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George Cunningham (British Politician)
George Cunningham (10 June 1931 – 27 July 2018) was a British politician who is known for introducing an amendment to the 1979 Scottish devolution referendum that resulted in the devolution act being repealed even though a majority voted in favour. Early life Born in Dumfermline, Cunningham was educated at Dunfermline High School, Blackpool Grammar School and the University of Manchester. He worked for the Labour Party as its Commonwealth officer. Political career Cunningham contested Henley at the 1966 general election as the Labour candidate. He was first elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington South West at the 1970 general election. After boundary changes, he was elected for Islington South and Finsbury at the February 1974 election. Cunningham strongly opposed Scottish devolution. At his prompting, the House of Commons accepted an amendment to the Scotland Act 1978 that a majority voting "yes" in the 1979 referendum on establishing a devolved Assem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Islington South And Finsbury (UK Parliament Constituency)
Islington South and Finsbury is a constituency created in 1974 and represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by Emily Thornberry of the Labour Party. Thornberry served as Shadow Foreign Secretary from 2016 until 2020 and is currently Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales. Boundaries 1974–1983: The London Borough of Islington wards of Barnsbury, Bunhill, Clerkenwell, Pentonville, St Mary, St Peter, and Thornhill. 1983–2010: As above, save that Pentonville was abolished and Canonbury East, Canonbury West, Hillmarton, Holloway were created or added to the seat. 2010–present: The London Borough of Islington wards of Barnsbury, Bunhill, Caledonian, Canonbury, Clerkenwell, Holloway, St Mary's and St Peter's. The seat covers the southern part of the London Borough of Islington, including Barnsbury, Canonbury, major parts of Holloway, Kings Cross and the former area of the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury, which includes Bunhill, Pentonvil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scotland Act 1978
The Scotland Act 1978 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom intended to establish a Scottish Assembly as a devolved legislature for Scotland. At a referendum held in the following year, the Act failed to gain the necessary level of approval required by an amendment, and was never put into effect. Background Following Winnie Ewing's groundbreaking win for the Scottish National Party in the 1967 Hamilton by-election, the United Kingdom government responded to the growing support for Scottish independence by setting up the Royal Commission on the Constitution, better known as the ''Kilbrandon Commission'' (1969–1973). In response to the Royal Commission's report, James Callaghan's Labour government brought forward proposals to establish a Scottish Assembly. In November 1977 a ''Scotland Bill'' providing for the establishment of a Scottish Assembly was introduced; it received the Royal assent on 31 July 1978. The proposed Scottish Assembly Had the Scotland Act 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1931 Births
Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir Isaac Isaacs is sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia. * January 25 – Mohandas Gandhi is again released from imprisonment in India. * January 27 – Pierre Laval forms a government in France. February * February 4 – Soviet leader Joseph Stalin gives a speech calling for rapid industrialization, arguing that only strong industrialized countries will win wars, while "weak" nations are "beaten". Stalin states: "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us." The first five-year plan in the Soviet Union is intensified, for the industrialization and collectivization of agriculture. * February 10 †... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1979 Welsh Devolution Referendum
The 1979 Welsh devolution referendum was a post-legislative referendum held on 1 March 1979 (Saint David's Day) to decide whether there was sufficient support for a Welsh Assembly among the Welsh electorate. The referendum was held under the terms of the Wales Act 1978 drawn up to implement proposals made by the Kilbrandon Report published in 1973. The plans were defeated by a majority of 4:1 (20.3% for and 79.7% against) with only 12% of the Welsh electorate voting in favour of establishing an assembly. A second referendum to create a devolved assembly for Wales was held in 1997, which led to the enactment of the Government of Wales Act 1998 and the creation of the National Assembly for Wales in 1999. Background Both the Scotland Act and the Wales Act contained a requirement that at least 40% of all voters back the plan. It had been passed as an amendment by Islington South MP George Cunningham with the backing of Bedwellty MP Neil Kinnock. Kinnock, the future leader ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
October 1974 United Kingdom General Election
The October 1974 United Kingdom general election took place on Thursday 10 October 1974 to elect 635 members of the British House of Commons. It was the second general election held that year, the first year that two general elections were held in the same year since 1910, and the first time that two general elections were held less than a year apart from each other since the 1923 and 1924 elections, which took place 10 months apart. The election resulted in the Labour Party led by Harold Wilson winning a bare majority of just 3 seats. This enabled the remainder of the Labour government, 1974–1979 to take place, which saw a gradual loss of its majority. The election of February that year had produced an unexpected hung parliament. Coalition talks between the Conservatives and other parties such as the Liberals and the Ulster Unionists failed, allowing Labour leader Harold Wilson to form a minority government. The October campaign was not as vigorous or exciting as the one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Twickenham (UK Parliament Constituency)
