John Redwood

Gail Chippington

​

​

(m. 1974;div. 2003)​

The Right Honourable Sir John Redwood
Official portrait, 2020
Shadow Secretary of State for Deregulation
In office 6 May 2005 –5 December 2005
Children	2
Education	Kent College, Canterbury
Alma mater	Magdalen College, Oxford (BA) St Antony's College, Oxford (MPhil) All Souls College, Oxford (DPhil)
Academic background
Thesis	The fear of atheism in England, from the Restoration to Berkeley's Alciphron  (1975)

Sir John Alan Redwood (born 15 June 1951) is a British politician and academic who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wokingham in Berkshire from 1987 to 2024. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Secretary of State for Wales in the Major government and was twice an unsuccessful candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party in the 1990s. Redwood subsequently served in the Shadow Cabinets of William Hague and Michael Howard; he remained a backbencher from then on. On 24 May 2024, Redwood announced that he would stand down as MP for Wokingham and not seek re-election in the 2024 United Kingdom general election. ^[1]

Prior to becoming an MP, Redwood completed a doctorate at All Souls College, Oxford and served as Director of the Number 10 Policy Unit under Margaret Thatcher. He is a veteran Eurosceptic who was described in 1993 as a "pragmatic Thatcherite". ^[2] He was the co-chairman of the Conservative Party's Policy Review Group on Economic Competitiveness until 2010. He has the role of Chief Global Strategist of investment management company Charles Stanley & Co Ltd (part of Charles Stanley Group). Redwood supported Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum, and is a member of the British Eurosceptic pressure group Leave Means Leave. ^[3]

Early life and education

John Redwood was born in Dover, the second child of William Redwood (1925–2016), ^[4] an accountant and company secretary, and his wife, Amy Emma (née Champion), the manager of a shoe shop. He had an elder sister, Jennifer, who died as a baby in 1949. ^{[5] [6]} His childhood began in a council house, and he describes his family buying their own house as a "big breakthrough" for the family. ^[7]

Redwood was educated at private Kent College in Canterbury, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated with a BA in modern history in 1971. He was a postgraduate at St Antony's College, Oxford, from 1971 to 1972 and was elected an Examination Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, from 1972 to 1979, which later led to a distinguished fellowship in 2007. ^[8] At All Souls, he wrote a DPhil thesis which investigated the fear of atheism in England, from the Restoration to the publication of Alciphron by George Berkeley. He graduated with a DPhil in 1975. ^{[9] [10]}

Political career

Before parliament

Redwood was an Oxfordshire county councillor, representing the Conservative Party between 1973 and 1977, the youngest ever at the age of 21 when elected. In 1981 he unsuccessfully stood for the Greater London Council seat of Peckham. ^[11] From 1983 onwards, he headed Margaret Thatcher's policy unit, ^[2] where he was one of the champions of privatisation. ^[12]

Redwood stood as the Conservative candidate at the Peckham by-election of October 1982, coming third with 12.42% of the vote behind the Labour Party candidate Harriet Harman and the SDP candidate Dick Taverne. ^[13]

As a parliamentarian

At the 1987 general election, Redwood was elected to the House of Commons as MP for Wokingham, winning with 61.4% of the vote and a majority of 20,387. ^[14]

He was made a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in July 1989 for corporate affairs at the Department of Trade and Industry. In November 1990, he was promoted to Minister of State. Redwood became Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities following the 1992 general election, where he oversaw the abolition of the Community Charge, known colloquially as the "poll tax", and its replacement with the Council Tax. ^[15]

Redwood was re-elected as MP for Wokingham at the 1992 general election with the same vote share of 61.4% and an increased majority of 25,709. ^{[16] [17]}

Redwood was opposed to attempts to reduce the age of consent for homosexuality in both 1994 and 1999, choosing to vote to keep Section 28 in November 2003. ^[18] He has generally been opposed to same-sex marriage. He voted for the reintroduction of capital punishment in 1988, 1990 and 1994 and voiced support for the reintroducing of the death penalty when he launched his leadership bid on 26 June 1995. ^[19] Redwood has stated since then: "I have never spoken or written against civil partnerships and gay marriage and am not proposing any change to current laws. I regard the debate about capital punishment as being over and do not support its reintroduction." ^{[20] [21] [22]}

At the 1997 general election, Redwood was again re-elected, with a decreased vote share of 50.1% and a decreased majority of 9,365. ^[23] After the election, Redwood was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry by William Hague. He was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions in June 1999, ^[24] but was dropped in a mini reshuffle in February 2000, being succeeded by Archie Norman.

