Nick Raynsford
Encyclopedia
Wyvill Richard Nicolls Raynsford (born 28 January 1945), known as Nick Raynsford, is a British
Labour Party
politician
. A government minister from 1997 to 2005, he has been the Member of Parliament
(MP) for Greenwich & Woolwich since 1997
, having previously been MP for Greenwich
from 1992 to 1997, and for Fulham
from 1986 to 1987.
Dunn) and brought up at Milton Manor in Milton Malsor
a village just outside the town of Northampton
. He was educated at Repton School
and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
, from where he graduated with a BA
degree
in History in 1966. He also has a Diploma
in Art and Design from the Chelsea School of Art.
At university Raynsford was rusticated
(suspended) for a year for night climbing. In the course of this he had displayed a banner against the Vietnam War
between the pinnacles of King's College Chapel
.
, the Labour MP for Plymouth Moor View. Raynsford's ancestry can be seen in Burke's Landed Gentry
.
(MP) for the Labour Party in a by-election in Fulham Constituency
in 1986, but at the 1987 General Election
lost to Conservative
candidate Matthew Carrington
.
He then became MP for Greenwich
at the 1992 general election
, and at the 1997 general election
he won the re-drawn seat of Greenwich & Woolwich. He retained the seat at the 2001
, 2005
and 2010 general elections, with majorities of 13,433, 10,146 and 10,153 respectively.
In Parliament, Raynsford was Parliamentary Private Secretary
to Roy Hattersley
and an Opposition spokesman 1986-87 and an Opposition frontbench spokesman from 1993-97. When Labour came to power in 1997 he was appointed a Parliamentary Under Secretary in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, and was promoted to Minister of State
in the department as Minister for Housing and Planning from 1999 to 2001, and Minister for Local Government 2001-02, and in the again reorganised Office of the Deputy Prime Minister 2002-2005, with special responsibility for local government
, English regions
, electoral law, fire, health and safety and London
.
After the 2005 general election
Raynsford returned to the backbenches
. In 2009 he publicly called for Gordon Brown
to resign as Prime Minister.
On 28 March 2010, The Sunday Times
reported that Raynsford earns £9,000 per month from jobs in industries connected to his ministerial career.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
. A government minister from 1997 to 2005, he has been the Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP) for Greenwich & Woolwich since 1997
United Kingdom general election, 1997
The United Kingdom general election, 1997 was held on 1 May 1997, more than five years after the previous election on 9 April 1992, to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party ended its 18 years in opposition under the leadership of Tony Blair, and won the general...
, having previously been MP for Greenwich
Greenwich (UK Parliament constituency)
Greenwich was a parliamentary constituency in South-East London, which returned Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1832 to 1997 by the first past the post system.-History:...
from 1992 to 1997, and for Fulham
Fulham (UK Parliament constituency)
Fulham was a borough constituency based around the London district of Fulham. It was represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1885 until 1918 and from 1955 to 1997....
from 1986 to 1987.
Early life
He is the son of the late Wyvill Raynsford and Patricia Raynsford (néeMarried and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
Dunn) and brought up at Milton Manor in Milton Malsor
Milton Malsor
Milton Malsor is a village and civil parish in South Northamptonshire, England. It is south of Northampton, south-east of Birmingham, and north of central London; junction 15 of the M1 motorway is east by road...
a village just outside the town of Northampton
Northampton
Northampton is a large market town and local government district in the East Midlands region of England. Situated about north-west of London and around south-east of Birmingham, Northampton lies on the River Nene and is the county town of Northamptonshire. The demonym of Northampton is...
. He was educated at Repton School
Repton School
Repton School, founded in 1557, is a co-educational English independent school for both day and boarding pupils, in the British public school tradition, located in the village of Repton, in Derbyshire, in the Midlands area of England...
and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, from where he graduated with a BA
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree
Academic degree
An academic degree is a position and title within a college or university that is usually awarded in recognition of the recipient having either satisfactorily completed a prescribed course of study or having conducted a scholarly endeavour deemed worthy of his or her admission to the degree...
in History in 1966. He also has a Diploma
Diploma
A diploma is a certificate or deed issued by an educational institution, such as a university, that testifies that the recipient has successfully completed a particular course of study or confers an academic degree. In countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia, the word diploma refers to...
in Art and Design from the Chelsea School of Art.
At university Raynsford was rusticated
Rustication (academia)
Rustication is a term used at Oxbridge to mean being sent down or expelled temporarily. The term derives from the Latin word rus, countryside, to indicate that a student has been sent back to their family in the country, or from medieval Latin rustici, meaning "heathens or barbarians"...
(suspended) for a year for night climbing. In the course of this he had displayed a banner against the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
between the pinnacles of King's College Chapel
King's College Chapel, Cambridge
King's College Chapel is the chapel to King's College of the University of Cambridge, and is one of the finest examples of late Gothic English architecture, while its early Renaissance rood screen separating the nave and chancel, erected in 1532-36 in a striking contrast of style, has been called...