Twickenham is a House of Commons constituency in South-West London, represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Munira Wilson of the Liberal Democrats. History Since 1945, the boundaries of the seat have been similar to those of the abolished Municipal Borough of Twickenham. From 1931 until 1983, Twickenham was a safe seat of the Conservative Party and from 1983 until 1997 a marginal seat for that party. Liberal Democrat Vince Cable gained the seat during the 1997 landslide Conservative defeat and held it until 2015. The seat was one of very few in Britain that gave the Liberal Democrats a majority of votes in the 2005 and 2010 elections, being their sixth best performance nationally in 2010. Cable was Secretary of State for Business from 2010 to 2015, but unexpectedly lost his seat to the Conservative candidate Tania Mathias in the 2015 general election during the nationwide collapse in the Liberal Democrat vote. Cable regained the seat in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1987 United Kingdom General Election
The 1987 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 11 June 1987, to elect 650 members to the House of Commons. The election was the third consecutive general election victory for the Conservative Party, and second landslide under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, who became the first Prime Minister since the Earl of Liverpool in 1820 to lead a party into three successive electoral victories. The Conservatives ran a campaign focusing on lower taxes, a strong economy and strong defence. They also emphasised that unemployment had just fallen below the 3 million mark for the first time since 1981, and inflation was standing at 4%, its lowest level since the 1960s. National newspapers also continued to largely back the Conservative Government, particularly '' The Sun'', which ran anti-Labour articles with headlines such as "Why I'm backing Kinnock, by Stalin". The Labour Party, led by Neil Kinnock following Michael Foot's resignation in the aftermath of their l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1983 United Kingdom General Election
The 1983 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 9 June 1983. It gave the Conservative Party under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher the most decisive election victory since that of the Labour Party in 1945, with a majority of 144 seats. Thatcher's first term as Prime Minister had not been an easy time. Unemployment increased during the first three years of her premiership and the economy went through a recession. However, the British victory in the Falklands War led to a recovery of her personal popularity, and economic growth had begun to resume. By the time Thatcher called the election in May 1983, opinion polls pointed to a Conservative victory, with most national newspapers backing the re-election of the Conservative government. The resulting win earned the Conservatives their biggest parliamentary majority of the post-war era, and their second-biggest majority as a single-party government, behind only the 1924 election (they earned even more seats in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Democratic Party (UK)
The Social Democratic Party (SDP) was a centrist to centre-left political party in the United Kingdom.The SDP is widely described as a centrist political party: * * * * * The party supported a mixed economy (favouring a system inspired by the German social market economy), electoral reform, European integration and a decentralised state while rejecting the possibility of trade unions being overly influential within the industrial sphere. The SDP officially advocated social democracy, but its actual propensity is evaluated as close to social liberalism. The SDP was founded on 26 March 1981 by four senior Labour Party moderates, dubbed the " Gang of Four": Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers, and Shirley Williams, who issued the Limehouse Declaration. Owen and Rodgers were sitting Labour Members of Parliament (MPs); Jenkins had left Parliament in 1977 to serve as President of the European Commission, while Williams had lost her seat in the 1979 general election. All fou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online news coverage. The service maintains 50 foreign news bureaus with more than 250 correspondents around the world. Deborah Turness has been the CEO of news and current affairs since September 2022. In 2019, it was reported in an Ofcom report that the BBC spent £136m on news during the period April 2018 to March 2019. BBC News' domestic, global and online news divisions are housed within the largest live newsroom in Europe, in Broadcasting House in central London. Parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in London. Through BBC English Regions, the BBC also has regional centres across England and national news c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1979 United Kingdom General Election
The 1979 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 3 May 1979 to elect 635 members to the British House of Commons. The Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher, ousted the incumbent Labour government of James Callaghan with a parliamentary majority of 44 seats. The election was the first of four consecutive election victories for the Conservative Party, and Thatcher became the United Kingdom's and Europe's first elected female head of government, marking the beginning of 18 years in government for the Conservatives and 18 years in opposition for Labour. Unusually, the date chosen coincided with the 1979 local elections. The local government results provided some source of comfort to the Labour Party, who recovered some lost ground from local election reversals in previous years, despite losing the general election. The parish council elections were pushed back a few weeks. The previous parliamentary term had begun in October 1974, when Harold Wilson led La ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1979 Vote Of No Confidence In The Callaghan Ministry
A vote of no confidence in the British Labour government of James Callaghan occurred on 28 March 1979. The vote was brought by opposition leader Margaret Thatcher and was lost by the Labour government by one vote (311 votes to 310), which was announced at 10:19 pm. The result mandated a general election which was won by Thatcher's Conservative Party. The last time an election had been forced by the House of Commons was in 1924, when Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour Prime Minister, lost a vote of confidence. Labour politician Roy Hattersley later remarked that the vote marked "the last rites" of 'old Labour'. Labour did not return to government for another 18 years. The BBC has referred to the vote as "one of the most dramatic nights in Westminster history". Background The general election at the end of February 1974 resulted in a hung parliament where Labour had slightly more seats than any other party but no overall majority. The Conservatives tried to negotiate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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