John Mann (British politician)

John Mann MP
Member of Parliament for Bassetlaw
Incumbent
Assumed office 8 June 2001
Preceded by	Joe Ashton
Majority	8,215 (16.6%)
Personal details
Born	(1960-01-10) 10 January 1960 Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England[1]
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Spouse(s)	Joanna White[2]
Children	2 daughters and 1 son
Alma mater	University of Manchester
Website	johnmannmp.com

John Mann (born 10 January 1960) is a Labour Party politician in England who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bassetlaw since the 2001 general election,^[3] after the retirement of previous MP Joe Ashton.

John Mann serves on the Treasury Select Committee. Previously he had been Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to Tessa Jowell and Richard Caborn.

Early life and career

Mann is the son of James (Jim) and Brenda Mann née Cleavin.^[4] He attended Waterloo Infants school and Pudsey Waterloo Junior school in Pudsey, Yorkshire, then won a County Council scholarship to Bradford Grammar School.^[1] Mann has a degree in Economics from the University of Manchester and a Diploma in Training Management.

Active in the Labour Party from his youth (Pudsey South Labour Party), his activities have taken him from residence in London (he was a councillor in the London Borough of Lambeth), to Lewes in East Sussex, Baldock in Hertfordshire and Worksop in Bassetlaw.

He was chair of the National Organisation of Labour Students in 1983 and 1984, and as a consequence a member of Labour's National Executive Committee. He subsequently co-authored a Fabian Society tract on the organisation of Labour's youth wing,^[5] which formed the basis of the later reorganisation of the youth wing by Tom Sawyer to reduce the influence of Militant tendency.^[6]

Before entering Parliament he previously worked for the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union as Head of Research and Education and as the National Training Officer at the TUC National Education Centre in North London (now closed). Mann Was national trade union officer for the 1997 General Election.^[7] He also ran a company organising international conferences.^[1] Mann is a member of Community and GMB, YHA, the British Mountaineering Council and the Co-operative Party.

Parliamentary career

Mann was first elected as MP for Bassetlaw in 2001, and subsequently retained his seat at the general elections in 2005, 2010 and 2015.

Mann served on the Treasury Select Committee twice, 2003–2005, and 2009–2015, during which time he raised issues around debt, financial misselling (with particular reference to Credit Cards) and claims handlers. Some commentators have noted Mann's reputation for asking brusque questions, particularly of senior bank executives^[8] and George Osborne.^[9]

John Mann was the first Labour MP to call for Gordon Brown to resign after the 2010 General Election.^[10] Some months earlier, when Brown was Prime Minister, Mann had written an open letter demanding a number of changes to the Labour party structures.

Mann was also vocal in criticising other MPs over the expenses scandal, arguing that MPs could not be trusted to self-regulate.^[11] He criticised the shredding of documents related to expenses before 2010, saying "it looks like MPs trying to protect MPs again".^[12] He was also responsible for lodging the complaint that resulted in an inquiry into Maria Miller's expense claims.^[11]

In 2014 Mann was responsible for compiling a dossier of historic allegations of child abuse, detailing allegations of 12 former ministers that may have been involved. He said he believes some of them were "definitely child abusers".^[13]

Mann was from the outset an opponent of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.^[14] During the leadership campaign he wrote an open letter to Corbyn saying that it would be "inappropriate" for Corbyn to become leader due to allegations that Corbyn had failed to act over allegations of child abuse in his constituency.^[15] In 2016, Mann opposed a leadership contest, calling for a period of reflection after the referendum. .

