Sir Philip Carter Goodhart (born 3 November 1925) is a British

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 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...

 politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

, the son of Arthur Lehman Goodhart

Arthur Lehman Goodhart

Arthur Lehman Goodhart, KBE, KC was an American-born British academic jurist and lawyer; he was professor of jurisprudence, University of Oxford, 1931–51, when he was also a Fellow of University College, Oxford...

.

Goodhart contested Consett

Consett (UK Parliament constituency)

Consett was a county constituency, centred on the town of Consett in County Durham. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post voting system....

 in 1950 whilst still a student at Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

.
He was elected 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,...

 for Beckenham

Beckenham (UK Parliament constituency)

Beckenham is a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.-Constituency profile:...

 at the 1957 by-election, and served until his retirement in 1992. One of the unsuccessful candidates for the nomination in 1957 was the young Margaret Thatcher. In his book "Referendum" (Tom Stacey Ltd, 1971) he argued that the referendum, then under discussion in the context of the UK joining the EEC, could in fact serve to entrench constitutional safeguards that the UK then - as now - lacked, quoting Arthur Balfour's contribution to the debate on the Parliament Bill (later the Parliament Act 1911): "In the referendum lies our hope of getting the sort of constitutional security which every other country but our own enjoys .." ("Referendum", p 205). He wrote the definitive account of the referendum campaign in 1975, "Full-hearted Consent", and also "The 1922: The Story of the 1922 Committee" (with Ursula Branston; Macmillan, 1973). He was a junior Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

 minister (1979–1981) and a junior Defence minister (1981).
His wife is named Val and they have seven children together and until recently lived in Whitebarn, Youlbury Woods.

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