Howells is the son of Glanville Howells,a Communist lorry driver,[1] and of Joan Glenys Howells. Born in Merthyr Tydfil,Wales and raised in Penywaun near Aberdare in the Cynon Valley,he is a former pupil of Mountain Ash Grammar School.
He attended the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology between 1971 and 1974 where he studied for a Joint Honours Degree and was awarded an upper second,which allowed him to follow post-graduate studies in history. Howells later obtained a PhD from the University of Warwick in 1979 for a thesis entitled A view from below:tradition,experience and nationalism in the South Wales coalfield,1937–1957.[2]
Howells ran the NUM Pontypridd office which co-ordinated the South Wales miners' efforts during the UK miners' strike. A serious incident during the national dispute occurred in his area at the end of November 1984,when taxi driver David Wilkie was killed when two striking miners dropped a concrete block off a local bridge onto Wilkie's taxi,which was taking a strike-breaking miner to work. On being told of the incident in a telephone call from a reporter of the South Wales Echo,Howells rode his bicycle to the NUM offices.
After allegations that he hid evidence associated with the death of Wilkie,and an investigation by South Wales Police,Howells in 2004 commented in a BBC Wales documentary that when he heard the news,he thought "hang on,we've got all those records we've kept over in the NUM offices,there's all those maps on the wall,we're gonna get implicated in this". He then destroyed a large number of papers because he feared a police raid on the union offices.[5] He has commented that the attack by the strikers was a result of pressure to get the miners to return to work.
After the miners' strike and the closure of 29 of the 30 National Coal Board pits in South Wales,Howells became a writer and presenter for television and radio,and a college lecturer.
Parliamentary career
Howells as a Foreign Office Minister in 2007
Howells entered the House of Commons in a by-election in 1989. As a member of the Labour Opposition,he became successively an Opposition Spokesman on Trade and Industry,on Home Affairs,on Foreign Affairs and on Development and Co-operation. Howells suggested in 1996 that the word "socialism" ought to be "humanely phased out" of Labour Party policy documents.[6] (Clause IV (revised in 1995) of the party's constitution states that "The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party").
After leaving the government Howells was appointed to take over from Margaret Beckett as chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee,a committee of parliamentarians that oversees the work of Britain's intelligence and security agencies.
In 2003,he said the Labour government was trying to run capitalism more "efficiently" and "humanely".[6] He is a member,and the former chairman,of Labour Friends of Israel.[8]
In February 2009,Howells was appointed to the Privy Council,making him the Right Honourable Kim Howells,an appointment that coincided with the 20th anniversary of his election to Parliament.
In March 2009,it was revealed that Howells made one of the lowest expense claims among Welsh MPs,being 5th from bottom.[9]
On 15 July 2011,Howells received an Honorary Doctorate for his contribution to Welsh and British politics from the University of Glamorgan.[11] Following racist comments made by Howells[12] concerning the financial reasons for recruiting students from overseas and,particularly,the perceived security risk appertaining to students from Libya,international students organised to demonstrate at the event. Howells withdrew from the ceremony at the last minute after pressure mounted on him.[13] The NUS Wales Black Students' Campaign described Dr Howells' comments as "reckless" and said that the comments "could add to the barriers facing Black and Minority Ethnic students in Wales".[14]
Parliamentary challenges
In February 2006,he was the subject of a complaint from Paul Flynn MP after he mocked Mr Flynn's attitude towards the UK's Afghan drug policy:
It is not enough to assume that if people eat the right kind of muesli, go to first nights of Harold Pinter revivals and read The Independent occasionally, the drug barons of Afghanistan will go away. They will not.[15]
On 22 November 2006, it was announced that on a recent visit to Iraq his helicopter was involved in an incident as it left the city of Basra with witnesses claiming shots were fired at the aircraft.
Howells is known to be outspoken. He told The Scotsman newspaper in September 1995 that devolution was akin to fascism and that it would lead to the "Balkanisation of Great Britain".[16]
In 2002, as a junior Minister at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, he criticised the Turner Prize by writing a note that read:
If this is the best British artists can produce then British art is lost. It is cold mechanical, conceptual bullshit. Kim Howells. P.S. The attempts at contextualisation are particularly pathetic and symptomatic of a lack of conviction.
Throughout his Parliamentary career he was unafraid to speak his mind and often sparked strong criticism from those he criticised or offended. During a House of Commons debate on licensing laws he said that the idea of "listening to three Somerset folk singers sounds like hell".
On the Today programme, while visiting Iraq on 11 March 2006 as Foreign Office minister, he commented in an interview:
[Iraq] is a mess that can't launch an attack now on Iran; a mess that won't be able to march into Kuwait; it's a mess that can't develop nuclear weapons. So yes it's a mess but it's starting to look like the sort of mess that most of us live in.[17]
The destruction of the infrastructure, the death of so many children and so many people. These have not been surgical strikes. And it's very difficult, I think, to understand the kind of military tactics that have been used. You know, if they're chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don't go for the entire Lebanese nation.[18]
Howells said in 2013 that Labour had to change its relationship with the unions or face damaging its reputation and risk losing the next general election.[20]
Personal life
Howells married Eirlys Davies in 1983. He has two sons and one stepdaughter.[citation needed]
Related Research Articles
Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock, is a Welsh politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 1983 to 1992. He served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1970 to 1995, first for Bedwellty and then for Islwyn. He was Vice-President of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. Kinnock was considered to be on the soft left of the Labour Party.
