John Redwood

Sir John Alan Redwood (born 15 June 1951) is a British politician and academic who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wokingham in Berkshire since 1987. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Secretary of State for Wales in the Major government and was twice an unsuccessful candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party in the 1990s. Redwood subsequently served in the Shadow Cabinets of William Hague and Michael Howard; he has remained a backbencher since then.

The Right Honourable Sir
Sir John Redwood
MP
Official portrait, 2020
Shadow Secretary of State for Deregulation
In office
6 May 2005 – 5 December 2005
LeaderMichael Howard
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byPosition abolished
Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Transport and the Regions
In office
15 June 1999 – 2 February 2000
LeaderWilliam Hague
Preceded byGillian Shephard
Succeeded byArchie Norman
Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry
In office
11 June 1997 – 15 June 1999
LeaderJohn Major
William Hague
Preceded byMichael Heseltine
Succeeded byAngela Browning
Secretary of State for Wales
In office
27 May 1993 – 26 June 1995
Prime MinisterJohn Major
Preceded byDavid Hunt
Succeeded byWilliam Hague
Minister of State for Local Government
In office
15 April 1992 – 27 May 1993
Prime MinisterJohn Major
Preceded byMichael Portillo
Succeeded byDavid Curry
Minister of State for Corporate Affairs
In office
26 July 1989 – 15 April 1992
Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher
John Major
Preceded byFrancis Maude
Succeeded byNeil Hamilton
Director of the Number 10 Policy Unit
In office
5 May 1982 – 12 November 1987
Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher
Preceded byFerdinand Mount
Succeeded byBrian Griffiths
Member of Parliament
for Wokingham
Assumed office
11 June 1987
Preceded byWilliam van Straubenzee
Majority7,383 (11.9%)
Personal details
Born
John Alan Redwood

(1951-06-15) 15 June 1951
Dover, England
Political partyConservative
Spouse
Gail Chippington
​
​
(m. 1974; div. 2003)​
Children2
EducationKent College, Canterbury
Alma materMagdalen College, Oxford (BA)
St Antony's College, Oxford (MPhil)
All Souls College, Oxford (DPhil)
Academic background
ThesisThe fear of atheism in England, from the Restoration to Berkeley’s Alciphron' (1975)
Part of the politics series on
Thatcherism
Margaret Thatcher
Philosophy
People
Organisations
Related movements

Prior to becoming an MP, Redwood completed a doctorate at All Souls College, Oxford and served as Director of the Number 10 Policy Unit under Margaret Thatcher. He is a veteran Eurosceptic who was described in 1993 as a "pragmatic Thatcherite".[1] He was the co-chairman of the Conservative Party's Policy Review Group on Economic Competitiveness until 2010. He has the role of Chief Global Strategist of investment management company Charles Stanley & Co Ltd (part of Charles Stanley Group). Redwood is a long-term critic of the European Union and of the United Kingdom's former membership of it. He supported Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum, and is a member of the British Eurosceptic pressure group Leave Means Leave.[2]

Early life

John Redwood was born in Dover, the second child of William Redwood (1925–2016),[3] an accountant and company secretary, and his wife, Amy Emma (née Champion), the manager of a shoe shop. He had an elder sister, Jennifer, who died as a baby in 1949.[4][5] His childhood began in a council house, and describes his family buying their own house as a "big breakthrough" for the family.[6]

Education

Redwood was educated at private Kent College, Canterbury, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated BA in modern history in 1971. He was a postgraduate at St Antony's College, Oxford, from 1971 to 1972 and was elected an Examination Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, from 1972 to 1979, which later led to a distinguished fellowship in 2007.[7] At All Souls, he wrote a DPhil thesis which investigated the fear of atheism in England, from the Restoration to the publication of Alciphron by George Berkeley. He graduated DPhil in 1975.[8][9]

Political career

He was an Oxfordshire county councillor between 1973 and 1977, the youngest ever at the age of 21 when elected. In 1981 he unsuccessfully stood for the Greater London Council seat of Peckham.[10] The following year he stood to be an MP in the Peckham by-election of October 1982, where he lost to Harriet Harman.[11] From 1983 onwards, he headed Margaret Thatcher's policy unit,[1] where he was one of the champions of privatisation.[12]

