Godfrey Bloom

Godfrey Bloom MEP
Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire and the Humber
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 May 2004
Personal details
Born	(1949-11-22) 22 November 1949 London, England
Nationality	British
Political party	UK Independence Party (UKIP)
Website	Godfrey Bloom MEP

Godfrey William Bloom TD (born 22 November 1949) is a Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire and the Humber for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). He was first elected in 2004, and re-elected in 2009.

Early life

Bloom was born in London and educated at St Olave's Grammar School. He graduated from the Royal College of Defence Studies (Strategy) and his dissertation is entitled "War Aims and the Economic Consequences for the UK".

Later, Bloom worked as a financial economist. In his last position, he worked as the director of the investment company TBO in which he still is a major shareholder.

The National Pension Fund representative to Mercury Asset Management in the late 1980s (Europe’s largest pension fund manager) he has retained a keen interest in pension development since the early 1970s. In 1996 he was part of the Francis Maude regulatory consultancy panel, he resigned when he realised it was not consultation. Mr Bloom is an ex Army Officer and has held a number of Territorial appointments including liaison officer 4th Armoured Division. He holds the Territorial Decoration and Bar the Armed Forces Parliament Medal and has been published in the Army Review.

Career as an MEP

In 2004, Bloom's election to the Yorkshire and the Humber seat was the UKIP's first seat in the region in the European elections. Bloom was the president of the European Alliance for Freedom, a eurosceptic pan-European political party. In 2009, he was re-elected. Bloom is a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality.

Bloom is a long term member of the Women’s Gender and Equality committee. Bloom is a substitute member for the Environment Committee. He is also a member of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee.

Views and controversies

Views on the banking crisis

Mr Bloom was ejected from the Mansion House in 2009 for heckling Lord Turner for giving staff a bonus after the massive regulatory failure of 2008/9. According the Daily Telegraph he was the first man to be ejected since John Wilkes in the late 1800s. Mr Bloom also signed the petition in disgust at the knighthood for the failures of Hector Sants.

Mr Bloom from the very beginning of the banking crisis has advocated criminal proceedings against bankers - see speeches on his website.

Mr Bloom is a member of the Von Mises Institute.

Bloom in the FTAdvisor on the credit reference agencies' being 'castrated' by the EU.

In October 1992 Mr Bloom launched a campaign to help people avoid mis-selling of pension schemes. It was very warmly welcomed by the press, particularly the Observer. It was the very first indication of the problem. An employee tape of the advice was produced for all human resource departments as part of a redundancy package. It can be heard on his website.

In 1996 Mr Bloom warned, in Money Marketing, that ‘split caps’ were not the solid safe investment people thought, and late in the year explained in Financial Adviser the dangers of what was to become ‘precipice bonds’.

The National Pension Fund representative to Mercury Asset Management in the late 1980s (Europe’s largest pension fund manager) he has retained a keen interest in pension development since the early 1970s. In 1996 he was part of the Francis Maude regulatory consultancy panel, from which he later resigned.

On the financial crisis

Bloom was a co-author of Wolfson Prize Economics Submission with Professor Pat Barron and Professor Philipp Bagus. He warns that credit agencies would be "castrated" by too much regulation of the EU.

Bloom claims that MEPs have "little or no business experience" and do not understand the consequences of their actions.

On women's rights

A few weeks after being appointed to the European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality on 20 July 2004, Bloom told an interview that, "no self-respecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age. " Around the same time, he said that "I just don't think [women] clean behind the fridge enough" and that "I am here to represent Yorkshire women who always have dinner on the table when you get home." Bloom told BBC Radio 4's Today that his comments were "said for fun" to illustrate a more serious point, that equal-rights legislation was in fact putting women out of work.

Bloom confessed that he used to visit brothels in Hong Kong, claiming that "terrified young women beaten into prostitution often from Eastern Europe [...] is only a very small aspect of the flesh trade", and concluded that "in short, most girls do it because they want to."

After inviting students from the University of Cambridge Women's Rugby Club to Brussels in 2004, he was accused of sexual harassment, making sexist comments and using offensive language during a dinner party. One student handed in a formal letter of protest to the President of the European Parliament, heavily criticising Bloom's behaviour. Bloom who sponsored the club with £3,000 a year, later admitted making misogyny comments but denied a sexual harassment.

On climate change

Bloom rejects anthropogenic global warming. He said in 2009: "As far as I am concerned man-made global warming is nothing more than a hypothesis that hasn't got any basis in fact. Every day more scientists are modifying their initial views." He argues that the global climate has actually been cooling down since 2002, and bases this on "the very early skiing season" each year.

On the Rainbow Warrior bombing

Bloom was filmed at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen congratulating the French for bombing the Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace ship, in 1985. Bloom's comment prompted outrage from the environmental group, which accused him of "celebrating" the killing of Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira in the bombing in Auckland. Bloom was filmed posing in front of the present Greenpeace flagship, Rainbow Warrior II, during the climate summit at the Copenhagen harbour. In the footage, he said: "Here we have one of the most truly fascist boats since 1945, Well done the French for sinking (it)." The video appeared to have been uploaded to Bloom's YouTube channel Goddersvision on 16 December during the last days of the summit, but was later taken down.

Other controversies

In December 2008, Bloom had to be carried out by an intern after making a European Parliament speech while drunk. During the speech, Bloom denied that the MEPs from Poland, the Czech Republic or Latvia have the ability to understand economic relations. In February 2012, Bloom interrupted a debate with the question whether the Cambridge University Women's Rugby team should wear their logo on the front or back of their shirts. Later he admitted to have consumed alcohol and "very heavy" prescription painkillers after breaking his collarbone in a riding accident.

On 24 November 2010, Bloom was ejected from the European Parliament after directing a Nazi slogan at a German MEP Martin Schulz as the latter was speaking during a debate on the economic crisis in Ireland. Godfrey Bloom interrupted Schulz and said "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer" - one people, one empire, one leader. He was then suspended from the debate.

Bloom was ejected from the Mansion House for heckling Lord Turner in 2009. In a following letter to the UKIP, Turner wrote that "Mr Bloom will not be receiving any further invitations to Mansion House events nor will be welcome at the Brussels Annual reception [...] As to future Mansion House events we will be seeking a different MEP from UKIP as a potential guest."

At the height of the 2009 parliamentary expenses scandal, Bloom complained about the lack of manners of the political class. In a statement on his website, he pointed out that, unlike many others, he wouldn't employ family members in his parliamentary staff. However, Bloom later conceded that three members of his staff were also employed part-time at TBO, the company in which he is a major shareholder, and one of these is his wife's niece.

External links

• Official website
• Profile on European Parliament website