John Charles Griffiths (born 19 April 1934) is a former British Liberal Party politician, author and media entrepreneur.
Griffiths worked for Thomson Newspapers and the BBC while becoming active in the Liberal Party. [1] Chairman of the National League of Young Liberals. [2] He stood unsuccessfully in Ludlow at the 1964 general election, then in Wanstead and Woodford in 1966, and Bedford at the February and October 1974 general elections. A post at the Press Association in the late 1960s led him to a career in public relations, while he also wrote the first of many books, The Survivors, Afghanistan and Modern Iceland. [1]
In 1982–1983, Griffiths served as President of the Liberal Party, [2] where he launched a full review of all the party's structures. [3] He continued to write books, including The Science of Winning Squash and further work on Afghanistan. [1] In 1986, he founded the Arts Channel and ran the Minerva Vision production company. [4] Griffiths continues to write, and is also a Trustee of Asthma UK. [2]
The United Kingdom is a unitary state with devolution that is governed within the framework of a parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy in which the monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II, is the head of state while the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, currently Boris Johnson, is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by the British government, on behalf of and by the consent of the monarch, and the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the House of Commons and the House of Lords, as well as in the Scottish and Welsh parliaments and the Northern Ireland Assembly. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The highest court is the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
Jeremy John Durham Ashdown, Baron Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon,, known as Paddy Ashdown, was a British politician and diplomat who served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 1988 to 1999. He achieved international recognition for his role as High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2002 to 2006, following his vigorous lobbying for military action against Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Arthur Joseph Griffith was an Irish writer, newspaper editor and politician who founded the political party Sinn Féin. He led the Irish delegation at the negotiations that produced the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, and served as President of Dáil Éireann from January 1922 until his death in August 1922.
David Anthony Llewellyn Owen, Baron Owen, is a British politician and physician who served as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs as a Labour Party MP under James Callaghan from 1977 to 1979.
John Archibald Sinclair, 3rd Viscount Thurso, known also as John Thurso, is a Scottish businessman, Liberal Democrat politician and hereditary peer.
Alan James Beith, Baron Beith, is a British politician who represented Berwick-upon-Tweed as its Member of Parliament (MP) from 1973 to 2015.
John Andrew Barrett is a Scottish Liberal Democrat politician and the former Member of Parliament (MP) for Edinburgh West.
The 1951 United Kingdom general election was held twenty months after the 1950 general election, which the Labour Party had won with a slim majority of just five seats. The Labour government called a snap election for Thursday 25 October 1951 in the hope of increasing its parliamentary majority. However, despite winning the popular vote and achieving both the highest-ever total vote and highest percentage vote share, Labour won fewer seats than the Conservative Party. This election marked the return of Winston Churchill as Prime Minister, and the beginning of Labour's thirteen-year spell in opposition. This was the final general election to be held with George VI as monarch, as he died the following year on 6 February and was succeeded by his daughter, Elizabeth II. This was also the last election in which the Conservatives did better in Scotland than in England.
John Creasey was an English crime writer, also writing romance and western novels, who wrote more than six hundred novels using twenty-eight different pseudonyms.
Robert Douglas "Rob" Nicholson is a Canadian politician who represented the riding of Niagara Falls in the House of Commons of Canada from 2004 to 2019 as a member of the Conservative Party. Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, he served as Minister of National Defence, Minister of Justice, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons. When the Harper Government ended, he was appointed Justice Critic in the Official Opposition shadow cabinet.
The 2005 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 5 May 2005, to elect 646 members to the House of Commons. The Labour Party, led by Tony Blair, won its third consecutive victory, with Blair becoming the only Labour leader beside Harold Wilson to form three majority governments. However, its majority fell to 66 seats compared to the 167-seat majority it had won four years before. This was the first time the Labour Party had won a third consecutive election. To the present day, it remains the last general election victory for the Labour Party and was also the last general election until 2015 that a single political party would manage to achieve an overall majority over all other parties.
Trevor Griffiths, is an English dramatist.
Stephen Owen Davies was a Welsh miner, trade union official and Labour Party politician, who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Merthyr Tydfil from 1950 to 1972, and previously Merthyr from 1934 to 1950. In 1970, when well past 80, he was deselected as parliamentary candidate by his local party association on account of his age. He fought the constituency in the 1970 general election as an Independent and won comfortably, a rare example in British politics of an independent candidate defeating a major party's organisation. In a BBC TV interview the day after that election, he claimed to be 83 years old.
William Cowan Rennie, also known as Willie Rennie, is a Scottish politician serving as Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats since 2011. He has served as the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for North East Fife since 2016, and previously as MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife and as Member of Parliament (MP) for Dunfermline and West Fife.
Wednesbury was a borough constituency in England's Black Country which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1868 until it was abolished for the February 1974 general election.
Michael Grant Ignatieff is a Canadian author, academic and former politician. He was the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011. Known for his work as a historian, Ignatieff has held senior academic posts at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, and Toronto. He is currently rector and President of Central European University.
Frank Kingsley Griffith was a British Liberal Party politician, barrister and County Court judge.
The Liberal Democrats are a liberal political party in Great Britain. The party has 11 Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, 89 members of the House of Lords, five Members of the Scottish Parliament, one member in the Welsh Parliament and one member in the London Assembly. The party served as the junior party in a coalition government with the Conservative Party between 2010-2015. The Liberal Democrats are currently the junior partner in a coalition with Welsh Labour in the devolved Welsh government. The party previously served in coalition with Scottish Labour in the Scottish Executive from 1999 to 2007.
The Middlesbrough West by-election, 1928 was a parliamentary by-election held for the British House of Commons constituency of Middlesbrough West on 7 March 1928.
The National Liberal Party, known until 1948 as the Liberal National Party, was a liberal political party in the United Kingdom from 1931 to 1968. It broke away from the Liberal Party, and later co-operated and merged with the Conservative Party.
Party political offices | ||
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Preceded by Viv Bingham | President of the Liberal Party 1982–1983 | Succeeded by Geoff Tordoff |