David Winnick

David Winnick MP
Member of Parliament for Walsall North
Incumbent
Assumed office 3 May 1979
Preceded by	Robin Hodgson
Majority	990 (2.7%)
Member of Parliament for Croydon South
In office 31 March 1966 – 18 June 1970
Preceded by	Richard Thompson
Succeeded by	Richard Thompson
Personal details
Born	26 June 1933 (1933-06-26) (age 78) Brighton, East Sussex[1]
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour

David Julian Winnick (born 26 June 1933) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Walsall North since 1979.

Winnick, who was born to a British Jewish family,^[2] was an advertising manager and a branch chairman of the Clerical and Administrative Workers Union. He was a councillor from 1959 on Willesden Borough Council, then the London Borough of Brent.

Winnick was first elected as an MP in 1966, for Croydon South (now the area roughly covered by Croydon Central constituency), defeating incumbent Richard Thompson. He lost his seat to Thompson in 1970. After completing a diploma in social administration at the London School of Economics, he stood again in Croydon in October 1974 and was returned for Walsall North in 1979.

Winnick is generally regarded as on the left of the Labour Party and has a strong commitment to human rights. That commitment made him a strong voice in the House of Commons against both the Taliban and Saddam Hussein and he supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

On 9 November 2005, Winnick's amendment to a government bill on detention of terrorist suspects without trial - proposing that the maximum period of detention should be 28 days, rather than 90 - passed in the House of Commons by 323 votes to 290, shortly after the government's 90-day proposal was defeated by 322 to 291. This was Tony Blair's first Commons defeat on a whipped vote, after nearly nine years as Prime Minister, and may come to be seen as a critical moment of his term in office.

In January 2009, he urged the communities minister to deplore the fact that Richard Williamson, a British born bishop and Holocaust denier, had been brought back into the fold by the Vatican.^[3]

Winnick played a prominent role in the campaign to force the resignation of the Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin. This followed controversy from May 2009 concerning MPs' alleged misuse of permitted allowances and expenses.^[4]

References

1. ^ http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whoswho/U40375
2. ^ Jessica Elgot. "New Jewish ministers and the Miliband rivalry". The Jewish Chronicle. http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/31823/new-jewish-ministers-and-miliband-rivalry. 
3. ^ No excuse for anti-Semitism
4. ^ Under-fire Speaker to step down

External links

• David Winnick official site
• Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: David Winnick MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com - David Winnick MP
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by David Winnick
• The Public Whip - David Winnick MP voting record
• Public Whip - Commons vote on Winnick's amendment to Terrorism Bill Clause 23, 9 November 2005

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Richard Thompson	Member of Parliament for Croydon South 1966–1970	Succeeded by Richard Thompson
Preceded by Robin Hodgson	Member of Parliament for Walsall North 1979–present	Incumbent

Persondata
Name	Winnick, David
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	26 June 1933
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death