Jenny Tonge

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jenny Tonge

Jennifer Louise Tonge, Baroness Tonge (born 19 February 1941) is a politician in the United Kingdom. She was Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament (MP) for Richmond Park in London from 1997 to 2005.

[edit] Political career

Tonge was a councillor in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames 1981-90 and served as a committee chair for four years.

Following her election to Parliament in 1997, Tonge served as Liberal Democrat spokeswoman on international development but was sacked by Charles Kennedy in January 2004 after saying she could understand why a Palestinian would become a suicide bomber and also that she would consider becoming one were she a Palestinian. Tonge refused to apologise. Tonge also controversially led pro-Palestinian activists and several MPs to stand for a two minute silence in honour of the deceased Hamas leader; Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Yassin. As leader of Hamas, Yassin presided over multiple deadly suicide bomb attacks targeted at Israeli civilians. By honouring a terrorist, some questioned Tonge’s earlier insistence that she did not support terrorism herself. Melanie Phillips was especially critical.

In September 2006, she claimed in a speech to a fringe meeting at the Liberal Democrat conference (aired on the BBC Radio 4 programme "Today") that the "pro-Israeli lobby has got it financial grips on the Western World" and on "our party". [1] She was accused by anti-racist groups of reviving the language of classic antisemitic conspiracy theories, and heavily criticised by Norman Lamb MP, spokesman for Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell.

[edit] After The House of Commons

She lost a daughter in an electrical accident in 2004 [2] and retired from the House of Commons at the 2005 general election to help look after her two young grandchildren. Her replacement as Lib Dem candidate was Susan Kramer, who held the seat.

In 2002 she had made a notable contribution to the Creationism - Evolution debate in the UK by asking PM Tony Blair if he was "happy to allow the teaching of creationism alongside Darwin's theory of evolution in state schools" - to which he readily agreed, triggering a row over the issue ([3]).

On 13 May 2005, it was announced that she would be created a life peer, and on 23 June she was created Baroness Tonge, of Kew in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.

She recently received criticism from George Monbiot [4] for a verbal attack in the House of Lords on the Gana and Gwi Bushmen of the Kalahari [5]. She suggested they were trying to "stay in the Stone Age", described them "primitive" and said they were "holding the government of Botswana to ransom" by refusing to be evicted from their lands. This came after a visit to Botswana on a trip paid for by Debswana [6] (a joint venture between De Beers and the government of Botswana), which owns the rights to mine diamonds in the Bushmen's land in the Kalahari.