Redwood became MP for Wokingham in June 1987. Redwood was made a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in July 1989 for corporate affairs at the Department of Trade and Industry. In November 1990, he was promoted to Minister of State. Redwood became Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities following the 1992 general election, where he oversaw the abolition of the Community Charge, known colloquially as the "poll tax", and its replacement with the Council Tax.[13]

Redwood was opposed to attempts to reduce the age of consent for homosexuality in both 1994 and 1999, choosing to vote to keep Section 28 in November 2003.[14] He has generally been opposed to same-sex marriage. He voted for the reintroduction of capital punishment in 1988, 1990 and 1994 and voiced support for the reintroducing of the death penalty when he launched his leadership bid on 26 June 1995.[15] Redwood has stated since then: "I have never spoken or written against civil partnerships and gay marriage and am not proposing any change to current laws. I regard the debate about capital punishment as being over and do not support its reintroduction."[16][17][18]

In 2011, he abstained on the military intervention in Libya.[19]

In government
Official portrait, 1995

In the government reshuffle of May 1993, Redwood was appointed to the cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales.[20] He deferred some road-widening schemes in Wales because of suggested harm to the environment.[21]

Redwood committed a gaffe in 1993, when he attempted to mime to the Welsh national anthem at the Welsh Conservative Party conference, when he did not know the words.[22] Redwood subsequently learned the anthem but, in August 2007, an unconnected news story on Redwood was illustrated with the same clip. This resulted in Conservative activists filing complaints, and as a result the BBC apologised to Redwood for airing the dated footage.[23]

In February 1995, he was at loggerheads with the Countryside Council for Wales, because he had decided to cut its grant by 16%.[24] He also launched a scheme to provide more funding for popular schools with high numbers of applicants and concentrated extra expenditure on health and education services, away from administrative overheads.

Redwood consequently gained a somewhat haughty reputation with apparent disregard for Welsh national feeling; this did not endear him further to some of the population,[25] including when he returned £100 million of Wales's block grant to the Treasury unspent in 1995.[26]

Leadership contests and subsequent career

When John Major called upon his critics to "put up or shut up" and tendered his resignation to allow for a leadership challenge, Redwood resigned from the Cabinet, and stood against Major in the subsequent party leadership election on 26 June 1995.[27] In the ballot held on 4 July 1995, Redwood received 89 votes, around a quarter of the then Parliamentary Party. Major received 218 votes, or two thirds of the parliamentary party vote. The newspaper The Sun had declared its support for Redwood in the run up to the leadership contest, running the front-page headline "Redwood versus Deadwood".[28]

When Major resigned as party leader following the General Election defeat of May 1997, Redwood stood in the resulting election for the leadership, and was again defeated. After being defeated in the third round with 38 votes to Kenneth Clarke's 64 and William Hague's 62, Redwood backed Clarke against Hague.[29]

Redwood was subsequently appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry by the victorious William Hague. He was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions in June 1999,[30] but was dropped in a mini reshuffle in February 2000, being succeeded by Archie Norman.

Under Michael Howard, he was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Deregulation.[31]

Brexit

Redwood is a veteran Eurosceptic.[32] A critic of the Euro before its launch, in 2011 Redwood suggested that the Eurozone should "break up", and proposed that the United Kingdom should give up its Council voting rights in return for the ability to opt out of any EU legislation.[33] There are no existing laws that would permit such an arrangement, as it would make European law not apply evenly across the Union as a whole. Later that year, he joined 81 rebel Conservative MPs in voting for an in-out referendum for leaving the European Union, saying afterwards "People used to call me an extreme Eurosceptic. Now I’m a moderate."[32] Before the Brexit referendum, Redwood wrote that, to Conservative Eurosceptics like him, leaving the EU was "more important than which party wins the next election or who is the prime minister."[34]

Since then, he has suggested the United Kingdom need not prioritise a post-Brexit deal with the EU, and received criticism for writing an investment advice column which recommended investors "look further afield" than the United Kingdom. Redwood denied this interpretation, saying that he simply advises investors of where international markets are heading and did not write an investment column "recommending investors pull their money out of the United Kingdom".[35][36]

In statements to media and in the House of Commons, Redwood has consistently defended the position that the UK should not pay the so-called Brexit bill (amounting to around £39 billion).[37] This is in line with a House of Lords EU financial affairs committee report,[38] which itself is contested on its legal soundness since the financial settlement simply reflects commitments already entered into by the UK under the EU's multi-annual financial framework for the years 2014–2020 and therefore is not linked to the process of the UK leaving the European Union.[39][40] In December 2019, Redwood voted in favour of the Withdrawal Agreement through which the UK accepts to pay its outstanding financial obligations to the EU.

In June 2021, Redwood criticised the composition of the G7 which includes the president of the European Commission and the president of the European Council in addition to representatives from France, Germany and Italy. According to Redwood this hands a majority to the EU in the G7,[41] even if the G7 does not take decisions through majority voting.

Public image

He has often been compared to a Vulcan, a comparison originally made by Matthew Parris, due to his physical appearance and intonation,[1] a preference for making arguments with logic over passion[6] and a perception for being cold and humourless.[42] Redwood said that he does not like the description but "if you don't like the heat then get out of the kitchen". He continued, "I think people sometimes go for those kind of things because they haven't managed to trap me in the more normal way".[6]

Redwood supports the establishment of a devolved English parliament.[43] Following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, Redwood called for radical reform involving the establishment of an English Parliament. His politicking prior to and succeeding the referendum placed him "front and centre" to any political gain due to the perceived power vacuum resulting from any possible changes to the status quo of the union.[44]

Honours

Business career

Redwood worked as an investment analyst, manager and director for Robert Fleming and for NM Rothschild in the 1970s and 1980s.[47][48] In 2007 he co-founded Evercore Pan-Asset Capital Management Ltd, a financial management company, which was subsequently sold to Charles Stanley.[49] He is currently Chief Global Strategist at Charles Stanley & Co Ltd.[50] He was previously a non-executive chairman of Mabey Securities, an investment arm of the engineering firm Mabey.[48]

In January 2023, Sky News revealed that Redwood had, since the 2019 general election, earnt more than £600,000 in addition to his salary as an MP – the fifth-highest amount of any MP.[51]

Personal life

He married Gail Felicity Chippington, a barrister, on 20 April 1974 in Chipping Norton; they had two children, Catherine (born 1978) and Richard (born 1982). The marriage broke down after 28 years, and they divorced a year later in July 2003.[52][53][54]

In the media

Redwood was interviewed about the rise of Thatcherism for the BBC television documentary series of 2006, Tory! Tory! Tory!,[55] and has often appeared on television, including appearances on the BBC's Question Time.[56]

Redwood publicly argued with Greta Thunberg over the UK's climate emissions on Twitter.[57]

Blog

Redwood regularly updates a blog of political commentary which he has called John Redwood's Diary.[58][48] Printed and bound copies of this blog are housed at the British Library and can be accessed through the British Library catalogue.[59]

Bibliography
  • I Don't Like Politics: But I Want to Make a Difference. Politico's Publishing. October 2006. ISBN 978-1-84275-182-4.
  • Singing the Blues: 30 Years Of Tory Civil War. Politico's Publishing. October 2004. ISBN 978-1-84275-076-6.
  • Just Say No!: 100 Arguments Against the Euro. Politico's Publishing. July 2001. ISBN 978-1-902301-99-0.
  • Stars and Strife: The Coming Conflict Between the USA and the European Union. Palgrave Macmillan. February 2001. ISBN 978-0-333-91841-8.
  • The Death of Britain?. Palgrave Macmillan. May 1999. ISBN 978-0-333-74439-0.
  • Our Currency, Our Country: Dangers of European Monetary Union. Penguin Books. March 1997. ISBN 978-0-14-026523-1.
  • Public Enterprise in Crisis: Future of Nationalized Industries. Blackwell Publishers. November 1980. ISBN 978-0631125822.
  • Reason, Ridicule and Religion: The Age of Enlightenment in England 1660–1750. Thames and Hudson. 1976. ISBN 0-500-27885-7