Mann announced he would vote to leave the EU in the June 2016 referendum, saying he believed Labour voters "fundamentally disagree" with Labour's official stance.^[16][17]

Parliamentary work on Antisemitism

John Mann chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism.^[18] The Group commissioned the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism in 2005. The cross-party inquiry panel gathered written and oral evidence on antisemitism in Britain and published a report of their findings on 7 September 2006. The panel's recommendations included improved reporting and recording of antisemitic attacks; a crackdown on anti-Jewish activity on university campuses; and improved international co-operation to prevent the spread of racist material online. In May 2009 John Mann received the American Jewish Committee's Jan Karski Award in recognition of his commitment to fighting antisemitism in all of its forms.^[19]

As Chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Coalitiom for Combating Antisemitism, John Mann MP has overseen three landmark conferences - in the UK, Canada and Germany. This year the conference, which was addressed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, took place in Berlin and was attended by Parliamentarians from around the world.

John Mann wrote in The Jewish Chronicle in early May: "If Labour cannot combat racism then we are nothing – and racism always includes antisemitism. If we cannot do that now, then we have no reason to exist".^[20]

Clashes with Ken Livingstone

On 28 April 2016, Mann publicly confronted Ken Livingstone over comments in which Livingstone had claimed that Hitler "was supporting Zionism before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews". The factual and historical accuracy of Ken Livingstone's comments were subsequently disproven & discredited by a number of World War 2 & Holocaust Historical experts including and not limited to the distinguished Professor Richard Evans (Regius Professor Emeritus of History at Cambridge University), Author and researcher Paul Bogdanor, Deborah E. Lipstadt, Dorot professor of modern Jewish and Holocaust studies at Emory University, Rainer Schulz (Professor of Modern European History at the University of Essex), Professor Jeffrey Herf and the Yad Vasham Holocaust Centre in Israel.^[21] Mann publicly accused Livingstone of being a "Nazi apologist" and a "fucking disgrace".^[22] Following this incident, Mann was allegedly reprimanded by Labour's chief whip Rosie Winterton, with party spokesperson saying that she had told Mann that it is "completely inappropriate for Labour members of Parliament to be involved in very public rows on the television".^[23] Ken Livingstone was suspended from the Labour party in relation to his earlier comments.^[24] On an unrelated issue, six months earlier, Mann had repeatedly called Livingstone a "bigot" in a radio phone-in, following Livingstone's attack on MP Kevan Jones' mental health and that he was "obviously very depressed and disturbed".^[25]

Following his public confrontation with Livingstone, an online petition recommended John Mann should be awarded a Knighthood for his work against Anti-Semitism ^[26]

Drug policy

One of Mann's earliest campaigns in his constituency was his inquiry against heroin use in the area. In September 2002, Mann called for more treatment for heroin users in North Nottinghamshire.^[27] The inquiry he instigated called for heroin addicts to be given the choice between treatment or prison. At the same time more local GPs were trained to help heroin addicts get their lives back under control.^[28] Following the reforms the number of addicts in treatment in Bassetlaw rose from 2 to 400, and acquisitive crime fell by 75%.^[29]

Mann has continued to advocate similar policies, for instance in his Fabian Society pamphlet The Real Deal: Drugs Policy that Works.^[30]

Local campaigns

Mann is an active campaigner in his constituency Bassetlaw and an advocate of using campaigning strategies he refers to as "organising to win" elsewhere.^[31] He has organised numerous campaigns in his constituency, examples of which include campaigning to save Bassetlaw Hospital Accident and Emergency Department,^[32][33] helping former coal miners fight double charging solicitors to get their compensation back,^[34] and fighting Bassetlaw District Council's policy of "topple testing" headstones in local cemeteries.^[35] Mann keeps a weekly column in the Worksop Guardian and – along with other local figures – writes occasional pieces for the Retford Times.

Personal life

He married Joanna White in July 1986 in Leeds. His wife is a Labour councillor and Deputy Leader of Bassetlaw District Council,^[36] and is also employed by John Mann as a part-time Office Manager, remunerated through his parliamentary expenses.^[37][38] The couple have two daughters and a son in their early 20s. He supports Leeds United.^[39]

References

External links

• John Mann MP official site
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by John Mann