The Right Honourable  Michael Meacher  MP
Meacher at a rally outside the American Embassy, 9 December 2005.
Minister of State for the Environment
In office 2 May 1997 – 13 June 2003
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Elliot Morley
Member of Parliament for Oldham West and Royton Oldham West (1970–1997)
Incumbent
Assumed office  18 June 1970
Preceded by	Keith Bruce Campbell
Majority	10,454 (27.8%)
Born	4 November 1939 (1939-11-04) (age 70) Hemel Hempstead, United Kingdom
Political party	Labour
Alma mater	New College, Oxford London School of Economics

Michael Hugh Meacher (born 4 November 1939) is a British Labour party politician, and Member of Parliament (MP) for Oldham West and Royton. On 22 February 2007 he declared that he would be standing for the Labour Leadership, challenging Gordon Brown and John McDonnell.^[1] On 14 May, however, after talks with John McDonnell, he announced he would stand aside in order to back McDonnell as the "candidate of the left".^[2]

[edit] Beginnings

Born in Hemel Hempstead, the son of an accountant and farmer, he was educated at Berkhamsted School, New College, Oxford and the London School of Economics, where he gained a Diploma in Social Administration. He became a researcher and lecturer in social administration at Essex and York universities and wrote a book about elderly people's treatment in mental hospitals. He was the Labour Party candidate for Colchester at the 1966 UK General Election, and fought the 1968 Oldham West by-election after the resignation of Labour MP Leslie Hale but lost to Conservative candidate Bruce Campbell.^[3]

[edit] In Parliament

[edit] Junior minister

He was first elected to Parliament in 1970 for Oldham West, reversing his previous defeat, and served as a junior minister under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan (Under-Secretary for Industry, 1974-75, Under-Secretary for Health and Social Security, 1975-79). During opposition he was in the Shadow Cabinet for fourteen years and concurrently lectured at the LSE. He was seen as a figure on the left and an ally of Tony Benn and stood as the left's candidate against Roy Hattersley in the 1983 deputy leadership election.

[edit] Blair Ministry

He was an elected member of the Shadow Cabinet from 1983 to 1997, but Tony Blair refused to appoint him to the Cabinet and instead made him Minister of State for the Environment, first at the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1997-2001), then at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2001-2003). His commitment to environmental causes led him frequently to criticise government policy, distancing him from ministerial colleagues and limiting his influence outside a narrow group of non-governmental organisations and green campaigners.^{[citation needed]} Despite Blair's hostility, Meacher gained a reputation for being a politician who was on top of a complex brief^[4] and was one of the longest serving minsters in the Labour government, from 1997-2003. He was criticised for hypocrisy when he condemned second home owners; according to the BBC and Channel 4's The Mark Thomas Comedy Product, he and his wife owned more than one home themselves.^[5]

However, he attracted criticism^{[by whom?]} for going off-message in relation to the ideology of the Labour Party under Blair when he said, on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions programme in 2001, that "New Labour does not believe in capitalism". Some^[who?] saw this as a revealing throwback to his old beliefs, and the antipathy which he shared with other left-wing Labour MPs towards the operation of the Western market economies.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Political activities after 2003

He was sacked in June 2003, to be replaced by Elliot Morley. Since then he has attacked the government on a number of issues, most notably that of genetically modified food and the 2003 Iraq war, though in the run-up to the invasion he had accepted reports by the intelligence services and government saying that Iraq had Chemical Weapons.^[6]

Meacher has claimed that a supposed absence of prevention by United States authorities of the hijackings on 11 September 2001 was suspicious and 'offered an extremely convenient pretext' for subsequent military action in Afghanistan and Iraq.^[7][8] This was seen as giving "credence to conspiracy theories."^[9][10] Michael Meacher has also written a foreword for David Ray Griffin's book The New Pearl Harbor.^[11]

In May 2005 he introduced an early day motion^[12] on climate change to parliament, which calls upon the government to commit to yearly CO₂ emission reductions of 3%.

In June 2006, various articles appeared in the British media claiming Meacher would stand as a stalking horse against Tony Blair in order to initiate a leadership contest; others suggested, especially after Brown came out in support of the Trident missile programme and nuclear energy, that Meacher would challenge Brown from the left. He announced his candidacy for the Labour leadership on 22 February 2007.

On 23 September 2006, Michael Meacher became the sixth Labour MP to start a blog.^[13] Meacher has also written articles for ePolitix.com, which has included criticism of Blair and Brown for perceived right-wing policies, including privatization. He has called for a more conciliatory policy in the Middle East, attempts to tackle income inequality, and a greater commitment to reducing energy use.^[14]

[edit] Leadership bid

On 22 February 2007, Meacher declared his intention to stand for the leadership of the Labour Party claiming he had the support of a large number of MPs. The decisions of both Michael Meacher and John McDonnell to run for the leadership have been controversial^{[citation needed]} with many annoyed that John McDonnell did not consult with other members of the Socialist Campaign Group^{[citation needed]}, and many others accusing Michael Meacher of trying to split the nominations and keep John McDonnell off the ballot paper, although neither candidate was thought by many to have any chance of winning the Labour leadership.^[15][16]

On 21 April 2007, The Guardian claimed that Meacher had the support of no more than 3 MPs and that his campaign was "virtually dead in the water".^[17]

On 27 April 2007, it was reported that Meacher had reached an agreement with John McDonnell that on the day Tony Blair announced his resignation, the candidate with the fewest nominations would step aside and allow the other to challenge Gordon Brown.

On 14 May 2007, Meacher agreed to stand aside to allow John McDonnell to be the sole leadership candidate of the left. Subsequent articles reported that Meacher had 21 declarations of support while McDonnell had 24. In the Labour Party's leadership nomination process, McDonnell received nominations from 29 MPs.

[edit] Outside Parliament

• He appeared briefly as himself in the 1985 BBC Television drama serial Edge of Darkness.

• In 1988 he lost a libel action against the journalist Alan Watkins, who had pointed out that Meacher had invented working class origins by referring to his father as a farm labourer (he was in fact an accountant).

• Meacher is a member of the Fabian Society.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Michael Meacher's weblog
• ePolitix - Michael Meacher official site
• BBC News - Profile: Michael Meacher
• Guardian Politics Ask Aristotle - Michael Meacher MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com - Michael Meacher MP
• The Public Whip - Michael Meacher MP voting record
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Michael Meacher

Articles

• This war on terrorism is bogus - Michael Meacher MP
• The Big Ask More information about the Climate Change EDM

Videos

• Michael Meacher and Andreas Von Bülow express their serious doubts about 9/11
• Video: Meacher says US allowed 9/11 to happen