I'm Keeping Young: The Everyday Life of an MP - Couverture souple

Young, George

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0993425704 ISBN 13 : 9780993425707

Editeur : George Young, 2015

A propos du livre

Biographie de l'auteur

George Young was born in 1941, the eldest son of a diplomat and a diplomat’s daughter. His early years were spent on overseas posts abroad before going to Eton and then winning an Open Exhibition to Christ Church, Oxford. In 1964 he married Aurelia, the daughter of the sculptor Oscar Nemon. They have four children and eight grandchildren.

After living in London, where they both served on Lambeth Borough Council, they moved in 1970 to the family home in Cookham, which they had rebuilt. George was elected to Parliament in February 1974 as the Conservative MP for Ealing Acton, where he stayed until the seat was abolished in 1997. He was an Opposition Whip under Margaret Thatcher from 1976 to 1979, when he joined the Government first as a junior Health Minister and then as a junior Housing Minister. He left the Government in 1986 and led the opposition to the Poll Tax from the backbenches.

He returned in July 1990 as a Whip and, when Margaret Thatcher resigned in November, John Major made him Housing Minister. He subsequently became Financial Secretary to the Treasury and joined the Cabinet in 1995 as Secretary of State for Transport, completing the privatisation of the railways.

In 1997, he was elected MP for North West Hampshire, where he remained until retiring in 2015. He and Aurelia moved to the constituency in 1997. In 2010, George became Leader of the House of Commons and then Government Chief Whip in David Cameron’s first administration. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1993, a Companion of Honour in 2012 and was made a Life Peer in the Dissolution Honours in 2015.

Présentation de l'éditeur

Publications by politicians are usually their autobiographies, or their diaries. This book seeks to fill a gap between the two – neither a lengthy apologia of my record in office nor a blow by blow account of the daily experiences of my life as a politician.

Instead it is a collection of light-hearted pieces written over a space of thirty years for my local paper, first the Acton Gazette and then the Andover Advertiser. The activities of my erstwhile profession as a politician are rightly scrutinised by the media, and our fallibilities then mercilessly exposed. The same treatment is visited on the institutions we inhabit – political parties, the House of Commons, Government Departments.

These articles fish in the same pond, but with a view to putting what is caught back in the water and conserving them, rather than hitting them on the head.

I hope they may encourage the reader to take a more benign view of those who seek elected office; and possibly encourage some to have a go themselves.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: George Young
• Date d'édition: 2015
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0993425704
• ISBN 13: 9780993425707
• Reliure: Broché
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 286
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible