"Being an MP" - Jon Trickett, Member of Parliament for Hemsworth (Labour)
Friday March 20th, 2015 - 4.15pm, The Fothergill Theatre
Friday March 20th, 2015 - 4.15pm, The Fothergill Theatre
Jon Trickett, MP will give a Platform for The Fothergill Society on being a Member of Parliament. All are welcome from across the age ranges of the school to attend this talk and ask questions. We meet in The Fothergill Theatre on Friday March 20th, beginning at 4.15pm.
Jon Trickett has been the Member of Parliament for Hemsworth since 1996, representing a number of former mining communities in the heart of Yorkshire. Prior to being elected to Parliament, Jon had been a councillor for Beeston ward in South Leeds, elected to the council in the middle of the miners’ strike in 1984, and became Leader of the Leeds Council in 1989. Under Jon's leadership the City of Leeds pioneered new forms of social partnership and innovative ways of providing public services. Entering Parliament in a by-election in 1996, Jon saw the final months of the decaying Tory Government. In 1997 Jon joined the Labour Government briefly as PPS to Peter Mandelson and was witness to many of the early actions of the Labour Government. Jon spent most of the rest of the years of Tony Blair's premiership on the back benches where he spoke out on a range of progressive issues. Jon was particularly concerned about the marketisation of public services, the introduction of tuition fees, and the war in Iraq. In 2008, Jon re-entered the Labour Government as PPS to the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown and served in No 10 Downing Street until the 2010 election. After the election of Ed Miliband as Leader of the Labour Party Jon became a full member of the Shadow Cabinet and is currently Deputy Chair of the Labour Party and Shadow Minister without Portfolio where his overriding preoccupation is the construction of a mass party of working people.
PLATFORM NOTES
The text that inspired Jon to enter politics is Robert Tressell's The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. For an e-copy of this text, please click here.