Jack Aspinwall

Jack Heywood Aspinwall (born February 5, 1933 in Bootle ; † May 19, 2015 ) was a British politician of the Liberal Party and later the Conservative Party , who ran twice for a seat in the House of Commons for the Liberal Party in the Kingswood constituency and this one Represented constituency for the Conservative Party between 1979 and 1983 as a member of the House of Commons . He was then from 1983 to 1997 a member of the lower house for the constituency of Wansdyke . In the lower house, the backbencher belonged to the right wing within the conservative Tories .

Life

Professional career and unsuccessful lower house candidates in 1974

Aspinwall, whose father owner of a chain of home improvement was -Geschäften, made after attending the 1544 founded Grammar School of Prescot and the Marconi College 1949-1956 military service in the Royal Air Force . Subsequently, he joined the company of his father, before he in 1966 director of the investment company Sacrum Investments was to inter alia, the Red Lion - Pub in Bath and the clay pits in Warmley in Bristol belonged.

He began his political career for the Liberal Party, which he joined as a member in the mid-1950s when he was elected a member of Kingswood City Council in 1970 . In 1974 he was elected to the council of the newly formed County of Avon .

For the Liberal Party, he ran in the general election of February 28, 1974 in the Kingswood constituency for the first time for a seat in the House of Commons. His energetic candidacy resulted in the Labor Party winning that constituency with Terence "Terry" William Walker . While Terry Walker received 18,616 votes (38.73 percent), the opposing candidate from the Conservative Party, Charles Irving , got 16,975 (35.32 percent) and Aspinwall got an impressive 12,471 votes (25.95 percent).

In the elections that followed on October 10, 1974 , Aspinwall ran again for the Liberals and Walker again for the Labor Party. This time Walker received 20,703 votes (44 percent), while his new challenger from the conservative Tories, David Hunt (politician) , received 18,173 votes (38.54 percent), at least improving the result of the last election. Aspinwall, on the other hand, lost a lot and only got 8,216 votes (17.46 percent).

Moved to the Conservative Party and MP from 1979 to 1997

Kingswood constituency 1979 to 1983

In 1975 Aspinwall left the Liberal Party and joined the Conservative Party as a member. Commenting on his move to the conservative Tories: “I realized that defeating socialism was a priority. I would have had to resign between the two 1974 elections if I had not been loyal to the local Liberal Party members ”('I realized the priority was to defeat socialism. I might have resigned between the two 1974 elections had it not been for the loyalty shown by local Liberal Party workers').

When he was nominated two years later in 1976 as a candidate for the Tories in the next general election, numerous members of the constituency organization of the Conservative Party resigned. However, he was able to prevail in the general election of May 3, 1979 , from which Margaret Thatcher emerged as the winner, with a narrow lead of 303 votes against the previous constituency owner Terry Walker. He received 23,553 votes (45.37 percent), while Terry Walker got 23,250 votes (44.79 percent).

In the constituency, he campaigned in particular for the interests of the workers in the aircraft industry in his constituency, but had little influence on the politics of his party and, as a backbencher, dealt with subordinate issues such as draft laws such as the authorization of local administrations to introduce dog catchers 1982. The only time Aspinwall achieved national notoriety was in 1980 when he fell from a parachute at a charity event and broke three vertebrae in the process. He was then paralyzed and doubly incontinent for six months and then had to wear an orthosis . This led to his urging the government in 1987 to require more rigorous training for novice skydivers.

Wansdyke constituency 1983 to 1997

In the general election of June 9, 1983 , Aspinwall ran in the newly created constituency of Wansdyke and, in his first election, won 28,434 votes (50.61 percent) clearly against R. Denton-White from the Liberal Party (15,368 votes, 27.35 percent) ) and Labor Party candidate L. Williams, who received 12,168 votes (21.66 percent). He represented this constituency until he decided not to run again in the elections on May 1, 1997 .

In the lower house, the backbencher Aspinwall increasingly joined the right wing within the conservative Toriesan . While he voted against the death penalty in 1979 , he supported its reintroduction in 1983. He has become a steadfast opponent of abortion , the lowering of the age to consent to homosexual acts, and urged parents to lock their phones to protect their children from pornographic calls. In 1983 he spoke out in favor of the US invasion of Grenada ordered by US President Ronald Reagan .

When he 1987 Margaret Thatcher's refusal to tighten sanctions against South Africa supported, he received invitations to visit from Bophuthatswana and Ciskei , two by the apartheid backed regime Homelands , and advocated that British cricket players could choose to play in South Africa. He also accused Israel of behaving like Nazi Germany towards the Palestinians and praised Nicolae Ceaușescu's regime in Romania shortly before the 1989 revolution .

Aspinwall, who served on the House of Commons Transport Committee between 1988 and 1992, also worked as an advisor to a lobbying company and as a parliamentary advisor to Rentokil Initial . In the early 1990s, he criticized the County of Avon Council's decision to sponsor a New Age camp , describing it as "an unacceptable way of spending £ 1 million in taxpayers 'money" (' an indefensible way of spending £ 1 million of taxpayers 'money').

After an open heart operation in 1995, he decided not to run again in the general election on May 1, 1997. These elections ultimately led to Tony Blair's national election victory for the Labor Party . His rival Labor Party candidate in the April 9, 1992 elections , Dan Norris , emerged as the clear winner this time, gaining 24,117 votes (44.1 percent), while the new constituency candidate of the Conservative Tories, Mark Prisk , only got 19,318 votes (35.3 percent) received. Norris' gain of 16.4 percentage points was the highest increase for a Labor candidate nationwide.

Aspinwall, who has been married to Brenda Squires since 1954 and has a son and two daughters, has also published several books of after-dinner stories from other MPs such as Kindly Sit Down! (1984), Hit Me Again (1985), Tell Me Another (1986) and Go With the Flow (1988) and used the proceeds to support charities such as the Airey Neave Memorial Fund, named after Airey Neave .

Publications

• Kindly Sit Down! , 1984
• Hit Me Again , 1985
• Tell Me Another , 1986
• Go With the Flow , 1988

Web links

• Jack Aspinwall at Hansard (English)
• Proof of publication in the Open Library
• Jack Aspinwall, politician-obituary. Right-wing Conservative MP who started out as a Liberal . In: The Daily Telegraph, May 20, 2015