Aneurin "Nye" Bevan PC was a Welsh Labour Party politician, noted for tenure as Minister of Health in Clement Attlee's government in which he spearheaded the creation of the British National Health Service. He is also known for his wider contribution to the founding of the British welfare state. He was first elected as MP for Ebbw Vale in 1929, and used his Parliamentary platform to make a number of influential criticisms of Winston Churchill and his government during the Second World War. Before entering Parliament, Bevan was involved in miners' union politics and was a leading figure in the 1926 general strike. Bevan is widely regarded as one of the most influential left-wing politicians in British history.
The 1984–1985 United Kingdom miners' strike was a major industrial action within the British coal industry in an attempt to prevent colliery closures. It was led by Arthur Scargill of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) against the National Coal Board (NCB), a government agency. Opposition to the strike was led by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who wanted to reduce the power of the trade unions.
Ann Clwyd Roberts was a Welsh Labour politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Cynon Valley for 35 years, from 1984 until 2019. Although she had intended to stand down in 2015, she was re-elected in that year's general election and in 2017 before standing down in 2019. Clwyd is the longest-serving female MP for a Welsh constituency.
Eric Evlyn Illsley is a former British Labour politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Barnsley Central from 1987 until 2011. He was a Labour Party representative until suspended from the party after being charged with false accounting as part of the United Kingdom Parliamentary expenses scandal, and then sat as an Independent. When he pleaded guilty to three counts of false accounting on 11 January 2011, he became the first sitting Member of Parliament to be convicted of a criminal offence in the scandal. Illsley resigned from the House of Commons on 8 February 2011, following his conviction, and was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment on 10 February 2011.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is a trade union for coal miners in Great Britain, formed in 1945 from the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). The NUM took part in three national miners' strikes, in 1972, 1974 and 1984–85. Following the 1984–85 strike, and the subsequent closure of most of Britain's coal mines, it became a much smaller union. It had around 170,000 members when Arthur Scargill became leader in 1981, a figure which had fallen in 2023 to an active membership of 82.
Adam Robert Price is a Welsh politician who served as Leader of Plaid Cymru from September 2018 to May 2023. He has been the Member of the Senedd (MS) for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr since 2016, having previously been a Member of Parliament (MP) for the same Westminster constituency from 2001 to 2010.
David Hywel Francis was a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Aberavon from 2001 to 2015. A member of the Labour Party, he chaired the Welsh Affairs Committee from 2005 to 2010 and the Joint Committee on Human Rights from 2010 to 2015.
James Hood was a Scottish Labour Party politician, who served as a Member of Parliament from 1987 until being defeated in 2015. He represented the Clydesdale constituency until 2005, and the Lanark and Hamilton East constituency thereafter. Hood, a National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) trade union official during the miners' strike of 1984–85, remained a backbencher throughout his parliamentary career.
Kevin Michael Hughes was a British Labour politician. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North from 1992 to 2005. He served as a government whip and was previously a coal miner and official for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
Roy Mason, Baron Mason of Barnsley,, was a British Labour Party politician and Cabinet minister who was Secretary of State for Defence and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the 1970s.
Siân Catherine James is a Welsh Labour Party politician, who was Member of Parliament (MP) for Swansea East from 2005 to 2015.
The modern political history of the United Kingdom (1979–present) began when Margaret Thatcher gained power in 1979, giving rise to 18 years of Conservative government. Victory in the Falklands War (1982) and the government's strong opposition to trade unions helped lead the Conservative Party to another three terms in government. Thatcher initially pursued monetarist policies and went on to privatise many of Britain's nationalised companies such as British Telecom, British Gas Corporation, British Airways and British Steel Corporation. She kept the National Health Service. The controversial "poll tax" to fund local government was unpopular, and the Conservatives removed Thatcher as Prime Minister in 1990, although Michael Heseltine, the minister who did much to undermine her, did not personally benefit from her being ousted.
David James Wilkie was a Welsh taxi driver who was killed during the miners' strike in the United Kingdom, when two striking miners dropped a concrete block from a footbridge onto his taxi whilst he was driving a strike-breaking miner to work. The attack caused a widespread revulsion at the extent of violence in the dispute. The two miners were convicted of murder but the charge was reduced to manslaughter on appeal, becoming a leading case on the issue of the difference between the two offences.
David East QPM is a retired British police officer who served as Chief Constable of South Wales Police, and was also Secretary of the Welsh Rugby Union.
The 1989 Pontypridd by-election was a by-election held in Wales on 23 February 1989 for the House of Commons constituency of Pontypridd in Mid Glamorgan.
Owen Smith is a British lobbyist and former Labour Party politician who has been the UK government relations director for pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb since 2020. Smith was Member of Parliament (MP) for Pontypridd from 2010 to 2019.
Stephen John Doughty is a Welsh Labour and Co-operative Party politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Cardiff South and Penarth since 2012. He has been the Shadow Minister for Europe, North America and the Overseas Territories since November 2021.
Arthur Scargill is a British trade unionist who was President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1982 to 2002. He is best known for leading the UK miners' strike (1984–85), a major event in the history of the British labour movement.
Alexandra Davies-Jones is a Welsh politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Pontypridd since 2019. A member of the Labour Party, she is Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
