Spencer Le Marchant
Sir Spencer Le Marchant (15 January 1931 – 7 September 1986) was a British Conservative Party politician. Early life Born in Edmonton, London, Le Marchant was educated at Eton College and was a member of the London Stock Exchange. He served as a councillor on Westminster City Council from 1956. Political career Le Marchant unsuccessfully contested Vauxhall, a London safe seat held by the Labour Party's George Strauss since its formation in 1950, at the 1966 general election. He was elected to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament for the marginal Derbyshire constituency of High Peak at the 1970 general election, and held the seat until he retired from Parliament at the 1983 general election. He was appointed Comptroller of the Household when Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979. Le Marchant received note in Thatcher's memoirs as "famous for his intake of champagne", 6 foot and 6 inches tall, and "could be heard booming out the result" when the then Labou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Comptroller Of The Household
The Comptroller of the Household is an ancient position in the British royal household, nominally the second-ranking member of the Lord Steward's department after the Treasurer of the Household. The Comptroller was an ''ex officio'' member of the Board of Green Cloth, until that body was abolished in the reform of the local government licensing in 2004. In recent times, a senior government whip has invariably occupied the office. On state occasions the Comptroller (in common with certain other senior officers of the Household) carries a white staff of office, as often seen in portraits. History "Comptroller" is an alternative spelling of "controller", recorded since around 1500 in a number of British titles, and later also in the United States. The variant in spelling results from the influence of French ''compte'' "account". The office of Comptroller of the Household derives from the medieval Household office of Controller of the Wardrobe, who was deputy to the Keeper (or ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom that has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. The Labour Party sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. In all general elections since 1922, Labour has been either the governing party or the Official Opposition. There have been six Labour prime ministers and thirteen Labour ministries. The party holds the annual Labour Party Conference, at which party policy is formulated. The party was founded in 1900, having grown out of the trade union movement and socialist parties of the 19th century. It overtook the Liberal Party to become the main opposition to the Conservative Party in the early 1920s, forming two minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in the 1920s and early 1930s. Labour served in the wartime coalition of 1940–1945, after which Clement Attlee's Labour government established the National Health Service and expanded the welfa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Edward VIII
Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David; 23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972), later known as the Duke of Windsor, was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire and Emperor of India from 20 January 1936 until Abdication of Edward VIII, his abdication in December of the same year. Edward was born during the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria as the eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George V and Mary of Teck, Queen Mary. He was created Prince of Wales on his 16th birthday, seven weeks after his father succeeded as king. As a young man, Edward served in the British Army during the First World War and undertook several overseas tours on behalf of his father. While Prince of Wales, he engaged in a series of sexual affairs that worried both his father and then-British prime minister Stanley Baldwin. Upon Death and state funeral of George V, his father's death in 1936, Edward became the second monarch of the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wallis Simpson
Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield, later Simpson; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986), was an American socialite and wife of the former King Edward VIII. Their intention to marry and her status as a divorcée caused a constitutional crisis that led to Edward's abdication. Wallis grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father died shortly after her birth, and she and her widowed mother were partly supported by their wealthier relatives. Her first marriage, to United States Navy officer Win Spencer, was punctuated by periods of separation and eventually ended in divorce. In 1931, during her second marriage, to Ernest Simpson, she met Edward, the then Prince of Wales. Five years later, after Edward's accession as King of the United Kingdom, Wallis divorced her second husband to marry Edward. The King's desire to marry a woman who had two living ex-husbands threatened to cause a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom and the Dominions, ultimately lea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ernest Aldrich Simpson
Ernest Aldrich Simpson (6 May 1897 – 30 November 1958) was an American-born British shipbroker, best known as the second husband of Wallis Simpson, later wife of the former King Edward VIII. Simpson served as an officer in the Coldstream Guards before becoming a shipbroker in the family firm of SSY. Background Born in New York City, Simpson was educated at The Hill School before attending Harvard University. Simpson was commissioned in the British Army, serving as a captain in the Coldstream Guards during World War I. His father, Ernest Louis Simpson, a British citizen of Jewish background whose original surname was Solomon, co-founded the global shipbroking firm Simpson, Spence & Young, trading since 1880. His mother, Charlotte Woodward Gaines, was American, daughter of a New York City attorney. His elder sister and only sibling, Maud Simpson (1879–1962), married, in 1905, Major Peter Kerr-Smiley MP. Simpson became a British subject during World War I, shortly after ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Duke Of Sutherland
