economic, social and political tenets of "Thatcherism" in the same manner as, in a previous era, the Conservative Party from the 1950s until the days of Edward Heath accepted many of the basic assumptions of the welfare state instituted by Labour governments. The curtailing and large-scale dismantling of elements of the welfare state under Thatcher have largely remained.[citation needed] As well, Thatcher's program of privatising state-owned enterprises has not been reversed. Indeed, successive Tory and Labour governments have further curtailed the involvement of the state in the economy and have further dismantled public ownership.

Margaret Thatcher unveils a statue of herself in the Members' Lobby of the House of Commons

For good or ill, Thatcher's impact on the trade union movement in Britain has been lasting, with the breaking of the miners' strike of 1984-1985 seen as a watershed moment, or even a breaking point, for a union movement which has been unable to regain the degree of political power it exercised up through the 1970s. Unionisation rates in Britain have permanently declined since the 1980s, and the legislative instruments introduced to curtail the impact of strikes have not been reversed. Instead, the Labour Party has worked to loosen its ties to the trade union movement. While industrial action does still occur, there is no longer the kind of mass economic disruption seen in the 1970s, and the closed shop remains illegal.

Thatcher's legacy has continued strongly to influence the Conservative Party itself. Successive leaders, starting with John Major, and continuing in opposition with William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard, have struggled with real or perceived factions in the Parliamentary and national party to determine what parts of her heritage should be retained or jettisoned. One cannot yet determine what the role of Thatcherism will be under the leadership of David Cameron.

Due to her help in ending the Cold War, Lady Thatcher was awarded the 1998 Ronald Reagan Freedom Award by Mrs. Nancy Reagan. The award is only given to those who "have made monumental and lasting contributions to the cause of freedom worldwide," and "embody President Reagan's life long belief that one man or woman can truly make a difference." President Ronald Reagan, who was not able to attend the ceremony, was a longtime friend of Lady Thatcher.[41]

In a list compiled by the centre-left publication New Statesman in 2006, she was voted fifth in the list of "Heroes of our time".[42] She was also named a "Hero of Freedom" by the libertarian magazine Reason.[43]

In February 2007, she became the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to be honoured with a statue in the House of Commons while still alive. The statue is made of bronze and stands opposite her political hero and predecessor, Winston Churchill.[44] The statue, by sculptor Antony Dufort, shows her in a typical lively and swashbuckling posture, as though she is addressing the House of Commons, with her right arm outstretched.[45] Thatcher said she was thrilled with it.[46]

Titles and honours

The arms of Margaret Thatcher. The admiral represents the Falklands War, the image of Sir Isaac Newton her background as a chemist and her birth town Grantham.

Titles from birth

Titles Baroness Thatcher has held from birth, in chronological order: Miss Margaret Roberts (13 October 1925 – 13 December 1951) Mrs Denis Thatcher (13 December 1951 – 8 October 1959) Mrs Denis Thatcher, MP (8 October 1959 – 22 June 1970) The Rt Hon. Margaret Thatcher, MP (22 June 1970 – 7 December 1990) The Rt Hon. Margaret Thatcher, OM, MP (7 December 1990 – 4 February 1991) The Rt Hon. Lady Thatcher, OM, MP (4 February 1991 – 16 March 1992) The Rt Hon. Lady Thatcher, OM (16 March 1992 – 26 June 1992) The Rt Hon. The Baroness Thatcher, OM, PC (26 June 1992 – 22 April 1995) The Rt Hon. The Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC (22 April 1995 – )

Honours Lady of the Most Noble Order of the Garter Member of the Order of Merit Member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council Fellow of the Royal Society Honorary member of the gentlemen's club the Carlton Club, and the only woman entitled to full membership rights.

Foreign honours Presidential Medal of Freedom Republican Senatorial Medal of Freedom Patron of the Heritage Foundation Ronald Reagan Freedom Award

Born Michael Denzil Portillo in Bushey in Hertfordshire, England, Portillo took the name Xavier at confirmation. His father was an exiled Spanish republican, Luis Gabriel Portillo, and his mother, the former Cora Blyth, is of Scottish extraction. An early brush with fame came in 1961 at the age of 8, when Portillo starred in a television advertisement for Ribena, a blackcurrant cordial drink. He was educated at Harrow County Grammar School and then won a scholarship to Peterhouse, Cambridge where he came under the influence of Maurice Cowling.

