Chris Smith, Baron Smith of Finsbury
The Lord Smith of Finsbury | |||
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![]() Smith in 2020 | |||
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport[1] | |||
In office 2 May 1997 – 8 June 2001 | |||
Prime Minister | Tony Blair | ||
Preceded by | Virginia Bottomley | ||
Succeeded by | Tessa Jowell | ||
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Personal details | |||
Born | Barnet, United Kingdom | 24 July 1951||
Political party | Independent (2008–present)[2] Labour (1979–2008) | ||
Domestic partner | Dorian Jabri (2006–2012) | ||
Alma mater | Pembroke College, Cambridge (BA, PhD) Harvard University (K.Sch) | ||
Signature | ![]() | ||
Website | Official website |
Christopher Robert Smith, Baron Smith of Finsbury, PC (born 24 July 1951) is a British politician and a peer; a former Member of Parliament (MP) and Cabinet Minister; and former chairman of the Environment Agency. For the majority of his career he was a Labour Party member. He was the first openly gay male British MP, coming out in 1984, and in 2005, the first MP to acknowledge that he is HIV positive.[3][4]
Early life[]
Chris Smith was born in Barnet,[citation needed] London, and educated at George Watson's College in Edinburgh and Pembroke College, Cambridge. At Cambridge he gained a first class honours degree in English, and a PhD with a thesis on Coleridge and Wordsworth.[5] He attended Harvard University as a Kennedy Scholar,[5] and was president of the Cambridge Union Society.
Member of Parliament[]
He worked for a housing charity and became a councillor in the London Borough of Islington. He came third at Epsom and Ewell in the 1979 general election before narrowly winning the seat of Islington South and Finsbury at the 1983 general election, defeating George Cunningham, who had ultimately defected to the Social Democrats from Labour. Cunningham stood again at the 1987 general election when Smith retained the seat.[6]
In 1984, he became Britain's first gay MP to choose to "come out". There had been several gay MPs before this whose homosexuality had been common knowledge in some circles, including their constituents in some cases, but they had not been completely open about it. (In 1975 Maureen Colquhoun had been effectively "outed" by press revelations.) During a rally in Rugby, Warwickshire, against a possible ban on gay employees by the town council, Smith began his speech: "Good afternoon, I'm Chris Smith, I'm the Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury and I'm gay."[7] This was unscripted, and the decision to include it in his speech was made at the last minute.[8][pages needed] He immediately received a standing ovation from most of the audience.
He became an opposition whip in 1986, a shadow Treasury minister from 1987 to 1992, and shadowed the environment, heritage, pensions and health portfolios between 1992 and 1997.
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport[]
In 1997, he was appointed to Tony Blair's Cabinet as the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. As a Minister known to have a close connection with the arts scene in Britain, his time at DCMS is generally regarded as a success, for many projects funded through the National Lottery came to fruition. There were controversies, such as his approval during his first week as minister of the appointment of Mary Allen to the Royal Opera House. In this case, a Select Committee report later found that he had exceeded his authority and had improperly failed to seek advice from his Permanent Secretary.
In 2000, he managed to secure a tax rebate that enabled many museums to give free admission.[8][pages needed] He held this position throughout the Labour government's first term, but was sacked and returned to the back benches after the 2001 election, being replaced by Tessa Jowell.[9]
Appointment to the House of Lords[]
After over 20 years in Parliament, Smith stepped down from the House of Commons at the 2005 general election. It was announced on 30 April 2005 that he was to be created a life peer, and the title was gazetted on 22 June 2005 as Baron Smith of Finsbury, of Finsbury in the London Borough of Islington.[10][11]
Retirement from politics[]
Smith was appointed Chair of the London Cultural Consortium (successor body to the Cultural Strategy Group) by Ken Livingstone, the then Mayor of London, and served from 2005 to 2008. He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship in 2010 from the University of Cumbria.[12] In November 2006, he was appointed as Chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority.[13] He was one of the founding directors of the Clore Leadership Programme, an initiative aimed at helping to train and develop new leaders of Britain's cultural sector.[14][15] He is also currently Chairman of the Wordsworth Trust.[16]
Smith is a keen mountaineer, and was the first MP to climb all the 3,000 ft "Munros" in Scotland;[17] in April 2004, he was elected President of the Ramblers' Association.[18] He is a patron of London-based HIV charity The Food Chain,[19] and also Patron of HIV support charity The National Long-Term Survivors Group (NLTSG).
Smith was announced as the new Chairman of the Environment Agency on 8 May 2008, and took up the new role in mid-July.[20] In an interview with The Independent in August that year he said Britain faced hard choices over which coasts to defend and which to leave to the sea, because it would not be possible to save all coastal homes from sea erosion.[21] Lord Smith was re-appointed as Chair of the Environment Agency for a further three years by Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman in 2011. On re-appointment he received £100,813 pro rata for 2011–12, based on working three days a week.[22] Lord Smith continued in this role until 13 July 2014.