.
Family
He married Anne Jelley in 1968, and they had three daughters. He is separated from his wife, and is now the partner of Alison SeabeckAlison Seabeck
Alison Jane Seabeck is an English Labour Party politician and shadow Minister in the Ministry of Defence. She was previously the shadow Housing Minister...
, the Labour MP for Plymouth Moor View. Raynsford's ancestry can be seen in Burke's Landed Gentry
Burke's Landed Gentry
Burke's Landed Gentry is the result of nearly two centuries of intense work by the Burke family, and others since, in building a collection of books of genealogical and heraldic interest,...
.
Member of Parliament
Raynsford was first elected a Member of ParliamentMember of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP) for the Labour Party in a by-election in Fulham Constituency
Fulham (UK Parliament constituency)
Fulham was a borough constituency based around the London district of Fulham. It was represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1885 until 1918 and from 1955 to 1997....
in 1986, but at the 1987 General Election
United Kingdom general election, 1987
The United Kingdom general election of 1987 was held on 11 June 1987, to elect 650 members to the British House of Commons. The election was the third consecutive election victory for the Conservative Party under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, who became the first Prime Minister since the 2nd...
lost to Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
candidate Matthew Carrington
Matthew Carrington (UK politician)
Matthew Hadrian Marshall Carrington was Conservative Member of Parliament for Fulham from 1987 to 1997.He studied at Imperial College London from 1966-1969 during which time he chaired the Imperial College Conservative Society...
.
He then became MP for Greenwich
Greenwich (UK Parliament constituency)
Greenwich was a parliamentary constituency in South-East London, which returned Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1832 to 1997 by the first past the post system.-History:...
at the 1992 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1992
The United Kingdom general election of 1992 was held on 9 April 1992, and was the fourth consecutive victory for the Conservative Party. This election result was one of the biggest surprises in 20th Century politics, as polling leading up to the day of the election showed Labour under leader Neil...
, and at the 1997 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1997
The United Kingdom general election, 1997 was held on 1 May 1997, more than five years after the previous election on 9 April 1992, to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party ended its 18 years in opposition under the leadership of Tony Blair, and won the general...
he won the re-drawn seat of Greenwich & Woolwich. He retained the seat at the 2001
United Kingdom general election, 2001
The United Kingdom general election, 2001 was held on Thursday 7 June 2001 to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. It was dubbed "the quiet landslide" by the media, as the Labour Party was re-elected with another landslide result and only suffered a net loss of 6 seats...
, 2005
United Kingdom general election, 2005
The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005 to elect 646 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party under Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, but with a majority of 66, reduced from 160....
and 2010 general elections, with majorities of 13,433, 10,146 and 10,153 respectively.
In Parliament, Raynsford was Parliamentary Private Secretary
Parliamentary Private Secretary
A Parliamentary Private Secretary is a role given to a United Kingdom Member of Parliament by a senior minister in government or shadow minister to act as their contact for the House of Commons; this role is junior to that of Parliamentary Under-Secretary, which is a ministerial post, salaried by...
to Roy Hattersley
Roy Hattersley
Roy Sydney George Hattersley, Baron Hattersley is a British Labour politician, author and journalist from Sheffield. He served as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1983 to 1992.-Early life:...
and an Opposition spokesman 1986-87 and an Opposition frontbench spokesman from 1993-97. When Labour came to power in 1997 he was appointed a Parliamentary Under Secretary in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, and was promoted to Minister of State
Minister of State
Minister of State is a title borne by politicians or officials in certain countries governed under a parliamentary system. In some countries a "minister of state" is a junior minister, who is assigned to assist a specific cabinet minister...
in the department as Minister for Housing and Planning from 1999 to 2001, and Minister for Local Government 2001-02, and in the again reorganised Office of the Deputy Prime Minister 2002-2005, with special responsibility for local government
Local government
Local government refers collectively to administrative authorities over areas that are smaller than a state.The term is used to contrast with offices at nation-state level, which are referred to as the central government, national government, or federal government...
, English regions
Regions of England
In England, the region is the highest tier of sub-national division used by central Government. Between 1994 and 2011, the nine regions had an administrative role in the implementation of UK Government policy, and as the areas covered by elected bodies...
, electoral law, fire, health and safety and London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
After the 2005 general election
United Kingdom general election, 2005
The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005 to elect 646 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party under Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, but with a majority of 66, reduced from 160....
Raynsford returned to the backbenches
Backbencher
In Westminster parliamentary systems, a backbencher is a Member of Parliament or a legislator who does not hold governmental office and is not a Front Bench spokesperson in the Opposition...
. In 2009 he publicly called for Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...
to resign as Prime Minister.
On 28 March 2010, The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
reported that Raynsford earns £9,000 per month from jobs in industries connected to his ministerial career.
External links
- Nick Raysford official site
- Nick Raynsford's Weblog official blog