Portillo graduated in 1975 with a first-class degree in history, and after a brief stint with Ocean Transport and Trading Co., a freight firm, he joined the Conservative Research Department in 1976. Following the Conservative victory in 1979 he became a government adviser. He left to work for Kerr-McGee Oil from 1981–1983 and contested his first political seat in the 1983 general election standing in Birmingham Perry Barr against Jeff Rooker and losing badly. He returned to advisory work for the government and in December 1984 he stood and won the Enfield Southgate by-election following the murder of the incumbent, Sir Anthony Berry, in the terrorist attack by the IRA on the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England.

[edit] In government

Portillo retained the Enfield Southgate seat until 1997. Initially he was a Parliamentary Private Secretary to John Moore and then an assistant whip. In 1987 he was made under secretary for Social Security, in 1988 he was given his first ministerial post as Minister of State for Transport. He then held the local government portfolio (1990), arguing in favour of the ultimately highly unpopular Community Charge system (popularly known as Poll Tax). He demonstrated a consistently right of centre line (exemplified by his insistence, in a well-publicised speech, of placing 'clear blue water' between the policies of the Conservatives and other parties) and was favoured by Norman Tebbit and Margaret Thatcher. His rise continued under John Major; he was made a Cabinet Minister as Chief Secretary to the Treasury (1992) and subsequently held the portfolios of Employment (1994) and then Defence (1995-1997). His high profile led to constant attention from the media, including the magazine Private Eye, which mocked him as Portaloo.

The Defence job was seen by some as a reward for his cautious loyalty to Major during the leadership challenge of John Redwood, following Major's 'back me or sack me' resignation as party leader in 1995. Portillo was urged by many to stand himself against Major, and some embarrassment was incurred when it transpired that a potential campaign HQ with banks of telephone lines had been set up. Portillo was to admit later that this was an 'error' - 'I did not want to oppose [Major], but neither did I want to close the possibility of entering a second ballot if it came to that.' [1] Portillo's apparent equivocation at this time was later seized on by his opponents within the party as a mark of his indecisiveness.

As Defence Secretary Portillo opposed the admission of homosexuals to the Armed Forces. He also invited criticism by invoking the motto of the SAS, "Who Dares, Wins", at a speech at the Conservative Party annual conference.

[edit] In opposition - post 1997

Portillo's loss of the Enfield Southgate seat in the 1997 general election to Stephen Twigg came as a shock to many politicians and commentators, and came to symbolise the extent of the Conservatives' defeat. Memorably he was interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on the election night prior to the calling of his own seat and was stumped by the question of 'Are we seeing the end of the Conservative Party as a credible force in British politics?' He renewed his attachment to Kerr McGee but also did substantial media work to maintain his profile including programmes for the BBC and Channel 4. He worked hard to reposition his reputation as more of a centre-right figure.

In an interview with The Times given in the summer of 1999, he admitted to youthful homosexual dalliances.

A few weeks after he had given this interview, the death of Alan Clark gave Portillo the opportunity to return to Parliament in a by- election in late November 1999 representing Kensington and Chelsea, succeeding in this very safe Conservative seat. On 1 February 2000 William Hague promoted him to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Chancellor. On 3 February Portillo stood opposite the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, in the House of Commons for the first time in his new role. During this session, Portillo made two significant announcements: The next Conservative Government will respect the independence of the Bank of England and will legislate to enhance that independence and increase accountability to Parliament. The next Conservative Government will not repeal the national minimum wage.

Both of these policies were flagship policies of New Labour and were opposed by large factions of the Conservative Party when introduced and indeed up until Portillo's announcement. Commentators suggested this was an example of Portillo taking the initiative in terms of Conservative Party policy and was the first step towards increasing acrimony between Hague and his shadow Chancellor.