Duke of Sutherland is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom which was created by William IV in 1833 for George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Marquess of Stafford. A series of marriages to heiresses by members of the Leveson-Gower family made the Dukes of Sutherland one of the richest landowning families in the United Kingdom. The title remained in the Leveson-Gower family until the death of the 5th Duke of Sutherland in 1963, when it passed to the 5th Earl of Ellesmere from the Egerton family. The subsidiary titles of the Duke of Sutherland are: Marquess of Stafford (created 1786), Earl Gower (1746), Earl of Ellesmere, of Ellesmere in the County of Shropshire (1846), Viscount Trentham, of Trentham in the County of Stafford (1746), Viscount Brackley, of Brackley in the County of Northampton (1846), and Baron Gower, of Sittenham in the County of York (1703). The marquessate of Stafford, the earldom of Gower and the viscountcy of Trentham are in the Peerage of Great Britain, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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]   |
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Motion Of Confidence
A motion of no confidence, also variously called a vote of no confidence, no-confidence motion, motion of confidence, or vote of confidence, is a statement or vote about whether a person in a position of responsibility like in government or management is still deemed fit to hold that position, such as because they are inadequate in some aspect, fail to carry out their obligations, or make decisions that other members feel to be detrimental. The parliamentary motion demonstrates to the head of government that the elected Parliament either has or no longer has confidence in one or more members of the appointed government. In some countries, a no-confidence motion being passed against an individual minister requires the minister to resign. In most cases, if the minister in question is the premier, all other ministers must also resign. A censure motion is different from a no-confidence motion. Depending on the constitution of the body concerned, "no confidence" may lead to the dismi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Champagne (wine)
Champagne (, ) is a sparkling wine originated and produced in the Champagne wine region of France under the rules of the appellation, that demand specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes exclusively from designated places within it, specific grape-pressing methods and secondary fermentation of the wine in the bottle to cause carbonation. The grapes Pinot noir, Pinot meunier, and Chardonnay are used to produce almost all Champagne, but small amounts of Pinot blanc, Pinot gris (called Fromenteau in Champagne), Arbane, and Petit Meslier are vinified as well. Champagne became associated with royalty in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The leading manufacturers made efforts to associate their Champagnes with nobility and royalty through advertising and packaging, which led to its popularity among the emerging middle class. Origins Still wines from the Champagne region were known before medieval times. The Romans were the first to plant vineyards in this area of no ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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]   |
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Parliament Of The United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all other political bodies in the UK and the overseas territories. Parliament is bicameral but has three parts, consisting of the sovereign ( King-in-Parliament), the House of Lords, and the House of Commons (the primary chamber). In theory, power is officially vested in the King-in-Parliament. However, the Crown normally acts on the advice of the prime minister, and the powers of the House of Lords are limited to only delaying legislation; thus power is ''de facto'' vested in the House of Commons. The House of Commons is an elected chamber with elections to 650 single-member constituencies held at least every five years under the first-past-the-post system. By constitutional convention, all governme ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1970 United Kingdom General Election
The 1970 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 18 June 1970. It resulted in a surprise victory for the Conservative Party under leader Edward Heath, which defeated the governing Labour Party under Harold Wilson. The Liberal Party, under its new leader Jeremy Thorpe, lost half its seats. The Conservatives, including the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), secured a majority of 30 seats. This general election was the first in which people could vote from the age of 18, after passage of the Representation of the People Act the previous year, and the first UK election where party, and not just candidate names were allowed to be put on the ballots. Most opinion polls prior to the election indicated a comfortable Labour victory, and put Labour up to 12.4% ahead of the Conservatives. On election day, however, a late swing gave the Conservatives a 3.4% lead and ended almost six years of Labour government, although Wilson remained leader of the Labour Party in opposition. Writing ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |