Douglas Carswell

Douglas Carswell  MP
Member of Parliament for Clacton Harwich (2005-10)
Incumbent
Assumed office 5 May 2005
Preceded by	Ivan Henderson
Majority	12,068 (28.0%)
Personal details
Born	(1971-05-03) 3 May 1971 City of Westminster, London
Nationality	British
Political party	Conservative
Spouse	Clementine
Alma mater	Charterhouse School University of East Anglia King's College London
Website	www.douglascarswell.com

John Douglas Wilson Carswell (born 3 May 1971) is a British politician. He is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Clacton.

Early life

Douglas Carswell is the son of two medical doctors, and grew up in Africa, where his parents worked amongst resource-starved communities. His home was in Uganda until his late teens. His father, Wilson Carswell, a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, diagnosed the first confirmed cases of HIV/AIDS, in Uganda in the early 1980s, and was instrumental in drawing the world's attention to the unfolding pandemic.

Carswell was educated at St. Andrews School, Turi, Kenya; Charterhouse School; the University of East Anglia, where he graduated with a degree in history in 1993; and at King's College London. He worked as Corporate Development Manager for Television Broadcasting in Italy from 1997-9, and for INVESCO, reporting to the Continental Europe regional CEO, from 1999 before entering politics. At the 2001 General Election, he was the Conservative candidate at Sedgefield: the constituency of the Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair's majority fell by 7,500 votes, and Carswell managed to increase the Conservative share of the vote by 3.1% of the electorate. In the months before the 2005 General Election, he worked in the Conservative Party's Policy Unit, reporting to David Cameron.

Member of Parliament

Douglas Carswell was elected to Parliament at the 2005 General Election for the constituency of Harwich, defeating the sitting Labour MP Ivan Henderson by 920 votes. In the new constituency of Clacton at the 2010 General Election, Carswell increased his majority over Henderson to 12,068 votes.

Carswell made his maiden speech on 28 June 2005 in the debate on the Identity Cards Bill. He is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel. Carswell serves on the House of Commons Education Select Committee and the Public Accounts Committee.

Shortly after entering Parliament, Carswell wrote a publication 'Direct Democracy: an agenda for a new model party'. This publication has been described by The Spectator (June 2, 2007) as "one of the founding texts of the new, revitalised Toryism .... written by some of the brightest young Conservative thinkers". It sets out much of the thinking that has now become central to the Conservatives under David Cameron MP.

Carswell has also founded Direct Democracy, a group of like-minded modernisers within the party committed to making localism the core of the Conservative Party's platform. The group has been described by The First Post as one of the most influential Tory think tanks.

Carswell made his mark at Westminster, bringing about the removal of a Speaker of the House of Commons for the first time in over 300 years. He defied convention in April 2008 when he became the first MP to publicly call for the Speaker of the House of Commons Michael Martin to be fired after his failure to ensure greater transparency as to how the House of Commons is run. In May 2009, he then put forward the motion of no confidence, backed by 23 MPs, which triggered Martin's downfall in June.

Dod's political biography describes Carswell as being "Tall and Eurosceptic ... one of his party's radical thinkers". Carswell was described in The Sunday Times Magazine on July 27, 2008 as "one of the energetic young Tory modernisers elected to the Commons in 2005".

In December 2009, Carswell introduced a Bill before the House of Commons requesting a public referendum on British EU membership.

The eurosceptic United Kingdom Independence Party decided not to field a candidate against Carswell in the 2010 general election. Instead, UKIP actively campaigned for his re-election as a result of his anti-EU views.

Misleading campaign

His Labour opponent, Ivan Henderson, has accused Carswell of basing his entire 2005 election campaign on two themes: that Carswell was a local man and that the government were responsible for the closure of the Leas School. Henderson says that both statements are untrue: "Carswell was born in London, grew up in southern Africa and only sought to be the 'local' Tory candidate when he failed to gain selection in Wellingborough. Even now, five years on, he has not bought a house here but still rents a property at taxpayers' expense for when he visits the constituency. The Conservatives running Essex County Council freely admit that they chose to close the Leas School and did so because they believe it would enable them to improve special needs education in North Essex."