Following the 2001 general election he contested the leadership of the party. In the first ballot of Conservative MPs, he led well. However this led to an onslaught of attacks from the right-wing press (notably the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail), including veiled (and not- so-veiled) references to his youthful homosexual experiences and to his equivocation at the time of Major's 1995 resignation. He was knocked out in the final round of voting by Conservative MPs, leaving party members to choose between Iain Duncan Smith and Kenneth Clarke. When Duncan Smith was elected leader Portillo returned to the backbenches. In March 2003, he voted in favour of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. [2] In November 2003 he announced that he would not seek re-election and stepped down from the House of Commons at the 2005 general election.

P. D. James From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from P.D. James)

Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park OBE (born 3 August 1920) is an English writer of crime fiction under the name P. D. James and a life peer in the House of Lords.Contents [hide] 1 Writing 2 List of books 3 Film and television 4 DVD Release 5 Honours 6 Prizes and awards 7 References 8 Bibliography 9 External links

[edit] Writing

James did not begin writing until she reached her thirties. Her first novel, Cover Her Face, featuring the investigator/poet Adam Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard, was published in 1962. She has said that her influences include Jane Austen, Dorothy L. Sayers, herself a well- known British author of mysteries, Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh.

Many of James' mystery novels take place against the backdrop of Britain's vast bureaucracies such as the criminal justice system and the health services, arenas in which James honed her skills for decades starting in the 1940s when she went to work in hospital administration to help support her ailing husband and two children. Two years after the publication of Cover Her Face, James' husband died and she took a position as a civil servant within the criminal section of the Department of Home Affairs. James worked in government service until her retirement in 1979, and her many years of experience within these bureaucracies add a complex stratum of insider's knowledge to her writing. Her 2001 work, Death in Holy Orders, displays an insightful grasp of the inner workings of church hierarchy.

[edit] List of books

Her detective novels include: Cover Her Face (1962) (introducing her Scotland Yard detective Adam Dalgliesh) A Mind to Murder (1963) Unnatural Causes (1967) Shroud for a Nightingale (1971) The Maul and the Pear Tree: The Ratcliffe Highway Murders, 1811, with Thomas A. Critchley (1971) An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972) (introducing her female sleuth Cordelia Gray) The Black Tower (1975) Death of an Expert Witness (1977) The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982) A Taste for Death (1986) Devices and Desires (1990) Original Sin (1994) A Certain Justice (1997) Death in Holy Orders (2001) The Murder Room (2003) The Lighthouse (2005)

P. D. James has also written a successful mainstream novel entitled Innocent Blood (1980) and the dystopian novel The Children of Men (1992). Her autobiography Time to Be in Earnest was published in 2000.

[edit] Film and television

Most of James' mystery novels have been turned into television mini-series broadcast in Great Britain on the BBC and on PBS in the United States. Her 1992 novel The Children of Men served as the inspiration for Children of Men, a feature film released in 2006, [1] directed by Alfonso Cuarón and starring Clive Owen, Sir Michael Caine, and Julianne Moore.

Francesco Cossiga From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Francesco Cossiga

VIII President of the Italian Republic In office June 29, 1985 – April 28, 1992 Preceded by Alessandro Pertini Succeeded by Oscar Luigi Scalfaro Prime minister of Italy In office 4 August 1979 – 18 October 1980 Preceded by Giulio Andreotti Succeeded by Arnaldo Forlani

Born July 26, 1928 (age 78) Sassari, Italy Political party Christian Democracy Spouse Giuseppa Sigurani

Francesco Cossiga (born July 26, 1928) is an Italian politician and former President of the Italian Republic. He was also a professor of law at University of Sassari.Contents [hide] 1 Early career 2 Election as President of Italy 3 The Cossiga Presidency 4 Lifetime senator 4.1 South Tyrol independence controversy 5 Miscellaneous news 6 References

[edit] Early career

Cossiga was born at Sassari in the north of Sardinia. He started his political career during World War II in groups of Catholic reference. He is commonly called kos'siːga, but actually the original pronunciation of his surname is ['kɔssiga], with the stress on the first syllable, which means "Corsica". He is the cousin of Enrico Berlinguer.

He has been several times a minister for Democrazia Cristiana (DC); notably during his stay at Viminale (Ministry for internal affairs) he re-structured Italian police, civil protection and secret services organisations. He was in charge during the kidnapping and murdering of Aldo Moro by Red Brigades and resigned when Moro was found dead in 1978.