Smith became a vice-president of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality in February 2009.[23]
In December 2014, it was announced that Lord Smith would become the next Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge in 2015, succeeding Sir Richard Dearlove. He accepted an invitation to become the Chairman of Trustees of the Cambridge Union Society in 2015.
He is currently listed as the Chairman of the Task Force on Shale Gas.[24]
Personal life[]
In 2006, Smith entered a civil partnership with Dorian Jabri,[25] his partner since 1989.[26] The couple separated in 2012.[27] Smith was a director of the Finsbury-based world jazz ensemble Grand Union Orchestra for a period in the mid 1990s.[28]
HIV status[]
In 2003, Smith was contacted by a reporter from The Sunday Times asking for a comment on his health but declined, citing the Press Complaints Code. However, two years later, in 2005, he contacted the paper's editor and revealed in a story, titled "Why This is the Time to Break my HIV Silence", he had been diagnosed as HIV-positive as long ago as 1987.[4][8][pages needed] He stated he had decided to go public following Nelson Mandela's announcement of his son's death from AIDS.[3]
References[]
- ^ National Heritage (1997)
- ^ "Lord Smith of Finsbury". Parliament of the United Kingdom.
- ^ Jump up to: a b "Former minister is HIV positive". BBC News Online. 30 January 2005. Retrieved 28 September 2008.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Why this is the time to break my HIV silence, Chris Smith writing in The Sunday Times, 30 January 2005
- ^ Jump up to: a b [1], Environment Agency. "Rt Hon Lord Smith of Finsbury, Chairman." Retrieved 2 August 2013.
- ^ According to Election Demon Archived 5 August 2016 at the Wayback Machine, in 1983 Smith got 13 460 votes to Cunningham's 13 097, in 1987 the respective totals were 16 511 to 15 706
- ^ Campbell, Dennis (30 January 2005). "The pioneer who changed gay lives". The Observer. Retrieved 28 September 2008.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c Reynolds, Andrew, 1967- (2019). The children of Harvey Milk: how LGBTQ politicians changed the world. New York, NY. ISBN 978-0-19-046095-2. OCLC 1023814403.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
- ^ Brown, Maggie (11 June 2001). "Welcome to the ministry of fun, Tessa". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 October 2020.
- ^ "No. 57685". The London Gazette. 27 June 2005. p. 8317.
- ^ "Lord Smith of Finsbury". Archived from the original on 9 November 2010. Retrieved 9 September 2010.
- ^ "2010 | University of Cumbria".
- ^ Sweney, Mark (7 November 2006). "Chris Smith to head ASA". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 October 2020.
- ^ "The Clore Leadership Programme". Cloreleadership.org. Archived from the original on 5 January 2016. Retrieved 29 December 2015.
- ^ "GOV.UK". Environment Agency. Retrieved 29 December 2015.
- ^ "Trustees". Retrieved 16 February 2014.
- ^ "Scottish Mountaineering Club". Scottish Mountaineering Club. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 23 August 2011.
- ^ Pyke, Nicholas; Lacey, Hester (25 April 2004). "Rambling Tsar comes to the aid of Madonna". The Independent on Sunday. Independent News & Media. Retrieved 28 September 2008.
- ^ "Patrons | People in the Chain | About Us | The Food Chain". www.foodchain.org.uk.
- ^ Gerrard, Neil (9 May 2008). "Chris Smith becomes new Environment Agency chairman". Contract Journal. Reed Business Information Limited. Retrieved 28 September 2008.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Morris, Nigel (18 August 2008). "Stark warning on Britain's shrinking coast". The Independent. Retrieved 28 September 2008.
- ^ "Re-appointments to the Environment Agency". Defra. Retrieved 5 March 2013.
- ^ "CHE > In the news". www.c-h-e.org.uk.
- ^ "About the Task Force - Task Force on Shale Gas".
- ^ Shoffman, Marc (25 July 2006). "Ex-Cabinet minister becomes first peer to have civil partnership". PinkNews. Retrieved 22 October 2020.
- ^ Bale, Joanna (31 January 2005). "No 10 rallies round as leading MP admits: 'I'm HIV positive'". The Times. Retrieved 22 October 2020.
... Mr Smith, who met his partner, Dorian Jabri, two years after the diagnosis ...
- ^ Moss, Stephen (16 February 2014). "Environment Agency head Chris Smith: 'I'm not having my staff belittled'". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 October 2020.
- ^ "Members' Interests". The Guardian. 5 August 1996. p. 86/13.
External links[]
- 1951 births
- Living people
- 2012 Summer Olympics cultural ambassadors
- Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge
- Councillors in the London Borough of Islington
- Fellows of King's College London
- Gay politicians
- Harvard University alumni
- Labour Party (UK) life peers
- Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
- LGBT life peers
- LGBT members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom
- LGBT politicians from England
- Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
- People educated at George Watson's College
- People from Chipping Barnet
- People with HIV/AIDS
- Politics of the London Borough of Islington
- UK MPs 1983–1987
- UK MPs 1987–1992
- UK MPs 1992–1997
- UK MPs 1997–2001
- UK MPs 2001–2005
- Chairs of the Fabian Society
- Presidents of the Cambridge Union
- LGBT government ministers