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John Whittingdale

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John Whittingdale
OBE MP
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Incumbent
Assumed office
11 May 2015
Prime MinisterDavid Cameron
Preceded bySajid Javid
Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee
In office
14 July 2005 – 11 May 2015
Preceded byGerald Kaufman
Succeeded byTBD
Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
In office
19 June 2004 – 6 May 2005
LeaderMichael Howard
Preceded byJulie Kirkbride
Succeeded byTheresa May
In office
23 July 2002 – 8 December 2003
LeaderIain Duncan Smith
Preceded byTim Yeo
Succeeded byJulie Kirkbride
Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry
In office
18 September 2001 – 23 July 2002
LeaderIain Duncan Smith
Preceded byDavid Heathcoat-Amory
Succeeded byTim Yeo
Member of Parliament
for Maldon
Maldon and East Chelmsford (1997-2010)
South Colchester and Maldon (1992–1997)
Incumbent
Assumed office
9 April 1992
Preceded byJohn Wakeham
Majority19,407 (40.5%)
Personal details
Born (1959-10-16) 16 October 1959 (age 65)
Sherborne, England
Political partyConservative
SpouseAncilla Murfitt (Divorced)
Children2
Alma materUniversity College London

John Whittingdale OBE (born 16 October 1959)[1] is a Conservative politician in the United Kingdom. He has been a Member of Parliament (MP) since 1992. He is currently Vice-Chairman of the 1922 Committee. He was a member of the Executive of Conservative Way Forward (2005–10) and the Conservative Party Board (2006–10). He is the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport as of 11 May 2015.[2]

Education

Winchester College

Whittingdale was educated at two independent schools: at Sandroyd School[3] from 1968–1973, in Rushmore Park at the heart of Cranborne Chase near Tollard Royal in Wiltshire and at Winchester College in the county town of Winchester in Hampshire, followed by University College London (UCL) where he was Chairman of the UCL Conservative Society, and earned his BSc in Economics in 1982 (grade 2:2). [citation needed]

Early life

From 1982–84, Whittingdale was Head of the political section of the Conservative Research Department. He then served as Special Adviser to three successive Secretaries of State for Trade and Industry, Norman Tebbit, 1984–85; Leon Brittan, 1985–86, and Paul Channon, 1986–87. He worked on international privatisation at NM Rothschild in 1987 and in January 1988, became Political Secretary to the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Upon her resignation, Whittingdale received the OBE and he continued as her Political Secretary until his election to Parliament in 1992.[citation needed]

Parliamentary career

He was first elected to parliament in 1992. He served as PPS to Eric Forth as Minister of State for Education and Employment, but had to resign after voting against the government on an amendment that would have allowed a media publisher with more than 20 per cent of the national press market to buy an ITV company.[4]

He was later shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary from 2004 until the reshuffle after the general election in 2005 when he was re-elected Member of Parliament for Maldon and Chelmsford East. In 2005 he was appointed to the Executive of Conservative Way Forward, a Thatcherite pressure group within the Conservative Party. He is on a member of the Council of the Freedom Association and the European Foundation. In 2008, he was elected as a Parliamentary Member of the Board of the Conservative Party and Vice Chairman of the Conservative Parliamentary 1922 Committee. In 2011 he was Chairman of the Football Governance Inquiry. In 2012 he was Chairman of the Joint Parliamentar Committee on Privacy and Injunctions. He is the chair of the All Party Parliamentary Intellectual Property Group

Whittingdale voted against the legislation for same-sex marriage in 2013. [5]

In 2014 Whittingdale along with six other Conservative Party MPs voted against the Equal Pay (Transparency) Bill which would require all companies with more than 250 employees to declare the gap in pay between the average male and average female salaries.[6]

Media Select Committee

On 14 July 2005,[7] he became the Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. In this role he led the Committee's 2009/2010 investigation into libel and privacy issues, including the News International phone hacking scandal after The Guardian first revealed the extent of the practice at the News of the World. He was accused of warning members of the committee not to compel former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks to testify due to the risk that their personal lives would be investigated in revenge, but has strongly denied the accusation.[8] In April 2011, he called for a public inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World and to why a series of investigations by Scotland Yard failed to link any News International employees to phone hacking other than the News of the World's former royal editor, Clive Goodman. Whittingdale said: "There are some very big questions. What I find [most] worrying is the apparent unwillingness of the police, who had the evidence and chose to do nothing with it. That's something that needs to be looked into."[9]

With just one out of three of the senior executives agreeing to appear before the committee session on 19 July, Whittingdale took the rarely used step of issuing a summons to compel the Murdochs to attend.[10] Whittingdale said select committees had taken such steps against individuals in the past and they had complied and continued "I hope very much that the Murdochs will respond similarly."[11] They both did, on 19 July, in what one paper described as the most important select committee hearing in parliament's history.[12]

For their work on the phone hacking scandal, John Whittingdale accepted the Spectator magazine's 2011 inquisitor of the year on behalf of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee.

Funding and Expenses

In 2012 Whittington received £8000 for 32 hours' work as a non-executive director of Audio Network plc an online music catalogue.[13] He also was paid expenses for visits to Yalta, Taiwan, Armenia.[13]

Personal life

He married Ancilla Murfitt in 1990 who is a practice nurse at a general practice in Suffolk. They have two children. The marriage was dissolved in 2007.

Whittingdale's half-brother, Charles Napier, is a convicted child sex offender.[14]

References

  1. ^ "Democracy Live: Your representatives: John Whittingdale". BBC News. Retrieved 21 November 2012.
  2. ^ John Whittingdale becomes UK culture secretary, BBC, 11 May 2015
  3. ^ Sandroyd School's list of Distinguished Alumni
  4. ^ The Independent And the Real Winners Will Be..., 18 July 2011
  5. ^ "Gay marriage how did your mp vote Map". guardian.com. 6 February 2013. Retrieved 18 April 2015.
  6. ^ "Equal Pay: Seven male Tory MPs vote against bill to make big companies reveal gender pay gap". independent.co.uk. 16 December 2014. Retrieved 18 April 2015.
  7. ^ http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/briefings/snpc-04400.pdf
  8. ^ "The MPs who will take on the Murdochs". The Daily Telegraph. London. 18 July 2011.
  9. ^ The Guardian report on hacking, 13 April 2011
  10. ^ Rupert and James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks to give evidence to Parliament
  11. ^ The Guardian report on hacking scandal, 14 July 2011.
  12. ^ Sparrow, Andrew; Owen, Paul; Wells, Matt (19 July 2011). "Phone hacking: Murdochs and Rebekah Brooks face MPs". The Guardian. London.
  13. ^ a b "John Whittingdale Conservative MP for Maldon". Retrieved 26 June 2013.
  14. ^ "Charles Napier jailed for 13 years after admitting sexually assaulting young boys". Telegraph. Retrieved 23 December 2014.

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Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament
for Colchester South and Maldon
1992–1997 		Constituency abolished
New constituency Member of Parliament
for Maldon and East Chelmsford
1997–2010
Member of Parliament
for Maldon
2010–present 		Incumbent
Political offices
Preceded by Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry
2001–2002 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
2002–2003 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
2004–2005 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
2015–present 		Incumbent

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