Sir George Malcolm Thornton (born 3 April 1939) is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking ...

who served as the

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

(MP) for Liverpool Garston from

1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the '' International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the '' Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the so ...

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...

, and for

Crosby Crosby may refer to: Places ;Canada *Crosby, Ontario, part of the township of Rideau Lakes, Ontario *Crosby, Ontario, a neighbourhood in the city of Markham, Ontario ;England *Crosby, Cumbria *Crosby, Lincolnshire *Crosby, Merseyside ** Crosby (U ...

from 1983 to

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

Education

He was educated at Wallasey Grammar School and later attended Liverpool Nautical College.

Political career

Thornton was first elected to Parliament in the 1979 general election, winning the marginal seat of Liverpool Garston from Labour's

Eddie Loyden Edward Loyden (3 May 1923 – 27 April 2003), known as Eddie Loyden, was a British Labour politician. Loyden was Member of Parliament (MP) for Liverpool Garston from February 1974 until he lost the seat to the Conservatives in May 1979. How ...

. In the early 1980s, however, all seats were re-organised with the new boundaries set to come in at the next election. Liverpool Garston would lean strongly towards Labour, so Thornton sought a safer seat in Crosby, just outside Liverpool. However, following the death of Sir

Graham Page Sir Rodney Graham Page (30 June 1911 – 1 October 1981) was a British Conservative Party politician. Biography Page was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, and the University of London and later became a solicitor. He was a Privy Council a ...

in 1981,

Shirley Williams Shirley Vivian Teresa Brittain Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby, (' Catlin; 27 July 1930 – 12 April 2021) was a British politician and academic. Originally a Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP), she served in the Labour cabinet from ...

, a former Labour Cabinet minister who had founded the centrist SDP a few months earlier, won the seat. That by-election had been held in the depths of

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

's unpopularity; however, after that the economy returned to growth and Britain won the Falklands War, so Thatcher called an election in 1983 which was a Tory landslide. Thornton regained the seat, while Eddie Loyden won a redrawn Garston for Labour. However, by 1997, the Conservatives were again deeply unpopular and Thornton lost, by a surprisingly wide margin to Labour's Claire Curtis-Tansley. In 2007, Sir Malcolm Thornton became the 4th and current Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Board of Governors for Liverpool John Moores University.

References

* Times Guide to the House of Commons 1997 *

External links

* Living people 1939 births Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1983–1987 UK MPs 1979–1983 UK MPs 1987–1992 UK MPs 1992–1997 Knights Bachelor Members of Wirral Council Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Liverpool constituencies {{England-Conservative-UK-MP-1930s-stub