Redwood was again re-elected at the 2001 general election with a decreased vote share of 46.1% and a decreased majority of 5,994. ^[25] Under Michael Howard, he was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Deregulation. ^[26]

At the 2005 general election, Redwood was again re-elected, with an increased vote share of 48.1% and an increased majority of 7,240. ^[27] Redwood was interviewed about the rise of Thatcherism for the BBC television documentary series of 2006, Tory! Tory! Tory! , ^[28] and has often appeared on television, including appearances on the BBC's Question Time . ^[29]

Redwood was again re-elected at the 2010 general election with an increased vote share of 52.7% and an increased majority of 13,492. ^{[30] [31]} In 2011, he abstained on the military intervention in Libya. ^[32] Redwood supports the establishment of a devolved English parliament. ^[33] Following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, Redwood called for radical reform involving the establishment of an English Parliament. His politicking prior to and succeeding the referendum placed him "front and centre" to any political gain due to the perceived power vacuum resulting from any possible changes to the status quo of the union. ^[34]

At the 2015 general election, Redwood was again re-elected with an increased vote share of 57.7% and an increased majority of 24,197. ^{[35] [36]} He was again re-elected at the snap 2017 general election, with a decreased vote share of 56.6% and a decreased majority of 18,798. ^[37] He was again re-elected at the 2019 general election with a decreased vote share of 49.6% and a decreased majority of 7,383. ^[38] In 2021, Redwood publicly argued with Greta Thunberg over the UK's climate emissions on Twitter. ^[39]

On 24 May 2024, two days after announcement of the date of the 2024 UK general election, and just 40 days before the actual date, John Redwood announced he would be not be standing again for his Wokingham constituency, saying that he had ‘other things I wish to do’. ^[40]

As a government minister

Official portrait, 1995

In the government reshuffle of May 1993, Redwood was appointed to the cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales. ^[41] He deferred some road-widening schemes in Wales because of suggested harm to the environment. ^[42]

Redwood committed a gaffe in 1993, when he attempted to mime to the Welsh national anthem at the Welsh Conservative Party conference, when he did not know the words. ^[43] Redwood subsequently learned the anthem but, in August 2007, an unconnected news story on Redwood was illustrated with the same clip. This resulted in Conservative activists filing complaints, and as a result the BBC apologised to Redwood for airing the dated footage. ^[44] In February 1995, he was at loggerheads with the Countryside Council for Wales, because he had decided to cut its grant by 16%. ^[45]

Redwood consequently gained a somewhat haughty reputation with apparent disregard for Welsh national feeling; this did not endear him further to some of the population, ^[46] including when he returned £100 million of Wales's block grant to the Treasury unspent in 1995. ^[47]

Leadership contests

When John Major called upon his critics to "put up or shut up" and tendered his resignation to allow for a leadership challenge, Redwood resigned from the Cabinet, and stood against Major in the subsequent party leadership election on 26 June 1995. ^[48] In the ballot held on 4 July 1995, Redwood received 89 votes, around a quarter of the then Parliamentary Party. Major received 218 votes, or two thirds of the parliamentary party vote. The Sun newspaper had declared its support for Redwood in the run up to the leadership contest, running the front-page headline "Redwood versus Deadwood". ^[49]

When Major resigned as party leader following the General Election defeat of May 1997, Redwood stood in the resulting election for the leadership, and was again defeated. After being defeated in the third round with 38 votes to Kenneth Clarke's 64 and William Hague's 62, Redwood backed Clarke against Hague. ^[50]

Brexit

Redwood is a veteran Eurosceptic. ^[51] A critic of the Euro before its launch, in 2011 Redwood suggested that the Eurozone should "break up", and proposed that the United Kingdom should give up its Council voting rights in return for the ability to opt out of any EU legislation. ^[52] There are no existing laws that would permit such an arrangement, as it would make European law not apply evenly across the Union as a whole. Later that year, he joined 81 rebel Conservative MPs in voting for an in-out referendum for leaving the European Union, saying afterwards "People used to call me an extreme Eurosceptic. Now I'm a moderate." ^[51] Before the Brexit referendum, Redwood wrote that, to Conservative Eurosceptics like him, leaving the EU was "more important than which party wins the next election or who is the prime minister." ^[53]

Since then, he has suggested the United Kingdom need not prioritise a post-Brexit deal with the EU, and received criticism for writing an investment advice column which recommended investors "look further afield" than the United Kingdom. Redwood denied this interpretation, saying that he simply advises investors of where international markets are heading and did not write an investment column "recommending investors pull their money out of the United Kingdom". ^{[54] [55]}

In statements to media and in the House of Commons, Redwood has consistently defended the position that the UK should not pay the so-called Brexit bill (amounting to around £39 billion). ^[56] This is in line with a House of Lords EU financial affairs committee report, ^[57] which itself is contested on its legal soundness since the financial settlement simply reflects commitments already entered into by the UK under the EU's multi-annual financial framework for the years 2014–2020 and therefore is not linked to the process of the UK leaving the European Union. ^{[58] [59]} In December 2019, Redwood voted in favour of the Withdrawal Agreement through which the UK accepts to pay its outstanding financial obligations to the EU.

In June 2021, Redwood criticised the composition of the G7 which includes the president of the European Commission and the president of the European Council in addition to representatives from France, Germany and Italy. According to Redwood this hands a majority to the EU in the G7, ^[60] even if the G7 does not take decisions through majority voting.

Public image

He has often been compared to a Vulcan, a comparison originally made by Matthew Parris, due to his physical appearance and intonation, ^[2] a preference for making arguments with logic over passion ^[7] and a perception for being cold and humourless. ^[61] Redwood said that he does not like the description but "if you don't like the heat then get out of the kitchen". He continued, "I think people sometimes go for those kind of things because they haven't managed to trap me in the more normal way". ^[7]

Business career

Redwood worked as an investment analyst, manager and director for Robert Fleming and for NM Rothschild in the 1970s and 1980s. ^{[62] [63]} In 2007 he co-founded Evercore Pan-Asset Capital Management Ltd, a financial management company, which was subsequently sold to Charles Stanley. ^[64] He is currently Chief Global Strategist at Charles Stanley & Co Ltd. ^[65] He was previously a non-executive chairman of Mabey Securities, an investment arm of the engineering firm Mabey. ^[63]

In January 2023, Sky News revealed that Redwood had, since the 2019 general election, earnt more than £600,000 in addition to his salary as an MP – the fifth-highest amount of any MP. ^[66]

Personal life

He married Gail Felicity Chippington, a barrister, on 20 April 1974 in Chipping Norton; they had two children, Catherine (born 1978) and Richard (born 1982). They divorced in July 2003. ^{[67] [68] [69]}

Blog

Redwood regularly updates a blog of political commentary which he has called John Redwood's Diary. ^{[70] [63]} Printed and bound copies of this blog are housed at the British Library and can be accessed through the British Library catalogue. ^[71]

Honours

• Appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 1993, giving him the honorific "the Right Honourable" for life.
• Knighted in the 2019 New Year Honours List. ^{[72] [73]}