Henderson accuses Carswell of mounting a misleading campaign again in 2010: "He is standing as a Conservative candidate claiming that the UK should withdraw from Europe. He is not telling you that this is not Conservative policy and that David Cameron’s manifesto states 'We will be positive members of the European Union. The European Union has done much to reconcile the painful division of Europe and to spread democracy and rule of law across our continent but it should not rest on those achievements.' Mr Carswell is also stating publicly that he fully supports our NHS. He is a founder member of the Cornerstone Group of Tory MPs whose stated policy is 'restructuring the NHS so that hospitals are no longer owned and run by the state.' At a hustings meeting organised by the Tendring Pensioners Action Group in Holland-on-Sea, Mr Carswell denied being a member of the Cornerstone Group. He actually described the suggestion as 'outrageous'. Once again, he was misleading the local pensioners in the audience." At the subsequent hustings in Frinton, Ivan Henderson produced a Cornerstone Group document confirming that Douglas Carswell is in fact a member. Henderson said: "It was, of course, too late for the pensioners in Holland-on-Sea to question him as to why he wants to sell off our NHS hospitals."

On 4 May 2010, Carswell received birthday greetings from an anonymous constituent in Holland-on-Sea:

Hi Douglas, Happy Birthday, I was going to vote for you but then today I (and it looks like everyone else in our area) got a leaflet from Labour saying that you belong to the Cornerstone Group and want to basically privatise the NHS, which is totally unacceptable to me and I imagine many many others. Is this true, my vote will be going Lib Dem if so, I won't vote Labour, but I can't vote for you either if this is true.

Carswell responded:

Dear "Concerned of Holland-on-Sea", I think most folk reading that leaflet will see it for what it is; desperate attempts to frighten folk into supporting Labour. For the record, I support our local NHS 100%. I used the NHS. I've campaigned to safeguard local services - including Peter Bruff ward at Clacton hospital. I hope that makes it clear. Please don't fall for these desperate attempts to smear and frighten you into supporting Labour. Posted on 4 May 2010 16:46 by Douglas Carswell.

On Election Day, another constituent commented: "Concerned of Holland-on-Sea asked you a straightforward question are you a member of the Cornerstone Group. The fact that you failed to answer it and tried to fob her off says it all. It is shameful how you are misleading voters over the NHS. Posted on 6 May 2010 07:29 by Alison Mealing."

Political positions

Carswell has been an outspoken advocate of political reform, and action to clean up Westminster politics. He has proposed radical change to force politicians to answer outward to the electorate, rather than to other politicians. In recognition of his stance, the Daily Telegraph nominated him a Briton of the Year 2009 , and Spectator readers voted him their choice as Parliamentarian of the Year for that same year.

Carswell is also a vociferous opponent of action to tackle climate change. He has used his blog to refer to the general agreement among the scientific community that there is a man-made element to climate change as a 'lunatic consensus'.

Influence in the Conservative Party

It has been claimed that The Plan, a book written by Carswell (and his co-author Daniel Hannan) has influenced some of the thinking in speeches and policy announcements made by the leader of the Conservative Party David Cameron. However, while Cameron has spoken of decentralising power in the UK, he has not adopted all 30 proposals outlined in The Plan. Nor has he yet subscribed to the view that Britain should withdraw from the EEC, as Carswell and Hannan advocate.

However, various independent bloggers have noted key similarities between ideas outline in The Plan and Conservative party policy under David Cameron. ConservativeHome drew attention to parallels between the text of The Plan and a speech made by David Cameron in Milton Keynes in May 2009. Blogger Guido Fawkes, who describes The Plan as a "huge hit, an Amazon bestseller and the all-time best-selling publish-on-demand publication ever sold by Amazon", also noted the influence of the book on Conservative thinking.

Carswell has frequently been invited to speak at conferences and seminars on a range of policy topics in which he has no formal role within the party, such as reform of the criminal justice system, constitutional reform, defence and local government.

In July 2009, the Conservatives announced they would be using full, open primary contests to select candidates for the first time, another illustration of the way that ideas in The Plan have been adopted by the Conservatives.

Publications

• Direct Democracy – Agenda for a New Model Party
• Paying for Localism
• Chief author of The Localist Papers
• The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain - co-written with Daniel Hannan.

External links

• Douglas Carswell Official Site
• talkcarswell.com Douglas' Blog
• BBC Politics MP Profile
• They Work For You