References
  1. Macintyre, Donald (10 July 1993). "Profile: Vulcan in the House: John Redwood – He has enemies in the party, but even they defer to his razor-sharp mind, writes Donald Macintyre". The Independent. Archived from the original on 13 June 2022. Retrieved 13 November 2017.
  2. "Co-Chairmen – Political Advisory Board – Supporters". Leave Means Leave. Archived from the original on 24 October 2017. Retrieved 14 December 2017.
  3. "The death of William Redwood". johnredwoodsdiary.com.
  4. "FreeBMD – Search". freebmd.org.uk.
  5. Deaths – England and Wales – July, August and September 1949
  6. Davies, Ben (1 October 2004). "Interview: John Redwood". BBC. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  7. "All Souls College Oxford". asc.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
  8. Redwood, John Alan (1975). The Fear of Atheism in England, from the Restoration to Berkeley's Alciphron. jisc.ac.uk (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. OCLC 43141408. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.470179. Archived from the original on 27 March 2019. Retrieved 25 March 2019.
  9. "About". johnredwoodsdiary.com. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
  10. "Greater London Council Election" (PDF). 7 May 1981. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 August 2013. Retrieved 26 August 2023.
  11. "Sheila Faith – obituary". The Daily Telegraph. 16 October 2014. Retrieved 22 October 2014.
  12. "John Redwood". BBC News. 16 October 2002. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  13. Local Government Review, Vol. 156, Part 1 (Justice of the Peace Ltd, 1992), p. 400
  14. "John Redwood". theyworkforyou.com. Retrieved on 23 November 2015.
  15. "Redwood promises UK right-wing policies". UPI.
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  18. Nigel Farndale (12 November 2006). "Say no to gallows humour". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved on 23 November 2015. John Redwood's Diary 17 February 2018 www.johnredwoodsdiary.com
  19. "The full list of how MPs voted on Libya action". BBC News. 22 March 2011. Retrieved 20 October 2021.
  20. Chris Cook, John Stevenson, eds., Longman Companion to Britain Since 1945 (2014), p. 121
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  29. "John Redwood". BBC News. 1997. Retrieved 13 November 2017.
  30. The Hutchinson Almanac (Helicon Publishing, 2000), p. 63
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  32. "Making the break". Economist. 8 December 2012. Retrieved 13 November 2017.
  33. Redwood, John. "Let's give up our EU veto and opt out instead". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 13 November 2017.
  34. Redwood, John (26 May 2016). "A vote to remain in the EU won't be the last we hear of Brexit". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 November 2017.
  35. Elgot, Jessica (13 November 2017). "John Redwood criticised over advice to pull money out of UK". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 November 2017.
  36. Coppola, Frances (12 November 2017). "British Lawmaker Advises Investors To Take Their Money Out Of The UK". Forbes. Retrieved 14 November 2017. John Redwood's Diary 17 February 2018 www.johnredwoodsdiary.com
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  38. Rankin, Jennifer (4 March 2017). "Brexit: UK could quit EU without paying a penny, say Lords". Guardian online. Retrieved 23 November 2018.
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  55. Patricia Holland, Broadcasting and the NHS in the Thatcherite 1980s (2013), pp. 137–138
  56. Matthew Parris, Chance Witness: An Outsider's Life in Politics (2013), pp. 432–437
  57. "Tory MP takes aim at Greta Thunberg for suggesting UK is 'lying' about climate change successes, and is duly roasted | indy100". Archived from the original on 22 August 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
  58. John Redwood's Diary Retrieved 2 June 2020
  59. John Redwood's Diaries, archives and manuscripts catalogue, the British Library. Retrieved 2 June 2020
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