Paul Murphy (politician, 1948)

Paul Murphy (center) with British Ambassador to the USA David Manning and US President George W. Bush in the White House on St. Patrick's Day (2005)

Paul Murphy, Baron Murphy of Torfaen (born November 25, 1948 in Usk , Monmouthshire , Wales ) is a British Labor Party politician who represented the constituency of Torfaen in the House of Commons from 1987 to 2015 and was Minister several times. He has been a member of the House of Lords since 2015 .

Life

MP and opposition politician

After attending school in Pontypool , Murphy, who already became a member of the Labor Party in 1963, studied at Oriel College at the University of Oxford and was then from 1970 to 1971 as a management trainee at the Co-operative wholesale society (CSW), before leaving 1971 to 1987 lecturer in politics and history at Ebbw Vale College of Further Education. At the same time he was from 1971 to 1987 also secretary of the Labor Party in the constituency of Torfaen and from 1973 to 1987 member of the council of the County Borough Torfaen and between 1976 and 1986 chairman of its finance committee.

In the 1979 general election, he ran in the Wells constituency for the first time, albeit unsuccessfully, for a seat in the lower house. In the general election on June 11, 1987 , he was first elected as a member of the House of Commons and has since represented the constituency of Torfaen .

During his long membership in parliament, he was first spokesman for the opposition Labor Group on Wales affairs from 1988 to 1994 , then for Northern Ireland and in 1995 for foreign affairs, before he was last opposition spokesman for defense, disarmament and arms control from 1995 to 1997. During that time he was also chairman of the Welsh Group of Labor MPs between 1996 and 1997.

Ministerial offices

After the Labor Party's victory in the general election on May 1, 1997 , Murphy became Minister of State in the Ministry for Northern Ireland and was responsible for political development there until 1999 as the closest associate of Minister Mo Mowlam . As part of a cabinet reshuffle, Prime Minister Tony Blair appointed him Secretary of State for Wales in July 1998 and held this post until October 2002. He was then in a further reshuffle successor John Reid as minister for Northern Ireland ( Secretary of State for Northern Ireland ), while Peter Hain new Minister of Wales was.

He served as Minister of Northern Ireland until May 2005, when he became Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee , a body appointed by the Prime Minister under the Intelligence Services Act 1994 to oversee the activities of the UK's intelligence and intelligence services . His successor as Northern Ireland Minister was again Peter Hain. During this time he was Vice-Chair of the British-American Parliamentary Group from 2004 to 2005, Co-Chair of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly between 2006 and 2007 and again Vice-Chair of the British-American Parliamentary Group from 2007 to 2009.

In January 2008 he succeeded Peter Hain in the office of Minister for Wales and held this office until he was replaced by Hain in June 2009. From 2009 to 2010 he was co-chairman again and has been vice chairman of the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Since 2010 he has been a member of the Joint Committee of the House of Commons and the House of Lords on National Security Strategies. On March 30, 2015, Murphy resigned from the House of Commons. On October 20, 2015, he was named a Life Peer with the title Baron Murphy of Torfaen , of Abersychan in the County of Gwent. This also made him a member of the House of Lords .

Web links

• Entry on the homepage of the British Parliament ( Memento of 4 March 2013 in the Internet Archive )
• Paul Murphy at Hansard (English)
• Entry in They Work For You
• Paul Murphy: Electoral history and profile (June 30, 2009 memento on the Internet Archive ) in The Guardian