[edit] Election as President of Italy

Resigning from his post, he earned the respect of the opposition (in particular of the Italian Communist Party) because he appeared as the only member of the government who took responsibility for the tragic conclusion of the events. This led to his election in 1985 as President of the Republic (Head of State), in which for the first time ever a candidate won at the first ballot (where a majority of over ⅔ is necessary, which would subsequently decrease in later ballots). The only other president of the Italian Republic elected at the first ballot was Carlo Azeglio Ciampi in 1999.

[edit] The Cossiga Presidency

Cossiga's presidency was unremarkable for its first five years, as most presidents until then refrained entering the open political debate in order to remain figures of reference for the whole nation.

However, in his last two years as a President, Cossiga began to express opinions, at times virulent, against the Italian political system. In his opinion, Italian parties, and especially DC and PCI, had to take into account the deep change that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War would have brought.

These declarations, soon dubbed "esternazioni", or "mattock blows" (picconate), were considered by many inappropriate for a President. Some even suggested he was somewhat mentally unstable. Cossiga declared he was just "taking pleasure in removing some sand from my shoes". Cossiga was supported by the secretary of the Italian Socialist Party, Bettino Craxi.

A strong tension with the President of the Council of Ministers Giulio Andreotti emerged when Andreotti revealed the existence of Gladio, a Stay-behind organization with the official aim of countering a possible Soviet invasion through sabotage and guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines. Cossiga declared his involvement in the setup of the organization. The Communist party started a procedure for impeachment (Presidents of Italy can be impeached only for high treason against the State or Attempt against the Constitution). The request of impeachment was subsequently withdrawn.

Cossiga resigned two months before the end of his term, on April 28 1992. He was voted again for president by the post-fascist Italian Social Movement, that had supported him in his campaigns.

[edit] Lifetime senator

After his resignation from Quirinale (the Roman hill in which is the office of the Head of State), he is a lifetime senator, like all the former Presidents of the Republic, since 1992. His current title is President Emeritus of the Italian Republic.

In February 1998 Cossiga created the UDR party (Unione Democratica per la Repubblica), declarately a centrist political formation. The UDR was a crucial component of the majority that supported the D'Alema government in October 1998, after the fall of the Prodi government which lost a confidence vote.

Cossiga declared that his support for D'Alema was meant to end the conventional exclusion of the former Communist Party (PCI) leaders from the premiership in Italy.

In 1999 UDR was dissolved. Cossiga returned to his senator for life activity, with a prominent interest in security matters, as his parliamentary record shows (see [1]).

He remains a vocal commentator of Italian politics, and has acquired a reputation for rapidly shifting positions, possibly because as a lifetime senator he does not need to be loyal to any party to be re-elected. He does no longer play a major political role. He is a collaborator of several newspapers.

On 27 November 2006, he resigned from his position as lifetime senator. His resignation was however rejected on 31 January 2007 by a vote of the Senate.

[edit] South Tyrol independence controversy

In May 2006 he brought in a bill that would allow the autonomous region of South Tyrol to hold a referendum, where voters could decide whether to stay with Italy, return to Austria, or become fully independent [2]. While the proposed bill was immediately rejected in the Italian parliament, the political repercussions in the region and Austria were quite large. The South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP) rejected the proposal, saying this would just create ethnic tensions again. Cossiga made similar remarks again in September 2006, calling for a solution by letting South Tyrol rejoin Austria. He brought in another bill again, similar to the previous one, against the protest of the SVP party and their chairman Luis Durnwalder.

[edit] Miscellaneous news

Italian magazine Panorama revealed that he had sent a letter to prime minister Giulio Andreotti after having reviewed the content of interviews between RAI journalist Ennio Remondino and former CIA agents Richard Brenneke and Ibrahim Razin, concerning links between the CIA and P2 freemasonry lodge, as well as the circumstances of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme's murder in 1986. President Cossiga was concerned by the statements, and said: "If the government were to think that the information had any basis, I think that it should inform the judiciary authority and the Parliamentary Commission on Massacres and, at the level of the bilateral relations, the relevant authorities in the U.S.A. and in Sweden." Otherwise, the journalists who published the information without previously thoroughly checking its validity, should be punished [3]

Silvio Berlusconi (help·info) (born September 29, 1936) is an Italian politician, entrepreneur, and media proprietor. He is the leader of the Forza Italia political movement, a centre-right party he founded in 1993 in Rome. Berlusconi has twice held office as prime minister of Italy, most recently from 2001 to 2006.

