British statesman, born in Gorseinon, near Swansea, SC Wales, UK. Brought up in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, he studied at Cambridge, where he was president of the Union, and was called to the bar in 1964. He was elected an MP in 1983, and after several junior posts became minister for local government (19878), minister for water and planning (198890), secretary of state for employment (19902) and the environment (19923), and home secretary (19937). He emerged as a contender for the leadership of the Conservative Party following John Major's resignation in 1997, but withdrew after the first ballot and became shadow foreign secretary (19979). He was appointed shadow chancellor (20013), and in 2003 was elected unopposed as party leader. Defeated in the 2005 general election campaign, he stepped down in December that year and was replaced by David Cameron.
Michael Howard, QC (born 7 July 1941) is a British politician and former Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Conservative Party from November 2003 to December 2005.
Early life
Howard was born in Gorseinon, Wales, where his Romanian Jewish shopkeeper father Bernard Hecht had moved as an economic migrant . When Howard was six, the family name Hecht was anglicised to Howard (he has occasionally been referred to in later life as "Michael Hecht" or even "Michel Hecht", usually by far-right and anti-Semitic people). Howard was one of a cluster of bright Conservative students at Cambridge around this time, sometimes referred to as the Cambridge Mafia, many of whom went on to hold high government office under Margaret Thatcher and John Major.
At this time Howard was a leading advocate of British membership of the Common Market (EEC) and served on the board of the cross-party Britain in Europe group.
Howard was named as co-respondent in the high profile divorce case of former 1960s model Sandra Paul. Unlike his many Cambridge contemporaries, Howard found it difficult to find and be selected for a winnable parliamentary seat and so continued his career at the Bar where he became a Queen's Counsel in 1982.
Career in Government
Howard very quickly rose in the ranks of Government, becoming Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Trade and Industry in 1985 with responsibility for regulating the financial dealings of the City of London.
Howard then guided through the House of Commons the Local Government Finance Act 1988. Howard personally supported the tax and won the respect of Mrs Thatcher for minimising the rebellion against it within the Conservative Party. After a period as Minister for Water and Planning in 1988/89 during which he was responsible for implementing water privatization in England and Wales, Howard was promoted to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Employment in January 1990 with the resignation of Norman Fowler (who left "to spend more time with his family"). Howard subsequently guided through legislation abolishing the closed shop and campaigned vigorously for Mrs Thatcher in the first ballot of the leadership contest in November 1990. Howard repeatedly clashed with judges and prison reformers as he sought to clamp down on crime through a series of "tough" measures. In advance of the publication Howard made statements to assign blame to the prison service. Asking whether Howard had intervened when Derek Lewis sacked a prison governor, Paxman asked: "Did you threaten to overrule him?" Howard did not give a direct answer, instead repeatedly saying that he "did not overrule him", and ignoring the "threaten" part of the question. In the longer term its precise impact on Howard's reputation remains disputed. Mr Howard was surprised, remarking: "Come on Jeremy, are you really going back over that again? This was confirmed in 2005, when under the Freedom of Information Act the Conservative Party obtained documents proving that Howard did not threaten to overrule Derek Lewis.
First attempt to become Conservative leader
After the 1997 resignation of John Major, Howard and William Hague announced they would be running on the same ticket, with Howard as leader and Hague as Deputy Leader and Party Chairman. Howard also stood but his campaign was marred by attacks on his record as Home Secretary.
Howard came in last out of five candidates with the support of only twenty-three MPs in the first round of polling for the leadership election. Howard served as Shadow Foreign Secretary for the next two years but would retire from the Shadow Cabinet in 1999 (though re remained an MP).
"Something of the night about him," claims Widdecombe
Six days after the Derek Lewis incident on Newsnight, Ann Widdecombe, his former minister of state in the Home Office, made a statement in the House of Commons about the dismissal of then director of the Prison Service, Derek Lewis, and famously remarked of Howard that "there is something of the night about him", a widely quoted comment that fatally damaged his 1997 bid for the Conservative Party leadership.
Conservative Leader
After the 2001 General Election Howard was recalled to frontline politics when the Conservatives' new leader Iain Duncan Smith appointed him as Shadow Chancellor. After Duncan Smith was removed from the leadership, Howard was elected unopposed as leader of the party in November 2003. He was perhaps helped in all this by the Conservative Party's exhaustion after thirteen years of party turmoil following Margaret Thatcher's overthrow, years which had left the party more willing to unite and rally round a leader.
In February 2004, Howard called on PM Tony Blair to resign over the Iraq war, for failing to ask "basic questions" regarding WMD claims and misleading Parliament . His criticism of Blair did not earn Howard sympathies in Washington DC, where President Bush refused to meet him.
Michael Howard was named 2003 Parliamentarian of the Year by The Spectator and Zurich UK.
Crossing swords with Paxman
In November 2004, Newsnight again concentrated on Howard with coverage of a campaign trip to Cornwall and an interview with Jeremy Paxman. The piece, which purported to show that members of the public were unable to identify Howard and that those who recognized him did not support him, was the subject of an official complaint from the Conservative Party. The complaint claimed that the Newsnight team only spoke to people who held opinions against either Michael Howard or the Conservatives, and that Paxman's style was bullying and unnecessarily aggressive.
2005 Election
In the May 2005 general election Michael Howard's party failed to unseat the Labour Government, although the Conservatives did gain 33 seats -- five from the Liberal Democrats -- and Labour's majority shrank from 167 to 66.
The day after the election, Howard stated in a speech in the newly-gained Conservative seat in Putney that he would not lead the party into the next General Election as he would be "too old", and that he would stand down "sooner rather than later", following a revision of the Conservative leadership electoral process. Despite the election of a third consecutive Labour government, Howard described the election as "the beginning of a recovery" for the Conservative party after Labour's landslide victories in 1997 and 2001.
Howard's own constituency of Folkestone and Hythe had been heavily targeted by the Liberal Democrats as the most sought after prize of their "decapitation" strategy of seeking to gain the seats of prominent Conservatives. Yet Howard almost doubled his majority to 11,680, whilst the Liberal Democrats saw their vote fall.
Criticism of 2005 campaign
During the 2005 campaign, Howard was criticised by some commentators for conducting a campaign which addressed the issues of immigration, asylum seekers and travellers, when he himself was the descendant of immigrants. Others point out that the continued media coverage of such issues created most of the controversy and that Howard merely defended his views when questioned at unrelated policy launches. Some evidence suggested that the public generally supported policies proposed by the Conservative Party when they were not told which party had proposed them, indicating that the party still had an image problem. Many middle class voters found Howard's perceived election campaign emphasis to be disagreeable: amongst key ABC1 voters (e.g.
The focus on immigration was widely alleged to have been influenced by Howard's election adviser Lynton Crosby, who has been alleged to have used similar tactics in Australian elections.
During the campaign, Howard continued to impose strong party discipline, controversially forcing the deselection of Danny Kruger (Sedgefield), Adrian Hilton (Slough) and Howard Flight (Arundel &
Cash for Peerages
On 23 October 2006, Michael Howard revealed that he had voluntarily been questioned as a potential witness concerning the Cash for Peerages investigation surrounding fundraising and the 2005 election campaign.
Final months as party leader
Despite announcing after the 2005 General Election that he would vacate the role of party leader, Howard performed a substantial reshuffle of the party's front bench on the 10th May in which several rising star MPs were given their first shadow portfolios, in particular George Osborne and David Cameron. This move cleared the way for David Cameron (who had worked for Howard as Policy Advisor when Howard was Home Secretary) to run for the Conservative Party leadership.
The reforms to the party's election process took a number of months and Howard held power as leader for six months of the new parliament. He also oversaw Blair's first parliamentary defeat, when the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats and sufficient Labour Party rebels voted against government proposals to extend to 90 days the period that terror suspects could be held for without charge. Howard stood down as leader in December of 2005 and was replaced by David Cameron.
Howard announced on 17th March 2006 that he will be standing down as MP for Folkestone and Hythe at the next election, expected to be held in 2009 or 2010 .
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