Martin Sixsmith
Martin Sixsmith (born 24 September 1954) is a British author and radio/television presenter, primarily working for the BBC. He has also worked as an adviser to the Labour government and to the BBC television comedy series ''The Thick of It''. Sixsmith's book, ''The Lost Child of Philomena Lee'', was the basis for the 2013 film ''Philomena'', in which Sixsmith is played by Steve Coogan. Education Sixsmith was born in Warrington. He was educated at The Manchester Grammar School, then at New College, Oxford, Harvard, the Sorbonne University in Paris, and in Saint Petersburg – then called Leningrad – in Russia. He studied Russian and French. He was a Slavics Tutor at Harvard, and wrote his postgraduate thesis about Russian poetry. Between 2002 and 2007 he studied psychology and applied psychology as a mature student at Birkbeck College, University of London, and at London Metropolitan University. Career and writings Sixsmith joined the BBC in 1980 as a foreign correspondent ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Warrington
Warrington () is a town and unparished area in the borough of the same name in the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England, on the banks of the River Mersey. It is east of Liverpool, and west of Manchester. The population in 2019 was estimated at 165,456 for the town's urban area, and just over 210,014 for the entire borough, the latter being more than double that of 1968 when it became a new town. Warrington is the largest town in the ceremonial county of Cheshire. In 2011 the unparished area had a population of 58,871. Warrington was founded by the Romans at an important crossing place on the River Mersey. A new settlement was established by the Saxon Wærings. By the Middle Ages, Warrington had emerged as a market town at the lowest bridging point of the river. A local tradition of textile and tool production dates from this time. The town of Warrington (north of the Mersey) is within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire and the expansion and urbanisation ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous member state of the European Union. Warsaw is the nation's capital and largest metropolis. Other major cities include Kraków, Wrocław, Łódź, Poznań, Gdańsk, and Szczecin. Poland has a temperate transitional climate and its territory traverses the Central European Plain, extending from Baltic Sea in the north to Sudeten and Carpathian Mountains in the south. The longest Polish river is the Vistula, and Poland's highest point is Mount Rysy, situated in the Tatra mountain range of the Carpathians. The country is bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukraine to the east, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to the south, and Germany to the west. It also shares maritime boundaries with Denmark and Sweden. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stephen Byers
Stephen John Byers (born 13 April 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wallsend between 1992 and 1997, and North Tyneside from 1997 to 2010. He served in the Cabinet from 1998 to 2002, and was implicated in the MP expenses scandal and retired from politics in 2010. During Byers' ministerial career, he was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, and Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions in the Cabinet. Early career Stephen Byers was born in Wolverhampton. He was educated at Wymondham College, a state-run day and boarding school, Chester City Grammar School and the Chester College of Further Education. He then gained a law degree at Liverpool John Moores University and became a law lecturer at Newcastle Polytechnic (now Northumbria University) in 1977, a post he retained until his election as a Member of Parliament in 1992. Byers was elected as a councillor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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List Of Political Scandals In The United Kingdom
This is a list of political scandals in the United Kingdom in chronological order. Scandals implicating political figures or governments of the UK, often reported in the mass media, have long had repercussions for their popularity. Issues in political scandals have included alleged or proven financial and sexual matters, or various other allegations or actions taken by politicians that led to controversy. In British media and political discourse, such scandals have sometimes been referred to as political sleaze since the 1990s. Notable scandals include the Marconi scandal, Profumo affair and the 2009 expenses scandal. 1890s *Liberator Building Society scandal, in which the Liberal Party MP Jabez Balfour was exposed as running several fraudulent companies to conceal financial losses. Balfour fled to Argentina, but was eventually arrested and imprisoned. 1910s * Marconi scandal of insider trading by Liberal Party Ministers including: ** Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Department For Transport
The Department for Transport (DfT) is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for the English transport network and a limited number of transport matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that have not been devolved. The department is run by the Secretary of State for Transport, currently (since 25 October 2022) Mark Harper. The expenditure, administration and policy of the Department for Transport are scrutinised by the Transport Committee. History The Ministry of Transport was established by the Ministry of Transport Act 1919 which provided for the transfer to the new ministry of powers and duties of any government department in respect of railways, light railways, tramways, canals and inland waterways, roads, bridges and ferries, and vehicles and traffic thereon, harbours, docks and piers. In September 1919, all the powers of the Road Board, the Ministry of Health, and the Board of Trade in respect of transport, were transferred to the new ministry. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Marconi Communications
Marconi Communications, the former telecommunications arm of Britain's General Electric Company plc (GEC), was founded in August 1998 through the amalgamation of GEC Plessey Telecommunications (GPT) with other GEC subsidiaries: Marconi SpA, GEC Hong Kong, and ATC South Africa. In December 1999, it became the principal subsidiary of Marconi plc, formed by renaming the remainder of GEC when GEC's defence arm, Marconi Electronic Systems, was sold to British Aerospace to form BAE Systems. Marconi plc was restructured to Marconi Corporation plc in May 2003. Marconi Corporation used the cash raised by selling the defence arm to buy US telecoms companies, with the aim of becoming a major telecommunications systems provider. After losing most of its value in the subsequent dot-com bubble crash, and failing to win major contracts, in 2006 Ericsson acquired a majority of Marconi Corporation. The remainder of Marconi Corporation was renamed Telent. History Companies with "Marconi" in the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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General Electric Company