Bibliography

• I Don't Like Politics: But I Want to Make a Difference. Politico's Publishing. October 2006. ISBN   978-1-84275-182-4.
• Singing the Blues: 30 Years Of Tory Civil War. Politico's Publishing. October 2004. ISBN   978-1-84275-076-6.
• Just Say No!: 100 Arguments Against the Euro. Politico's Publishing. July 2001. ISBN   978-1-902301-99-0.
• Stars and Strife: The Coming Conflict Between the USA and the European Union . Palgrave Macmillan. February 2001. ISBN   978-0-333-91841-8.
• The Death of Britain?. Palgrave Macmillan. May 1999. ISBN   978-0-333-74439-0.
• Our Currency, Our Country: Dangers of European Monetary Union. Penguin Books. March 1997. ISBN   978-0-14-026523-1.
• Public Enterprise in Crisis: Future of Nationalized Industries . Blackwell Publishers. November 1980. ISBN   978-0631125822.
• Reason, Ridicule and Religion: The Age of Enlightenment in England 1660–1750. Thames and Hudson. 1976. ISBN   0-500-27885-7

References

1. "John Redwood to step down as record number of Tory MPs set to quit". The Telegraph. 24 May 2024.
2. Macintyre, Donald (10 July 1993). "Profile: Vulcan in the House: John Redwood – He has enemies in the party, but even they defer to his razor-sharp mind, writes Donald Macintyre" . The Independent. Archived from the original on 13 June 2022. Retrieved 13 November 2017.
3. "Co-Chairmen – Political Advisory Board – Supporters". Leave Means Leave. Archived from the original on 24 October 2017. Retrieved 14 December 2017.
4. "The death of William Redwood". johnredwoodsdiary.com.
5. "FreeBMD – Search". freebmd.org.uk.
6. Deaths – England and Wales – July, August and September 1949
7. Davies, Ben (1 October 2004). "Interview: John Redwood". BBC. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
8. "All Souls College Oxford". asc.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
9. Redwood, John Alan (1975). The Fear of Atheism in England, from the Restoration to Berkeley's Alciphron. jisc.ac.uk (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. OCLC   43141408. EThOS   uk.bl.ethos.470179. Archived from the original on 27 March 2019. Retrieved 25 March 2019.
10. "About". johnredwoodsdiary.com. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
11. "Greater London Council Election" (PDF). 7 May 1981. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 August 2013. Retrieved 26 August 2023.
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13. Boothroyd, David. "Results of Byelections in the 1979-83 Parliament". United Kingdom Election Results. Archived from the original on 9 June 2000. Retrieved 19 September 2015.
14. "Election Data 1987". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
15. Local Government Review, Vol. 156, Part 1 (Justice of the Peace Ltd, 1992), p. 400
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28. Patricia Holland, Broadcasting and the NHS in the Thatcherite 1980s (2013), pp. 137–138
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33. "OPTIONS FOR AN ENGLISH PARLIAMENT" (PDF). www.ucl.ac.uk. Retrieved 29 May 2021.
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67. Brown, Colin (27 July 2003). "Redwood leaves his wife for former model Nikki Page". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 7 May 2010.
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69. Hencke, David (28 March 2005). "Redwood's ex-wife debunks Vulcan jibe". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 September 2013.
70. John Redwood's Diary Retrieved 2 June 2020
71. John Redwood's Diaries, archives and manuscripts catalogue, the British Library. Retrieved 2 June 2020
72. "New Year's Honours list: John Redwood one of 3 MPs awarded knighthood". Inews.co.uk. 28 December 2018. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
73. "No. 62507". The London Gazette (1st supplement). 28 December 2018. p. N2.

External links

• John Redwood MP official site
• Debrett's People of Today
• John Redwood MP, at UK Parliament Website
• Profile Archived 18 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine at the Conservative Party
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou
• Profile: John Redwood, BBC News , 16 October 2002
• BBC Interview 2004
• Appearances on C-SPAN

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by William van Straubenzee	Member of Parliament for Wokingham 1987–2024	Succeeded by Clive Jones
Political offices
Preceded by David Hunt	Secretary of State for Wales 1993–1995	Succeeded by William Hague
Preceded by Michael Heseltine	Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry 1997–1999	Succeeded by Angela Browning
Preceded by Gillian Shephard	Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions 1999–2000	Succeeded by Archie Norman
New office	Shadow Secretary of State for Deregulation 2004–2005	Position abolished