Berlusconi is the founder and main shareholder of Fininvest, among the ten largest Italian privately-owned groups [1], which deals in media and financial business and, most notably, comprises three national TV channels. Together these account for nearly half the Italian TV market. He is also well known for being, since 1986, the president of A.C. Milan, a prominent Italian football team. Under his presidency it has won a number of national and international trophies. According to Forbes magazine, Berlusconi is Italy's richest person, an allegedly self-made man (see section) with personal assets worth $11 billion (USD) in 2006, making him the world's 37th richest person. His rise in the political arena has been extremely rapid. He was appointed President of the Council of Ministers following the March 1994 elections, when Forza Italia gained a relative majority a mere three months after having been officially launched. He formed the first unabashedly right-wing administration in 34 years. However, his cabinet collapsed after seven months, due to internal disagreements in the centre-right coalition. In the 1996 elections, he ran for Prime Minister again but was defeated by centre-left candidate Romano Prodi. From 1996 to 2001 he was the leader of the parliamentary opposition. In the 2001 elections, he was again the centre-right candidate for Prime Minister and won against the centre-left candidate Francesco Rutelli. Berlusconi then formed his second and third governments, which together lasted five years – the longest in the history of the Italian Republic.

Berlusconi was leader of the centre-right coalition in the May 2006 elections, which he lost by a very narrow margin, his counterpart being again Romano Prodi. On 17 May 2006 he was formally succeeded by Prodi.

In economics, Berlusconi has endorsed conservative policies, such as lowering taxes and generally placing fewer constraints on enterprise, in an effort to encourage growth. In foreign policy, his views have been strongly pro-American, even at the expense of causing some damage to relations with other European countries; in particular he supported George W. Bush in the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq by sending Italian troops to join the "Coalition of the Willing" (after the attack, only for peacekeeping). In social policy matters the Berlusconi government has implemented a decidedly right-wing program: passing stricter laws concerning immigration, artificial insemination and drug use.

Although many aspects of Berlusconi's life and personality are highly controversial, what probably makes him a somewhat unique case in modern politics is the issue of media ownership and control. According to Berlusconi's adversaries, the Mediaset (Fininvest's media division) TV channels have played a crucial role in his political success by airing open or "covert" propaganda during news or other information-oriented programming. In contrast, his supporters claim that the networks have always maintained a neutral political stance. The issue has become even more divisive since Berlusconi's rise to premiership, with the left accusing him of also abusing his position as premier to control the publicly owned RAI TV channels. In practice, they maintain, this permits him to control almost all TV sources of information, while the right insists that the RAI channels are, if anything, biased in favor of the centre-left. According to some independent observers,[2] two of the State channels (Rai 1 and Rai 2) had been indeed controlled by Berlusconi's government, while Rai 3 managed to retain independence and a critical stance. Such control, in a famous example, was displayed when Berlusconi called Member of European Parliament Martin Schultz a "Nazi kapo", and the Rai 1 news program showed the incident with no audio and offering a misleading account. Political debate in Italy has become rather alienating, as the contenders often seem to completely lack a shared information source regarded as neutral and reliable. Although Berlusconi officially resigned from all functions in his commercial group in 1994 upon entering political office, it must be noted that he is still the largest shareholder, and all the key posts are held by members of his family or close collaborators.

Sir Jimmy Young (born on 21 September 1921) is a well-known British disc jockey and radio interviewer.Contents [hide] 1 Early life 2 Singing career 3 Disc jockey 4 External links

[edit] Early life

The son of a baker, he was born Leslie Ronald Young, in Cinderford, Gloucestershire and attended East Dean Grammar School. He joined the RAF in 1942 (lying about his age) and left in 1949 with the rank of Sergeant.

[edit] Singing career

Jimmy Young was signed to the then new label Polygon Records in 1950, one of the label's only stars alongside another newcomer Petula Clark. He released numerous records on the label, all conducted by Ron Goodwin, the biggest of which was "Too Young" (1951) a big sheet music seller in the days before the UK singles chart had begun. It was a cover of Nat 'King' Cole's American recording. There were also two duets with Miss Clark that year, "Mariandl" and "Broken Heart".