The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and defence electronics, communications, and engineering. The company was founded in 1886, was Britain's largest private employer with over 250,000 employees in the 1980s, and at its peak in the 1990s, made profits of over £1 billion a year. In June 1998, GEC sold its share of the joint venture GEC-Alsthom on the Paris stock exchange. In December 1999, GEC's defence arm, Marconi Electronic Systems, was sold to British Aerospace, forming BAE Systems. The rest of GEC, mainly telecommunications equipment manufacturing, continued as Marconi Communications. After buying several US telecoms manufacturers at the top of the market, losses following the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2001 led to the restructuring in 2003 of Marconi plc into Marconi Corporation plc. In 2005, Ericsson acquired the bulk of that company. What was left of the business was renamed Telent. History ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alistair Darling
Alistair Maclean Darling, Baron Darling of Roulanish, (born 28 November 1953) is a British politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Prime Minister Gordon Brown from 2007 to 2010. A member of the Labour Party, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1987 until he stepped down in 2015, most recently for Edinburgh South West. Darling was first appointed as Chief Secretary to the Treasury by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1997, and was promoted to Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in 1998. After spending four years at that department, he spent a further four years as Secretary of State for Transport, while also becoming Secretary of State for Scotland in 2003. Blair moved Darling for a final time in 2006, making him President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, before new Prime Minister Gordon Brown promoted Darling to replace himself as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2007, a position he remained in until 2010. He served as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Frank Field (British Politician)
Frank Ernest Field, Baron Field of Birkenhead, (born 16 July 1942) is a British politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Birkenhead for 40 years, from 1979 to 2019, serving as a Labour MP until August 2018 and thereafter as an Independent. In 2019, he formed the Birkenhead Social Justice Party and stood unsuccessfully as its sole candidate in the 2019 election. After leaving the House of Commons he was awarded a life peerage in 2020 and sits in the House of Lords as a crossbencher. From 1997 to 1998, Field served as the Minister of Welfare Reform in Tony Blair's government. Field resigned following differences with the Prime Minister; as a backbencher he soon became one of the Labour government's most vocal critics. Field was elected Chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee in June 2015. Following the 2017 general election he was re-elected unopposed. In August 2018, Field resigned the Labour whip citing antisemitism in the party, as well as a "culture o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Harriet Harman
Harriet Ruth Harman (born 30 July 1950) is a British politician and solicitor who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Camberwell and Peckham, formerly Peckham, since 1982. A member of the Labour Party, she has served in various Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet positions. Born in London to a doctor and a barrister, Harman was privately educated at St Paul's Girls' School before going on to study politics at the University of York. After working for Brent Law Centre, she became a legal officer for the National Council for Civil Liberties, a role in which she was found in contempt of court following action pursued by Michael Havers, a former Attorney General. She successfully took a case, ''Harman v United Kingdom'', to the European Court of Human Rights, which found Havers had breached her right to freedom of expression. Harman was elected as MP for Peckham at a 1982 by-election. She was made a shadow social services minister in 1984 and a shadow health minister in 1 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Department Of Social Security
The Department of Social Security (DSS) was a governmental agency in the United Kingdom from 1988 to 2001. The old abbreviation is still often used informally. Advertisements for rented accommodation used to describe prospective tenants who would be paying their rent by means of Housing Benefit, or the "Housing Element" of Universal Credit, as "DSS" tenants. However, because of many changes within the benefit system, which is managed by the Department for Work and Pensions, the "DSS" tenants phrase has become outdated and is rarely used. History After the Fowler report, the Department of Health and Social Security separated during 1988 to form two departments, one of which was the DSS. During 2001, the department was largely replaced by the Department for Work and Pensions, with the other responsibilities of the department assumed by the Treasury and the Ministry for Defence. Beginning in 1989, the Department of Social Security was subdivided into six executive agencies - fir ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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First Blair Ministry
The first Blair ministry lasted from May 1997 to June 2001. After eighteen years in opposition, Labour ousted the Conservatives at the May 1997 election with a 179-seat majority. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who turned 44 years old days after leading Labour to victory, was the youngest Prime Minister of the twentieth century. Blair quickly wiped away memories of the troubled Labour governments led by Harold Wilson and James Callaghan in the 1960s and 1970s as the economic recovery continued and unemployment continued to fall. While other developed countries, notably Japan, were hit by a financial crisis during Blair's first term in office, the British economy remained strong. In September 2000, however, protests against fuel prices intensified across the country and the Leader of the Conservative Party William Hague exploited the situation by pointing out to voters just how much fuel prices had risen under Labour. This sparked a brief Conservative lead in the opinion poll ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |