Stephen Twigg
From Free net encyclopedia
Stephen Twigg (born December 25, 1966) is a British politician and former Labour Member of Parliament for Enfield Southgate.
He was educated at Southgate comprehensive, where he once clashed with the local Conservative MP Michael Portillo, and at Balliol College, Oxford. He became the youngest and first openly gay president of the National Union of Students in 1990, and was a councillor in the London Borough of Islington.
In the 1997 election he was elected to Parliament for Enfield Southgate, the constituency in which he had been born and raised, with a majority of 1,433. There was a massive 17.8% swing to him from his Conservative opponent, Michael Portillo. For many Labour supporters, this was the most iconic moment of the election; in the Festival Hall in London (the scene of the party celebrations that evening), this evoked a massive cheer. Portillo was not only a cabinet minister, he was widely tipped as a future leader of the Conservative Party. Twigg was forced to give up his role as general secretary of the Fabian Society following an unexpected victory in what was regarded to be a safe Conservative seat.
In the 2001 election he held the seat with an increased majority of 5,546, second place going to Conservative John Flack. Following the 2001 election, Twigg was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the House of Commons, Robin Cook, and in 2002 became a junior minister in the Department for Education and Skills. In 2004, in the government changes following the resignation of David Blunkett, he was promoted to Minister of State for school standards.
In the 2005 election, Twigg lost his seat to the Conservative Party candidate, David Burrowes, by a margin of 1,747 votes. This was a surprise loss for the Labour Party, much in same way as the seat was won from the Conservatives in 1997. During his concession speech, Twigg claimed that he would not be the last Labour MP for Enfield Southgate.
He was the first gay man to be out at the time of their election to the House of Commons when he was elected at the 1997 General Election, in that regard it proved a close contest for just 21 minutes later Ben Bradshaw, also openly gay, was elected in Exeter.
Twigg is currently Chair of Progress, an independent Blairite organisation for Labour party members, and Director of the Foreign Policy Centre, a think tank with offices in London and Beijing which develops long-term multilateral approaches to global problems. Twigg also contributes weekly to the Aegis Trust, in their educational work against genocide.
On December 12, 2005, Twigg was arrested and fined for being drunk and incapable in a public place. [1].