In 1952 he was lured away to a contract with record giant Decca, and the big hits really began. Young enjoyed Top 10 successes with "Eternally", "Chain Gang" and "More" (with which he beat Perry Como's U.S. original). His most successful year as a recording artist was 1955, when "Unchained Melody" (from the film Unchained) and "The Man From Laramie" (from the film of the same name) were successive releases and both number one hits.

[edit] Disc jockey

He is best known nowadays as a former BBC radio presenter.

He joined the BBC as one of the first disc jockeys on BBC Radio 1, presenting the weekday mid-morning show from 1967 to 1973.

In 1973 he joined BBC Radio 2, where he presented a regular programme (known to listeners as "the JY Prog"), until his retirement from broadcasting in 2002.

Although he was offered the opportunity to present a weekend current affairs programme, he turned it down. His radio slot was taken over by the former Newsnight presenter, Jeremy Vine. Shortly after leaving the BBC, Jimmy Young wrote a newspaper column attacking his former employer for instances of "brutality", and making clear that it had not been his idea to leave.

The Pink Floyd song "One of These Days" is directed at him. The only words are the threat "One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces". This promise was fulfilled when Roger Waters cut up different recordings of Young and spliced them together for use in concert during early performances of the song "Sheep" (then titled "Raving and Drooling").

He was knighted in 2001 for services to broadcasting.

Sir John Major, 1st Baronet (17 May 1698-22 February 1781), was a British Member of Parliament.

Major represented Scarborough in the House of Commons from 1761 to 1768 and was also a Senior Elder Brother of Trinity House between 1741 and 1781. In 1765 he was created a Baronet, of Worlingsworth Hall in the County of Suffolk, with remainder to John Henniker, husband of his daughter Anne. Major died February 1781, aged 82, and was succeeded in the baronetcy according to the special remainder by his son-in-law John Henniker, who was elevated to the Peerage of Ireland as Baron Henniker in 1800.

Фолклендские (Мальвинские) острова (англ. Falkland Islands, исп. Islas Malvinas) — архипелаг в юго-западной части Атлантического океана. Растояние архипелага до побережья Южной Америки составляет 483 километров, 1080 км — до британской заморской территории Южная Георгия и Южные Сандвичевы острова (скалы Шаг) и 940 км до острова Элефант в Южных Шетландских островах, Антарктика. Население — 3 тыс. (2006). Административный центр — Порт-Стэнли (Стэнли).

Кафедральный собор Крайстчерч, Стэнли

Состоит из двух крупных (Западный и Восточный Фолкленд) и около 200 мелких островов и скал. Площадь 12,2 тыс. км². Высота до 706 м. Берега сильно изрезаны. Климат океанический, прохладный (средняя месячная температура от 2,5 до 10 °С) и равномерно влажный (в год 600—700 мм осадков) с сильными ветрами и частыми туманами. Океанические злаковые луга, вересковые пустоши, торфяные болота. Много морских птиц.

Архипелаг входит в так называемую Патагонскую (Магелланову) зоогеографическую область Мирового океана. Патагонская область находится под влиянием мощных холодных течений. Одно из них — Фолклендское (Мальвинское) — следует от Фолклендских островов до залива Ла-Плата. Скорость течения — 1—2 км/ч. Средняя температура воды зимой от 4 до 10 °С, летом от 8 до 15 °С. Несѐт большое количество айсбергов, хотя вблизи островов айсберги встречаются редко.

Основные отрасли экономики архипелага — рыболовство, овцеводство, туризм. Ведѐтся бурение скважин для разведки оцениваемых крупных запасов нефти на шельфе островов.Содержание [убрать] 1 История 2 Первая мировая война 3 Англо-аргентинский конфликт 4 Сегодня 5 См. также 6 Литература

[править] История

Утверждается, что острова были открыты в 1591—1592 английским мореплавателем Джоном Дейвисом, командовавшим кораблѐм в экспедиции английского корсара Кавендиша, однако на право быть первооткрывателями архипелага претендуют также испанцы. Впоследствии острова неоднократно переходили из рук в руки. В 1763—1765 острова исследовал французский мореплаватель Луи Антуан де Бугенвиль (Bougainville). Длительное время острова были необитаемы.

