John Spellar

The Right Honourable John Spellar MP
Shadow Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
In office 9 October 2010 – 2015
Leader	Ed Miliband
Preceded by	Chris Bryant
Comptroller of the Household
In office 5 October 2008 – 11 May 2010
Prime Minister	Gordon Brown
Preceded by	Tommy McAvoy
Succeeded by	Alistair Carmichael
Minister of State for Northern Ireland
In office 12 June 2003 – 11 May 2005
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Jane Kennedy
Succeeded by	David Hanson
Minister of State for Transport
In office 8 June 2001 – 12 June 2003
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	The Lord Macdonald of Tradeston
Succeeded by	Kim Howells
Minister of State for the Armed Forces
In office 29 July 1999 – 8 June 2001
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Doug Henderson
Succeeded by	Adam Ingram
Member of Parliament for Warley Warley West (1992–1997)
Incumbent
Assumed office 9 April 1992
Preceded by	Peter Archer
Majority	10,756 (28.1%)
Member of Parliament for Birmingham Northfield
In office 28 October 1982 – 9 June 1983
Preceded by	Jocelyn Cadbury
Succeeded by	Roger King
Personal details
Born	(1947-08-05) 5 August 1947 Bromley, Kent, England
Political party	Labour
Alma mater	St Edmund Hall, Oxford
Website	Party website

John Francis Spellar (born 5 August 1947) is a British Labour Party politician and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Warley. He served as a Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office and returned to the backbenches in 2005. Spellar was Comptroller of the Household and the third most senior whip in the Whips' Office between October 2008 and May 2010.

Early life

Spellar was born in Bromley and educated at Dulwich College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford and worked as a trade union official. He was the Political Officer of the EETPU in the early 1980s, and along with John Golding, Roger Godsiff and a number of moderate trade union leaders, he was a founding member of the St Ermins Group of Labour Party moderates who organised to prevent the Bennite hard-left taking over the party in the years 1979-1983.

He was a councillor in the London Borough of Bromley between 1970 and 1974.

Parliamentary career

Spellar stood for the constituency of Bromley at the 1970 general election and came second.

He was first elected to the House of Commons in the Birmingham Northfield by-election, 1982 but lost at the 1983 General Election. At the 1987 general election he stood again for the same seat but was again unsuccessful. Spellar returned to the House of Commons in the 1992 general election becoming the MP for Warley West and was appointed an opposition whip. Following a period as opposition spokesman for Northern Ireland in 1994, he was moved to shadow Defence ministers in 1995.

When Tony Blair formed his government in 1997, Spellar was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence, being promoted to become Minister of State for the Armed Forces in 1999. He was appointed to the Privy Council, as Minister of State for Transport in the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions with rights to attend Cabinet. After the 2002 reshuffle, he became Minister of State at the Department for Transport, and moved to the Northern Ireland Office in 2003. He was banned from the offices of both the Mayor of Derry and the Mayor of Belfast during that year, because he supported the reinstatement to the British Army of convicted murderers Mark Wright and James Fisher of the Scots Guards.^[1] He left the front benches in 2005, but in 2008, he rejoined the government as a whip (Comptroller of the Household) and served until Labour entered opposition in May 2010.

In November 2015, he suggested on BBC Radio 5 Live that his party leader Jeremy Corbyn should resign over the question of whether to conduct air strikes on ISIL in Syria: 'What we’re seeing here is an attempted coup by Jeremy Corbyn and the people around him in the bunker trying to take over the party. It’s unacceptable. What we're seeing here is an attempted coup by a group to try and over-ride and over-run others. It is unacceptable. How does Jeremy Corbyn and his tiny band of Trots in the bunker think they've got the unique view on it all? If anyone should resign after this incident, it should be Jeremy Corbyn'.^[2]

Spellar did not disclose his voting intention in the 2016 European Union membership referendum.^[3]

Outside interests

Spellar is a member of the Henry Jackson Society Advisory Council.^[4]

References

External links

• John Spellar 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 Spellar