Richard Shepherd (politician)

Richard Shepherd (2007)

Sir Richard Charles Scrimgeour Shepherd (born December 6, 1942 in Aberdeen ) is a Scottish Conservative Party politician . He had been a member of the House of Commons since 1979 .

Family and education

Born in Aberdeen, Shepherd received his education at the Isleworth Grammar School in Isleworth . This was followed by studies at the London School of Economics , where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science . During his student days he met Robert Kilroy-Silk . The Master of Science acquired Shepherd at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University . He is single and has no children.

Professional career and political career

After completing his studies, Shepherd worked in various companies in the food industry. He was also an underwriter at Lloyd's of London from 1974 to 1999 . He began his political career in the 1974 general election . He ran in the Nottingham East constituency , but was clearly defeated by the Labor Party candidate , Jack Dunnett . Shepherd then worked as Teddy Taylor's personal assistant during the October election that year . For the 1979 elections , his party placed him in the Aldridge-Brownhills constituency . He managed to prevail by a clear margin against incumbent Geoffrey Edge of the Labor Party. Since then, Shepard has been able to defend his seat in all elections. Even in the 1997 elections , in which the Labor Party captured numerous Conservative Party strongholds, he was re-elected with a margin of only 5.4% of the vote. During his time as a Member of Parliament, Shepherd was a member of numerous committees , including the Public Administration Select Committee between 1997 and 2000 and the Select Committee on the Modernization of the House of Commons from 1997 to 2010 . Shepherd is highly valued by his colleagues in Parliament, but the positions he represents are sometimes extremely controversial. So when he introduced a bill to abolish the Official Secrets Act 1911 in parliament to give whistleblowers certain rights, he contradicted the official line of his own party. In addition, he spoke out sharply against the implementation of the Treaty on European Union in domestic law. In 2000 he applied for the post of Speaker of the House of Commons and achieved the third-best result with 136 votes. In 2009 he stood for election again, but was only able to collect 15 votes and was thus struck off the list after the first ballot. Shepherd did not run for the 2015 election . His successor in the Aldridge-Brownhills constituency was Wendy Morton, who also ran for the Conservative Party.

Awards

Shepherd was named Backbencher of the Year by The Spectator magazine in 1987 and Parliamentarian of the Year in 1995. In a 1989 survey of all members of the House of Commons by the marketing research institute MORI, he was rated as one of the ten most effective members of parliament. 2013 Shepherd was created by Queen Elizabeth as a Knight Bachelor in the knighthood raised.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Election results on politicsresources.net ( memento of the original from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ electoral districts sorted by vote lead on politicsresources.net
3. ↑ Rosa Prince: Speaker election: candidate pitches and reaction ( English ) In: Daily Telegraph . June 22, 2009. Retrieved August 7, 2014.
4. ↑ Cartledge, James (2015): General Election 2015: Miliband's dream dies as Labor loses out on top target , Birmingham Mail, May 8, 2015, accessed May 19, 2015.
5. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 60367, HMSO, London, December 29, 2012, p. 1 ( PDF , accessed August 7, 2014, English).

Web links

• Entry on Parliament's homepage
• Short biography on the Conservative Party homepage
• Richard Shepherd at Hansard (English)