[править] Первая мировая война

Хозяйство на Кэмпе

Во время Первой мировой войны в районе архипелага 8 декабря 1914 произошѐл бой между германской крейсерской эскадрой под командованием вице-адмирала Максимилиана фон Шпее и английской эскадрой (вице-адмирал Ф. Д. Стэрди).

Германское командование пыталось активизировать действия своего флота на английских морских коммуникациях в Атлантическом, Индийском и Тихом океанах. Вице-адмирал фон Шпее руководил походом эскадры (2 броненосных и 3 лѐгких крейсера, 2 транспорта и госпитальное судно) к берегам Южной Америки, где 1 ноября 1914 в бою у мыса Коронель разбил английскую эскадру крейсеров.

Выполнив задачу по отвлечению значительных сил английского флота, германская эскадра получила приказ прорываться обратно в Германию. Не зная дислокации английских кораблей, Шпее решил нанести удар по английской военно-морской базе Порт-Стэнли на Фолклендских островах, где находилась английская эскадра (1 линейный корабль, 2 линейных, 3 броненосных и 2 лѐгких крейсера).

Фолклендское нагорье

Встретив неожиданно сильное сопротивление, Шпее пытался уйти, но английские корабли настигли его. Шпее приказал лѐгким крейсерам и транспортам уходить в различных направлениях. Их стали преследовать английские броненосные и лѐгкие крейсера, а линейные крейсера вступили в бой с германскими броненосными крейсерами и потопили их. Были уничтожены также 2 лѐгких германских крейсера и транспорты. Лишь крейсеру «Дрезден» и госпитальному судну удалось уйти. В результате победы английское командование освободилось от необходимости выделять значительные силы на второстепенные театры военных действий, а германское командование лишилось сильной крейсерской эскадры. Сам Шпее погиб на флагманском крейсере «Шарнхорст». [править] Англо-аргентинский конфликт

В 1982 вокруг островов вспыхнул англо-аргентинский конфликт. Аргентина потерпела поражение, но продолжает оспаривать как название островов, так и территориальную принадлежность.

[править] Сегодня

Джипси Ков

В настоящее время принадлежат Великобритании, но принадлежность островов оспаривается Аргентиной. Рассматривается также вопрос о независимости территории (при чем однако Южная Георгия осталась бы британской). На островах размещена британская военно-воздушная база Маунт Плезант, а британский военно-морской флот регулярно патрулирует воды Юго- западной Атлантики, имея свою базу в Мэр Харборе неподалеку от Маунт Плезанта.

Фолклендский конфликт 1982 (англ. Falklands War, исп. Guerra de las Malvinas) — война между Великобританией и Аргентиной за контроль над Фолклендскими островами (в Аргентине их называют Мальвинскими). Ни Аргентина, ни Великобритания формально не объявляли друг другу войны; с точки зрения обеих, военные действия представляли собой восстановление контроля над своей законной территорией.Содержание [убрать] 1 Причины конфликта 2 Ход событий 3 Потери сторон 4 Роль в истории 5 Ссылки

[править] Причины конфликта

Фолклендские (Мальвинские) острова

Еще с начала XIX века Аргентина считала эти острова своими. Захват Мальвинских островов Соединенным Королевством в 1833 году вызвал недовольство среди населения Аргентины. Захвативший в начале 1982 года власть в стране генерал-лейтенант аргентинской армии Леопольдо Гальтери решил использовать народное негодование по этому поводу. Он хотел выиграть войну за Фолкленды и победой в ней стабилизировать своѐ шаткое положение «на троне».

[править] Ход событий

Истребитель-перехватчик «Харриер» 2 апреля — высадка аргентинского десанта на Фолклендах; капитуляция британского гарнизона. 3 апреля — аргентинские войска овладели Грютвикеном, Южная Георгия. 25 апреля — британский флот пленил аргентинскую подлодку «Санта Фе» у Южной Георгии, аргентинский гарнизон капитулирует; в дальнейшем британцы использовали остров в качестве передовой базы. 2 мая — британская подводная лодка торпедировала аргентинский крейсер «Генерал Бельграно». 323 аргентинских моряка погибли. В тот же день противокорабельной ракетой было потоплено сторожевое судно «Комодоро Сомеллера». 4 мая — аргентинская авиация ракетами «Экзосет» потопила британский эсминец HMS Sheffield. 21 мая — британцы высаживают десант на острове Восточный Фолкленд. 3-я бригада морской пехоты коммандос, усиленная двумя батальонами из армейского парашютного полка, захватила плацдарм в Сан-Карлосе на западном побережье Восточного Фолкленда. Британские самолеты «Харриер» сбили 15 аргентинских самолетов. Однако три британских корабля были подбиты аргентинскими самолетами, а один из них, фрегат HMS Ardent, затонул. К концу дня З тысячи британских солдат закрепились на берегу. 23 мая-25 мая — британские «Харриеры» и ракеты «земля-воздух» с кораблей и с берега сбили 36 аргентинских самолетов, однако ВМФ Великобритании потерял фрегат HMS Antelope, эсминец HMS Coventry и транспорт Atlantic Conveyor. 30 мая — Аргентина объявила, что ее самолетам удалось повредить британский авианосец (британские источники это отрицают). 31 мая — 3-я бригада английской королевской морской пехоты предприняла ночную атаку на три ключевые аргентинские укрепленные высоты, господствующие над Порт-Стэнли: Маунт-Лонгдон, Ту-Систэз и Маунт-Хэрриет. 1 июня — В Сан-Карлос с транспорта «Куин Элизабет» высадилась 5-я пехотная бригада — шотландские гвардейцы, валлийцы и гуркхские стрелки. 2-й батальон английского парашютного полка выдвинулся от Гус-Грин к Фицрой (в 18 милях юго-западнее Порт-Стэнли), который был оставлен аргентинцами без боя. 8 июня — аргентинская авиация повредила британские десантные корабли RFA Sir Galahad, затонувший в тот же день и RFA Sir Tristram. Погибло 48 человек. 12 июня — аргентинские ракеты повредили британский эсминец HMS Glamorgan. 13 моряков погибли. Осада Порт-Стэнли. 14 июня — Батальон шотландской гвардии взял гору Тамблдаун после ожесточенной битвы с аргентинскими морскими пехотинцами. 15 июня — капитуляция аргентинского гарнизона.

[править] Потери сторон Аргентина: 649 человек убитыми. Во время конфликта британские войска захватили в плен 11 313 граждан Аргентины. Крейсер «Генерал Бельграно» («General Belgrano») 1 подводная лодка («Santa Fe») 1 сторожевой катер («Islas Malvinas») 4 фрахтовщика («Río Carcarañá»), («Bahía Buen Suceso»), («Isla de los Estados») и («Yehuin») 1 шлюпка шпионки («Narwal») 75 самолетов 25 вертолетов Соединенное Королевство: 258 человек убитыми (включая 3 островитянина) 10 истребителей-бомбардировщиков «Харриер» 24 вертолета 2 фрегата («HMS Ardent») и («HMS Antelope») 2 эсминца («HMS Sheffield» и «HMS Coventry») 1 контейнеровоз «Атлантик Конвейор»(«Atlantic Conveyor») 1 десантный корабль («Sir Galahad») 1 десантный катер («Foxtrot 4»)

[править] Роль в истории

Фолклендский конфликт был едва ли не единственным вооружѐнным конфликтом после Второй Мировой войны, в котором ведущую роль играли военно-морские силы.

Многие наблюдатели восприняли войну как новое свидетельство мощи Британии как военно-морской державы, казалось бы, исчезнувшей после распада колониальной Британской империи.

Победа способствовала росту патриотизма в Великобритании и усиления позиций правительства Маргарет Тэтчер. Поражение стало причиной падения аргентинской военной хунты и восстановления демократического строя в стране. Необходимость войны и еѐ историческое значение до сих пор служит предметом ожесточѐнных споров в Аргентине.

В конфликте с Аргентиной была подтверждена целесообразность использования противокорабельных ракет. Британский флот в прямом смысле доказал надобность в себе и правильность использования подводных лодок в морских сражениях.

Хорхе Луис Борхес написал стихотворение памяти британских и аргентинских солдат и назвал войну «ссорой двух лысых из-за расчѐски».