Kim Howells

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kim Scott Howells (born November 27, 1946 in Merthyr Tydfil) is a Labour politician in Wales, and member of Parliament for Pontypridd.

1 Personal Life
2 Educational Background
3 Professional Career
4 Parliamentary Career
- 4.1 Parliamentary Challenges
5 Personality
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Personal Life

Howells is the son of the late Glanville Howells, a Communist lorry driver, and of Joan Glenys Howells. A former Communist himself, he was born in Merthyr Tydfil and raised in Penywaun near Aberdare in the Cynon Valley. He married Eirlys Davies in 1983 and has two sons and one daughter. Regarded as a cultivated man, he paints, writes, and likes jazz. He is regarded as a good communicator, with a deep voice, and a rather lived-in look. He likes climbing and rugby.

[edit] Educational Background

A former pupil of Mountain Ash Grammar School, Howells went to Hornsey College of Art, where he was active in the famous May 1968 student occupation, and later gained a PhD from the University of Warwick.

[edit] Professional Career

Before entering Parliament Howells worked as a researcher and editor for the South Wales Miner, as a writer and presenter for television and radio and as a lecturer.

[edit] Parliamentary Career

Howells entered the House of Commons in a by-election in 1989. He excelled in the Labour Opposition, becoming Opposition Spokesman on Trade and Industry, Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs and Development and Co-operation.

He has been a junior minister in various departments since the 1997 election, including a short spell as Minister of State at the Department for Transport, and from September 2004 served as a Minister of State at the Department for Education and Skills. Since May 2005, Dr Howells has served as a Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with responsibility for: the Middle East, Afghanistan and South Asia, counter-narcotics, counter-proliferation, counter-terrorism, UN and UN reform. He is former Chairman of Labour Friends of Israel.

[edit] Parliamentary Challenges

On January 12, 2006, Howells admitted that he had been the Minister responsible for approving the appointment of Paul Reeve (who had accepted a police caution for downloading child pornography) as a Physical education teacher at a Norwich school, which had initially been blamed on his boss, Ruth Kelly. The appointment had caused controversy when it was revealed that Reeve was on the sex offenders' register but not on 'List 99' containing those unsuitable for work with children.

In February, 2006 he was the subject of a complaint from Paul Flynn MP after he mocked Mr Flynn's attitude towards the UK's Afghan Drug policy as being equivalent to: "It is not enough to assume that if people eat the right kind of muesli, go to first nights of Harold Pinter revivals and read The Independent occasionally, the drug barons of Afghanistan will go away. They will not."^[1]

On 22nd November 2006 it was announced that on a recent visit to Iraq his helicopter was involved in an incident as it left the city of Basra with witnesses claiming shots were fired at the aircraft.

[edit] Personality

Howells is known to be an outspoken individual, though whether this is a reflection of his sense of humour or known characteristic of being a free thinker is unclear. In 2002 when a junior Minister at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, he criticised the Turner Prize by writing a note that read:

If this is the best British artists can produce then British art is lost. It is cold mechanical, conceptual bullshit. Kim Howells. P.S. The attempts at conceptualisation are particularly pathetic and symptomatic of a lack of conviction

Throughout his Parliamentary career he has been unafraid to speak his mind and has often sparked strong criticism from those he has criticised or offended. During a House of Commons debate on licensing laws he said that the idea of "listening to three Somerset folk singers sounds like hell". In a Today programme interview, while visiting Iraq on March 11, 2006 as Foreign Office minister, he said:

[Iraq] is a mess that can't launch an attack now on Iran; a mess that won't be able to march into Kuwait; it's a mess that can't develop nuclear weapons. So yes it's a mess but it's starting to look like the sort of mess that most of us live in.^[2]

On July 22, 2006 Howell criticised Israel's bombardment of Lebanon while on a visit to Beirut, breaking with the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary's less critical line, saying:

The destruction of the infrastructure, the death of so many children and so many people. These have not been surgical strikes. And it's very difficult, I think, to understand the kind of military tactics that have been used. You know, if they're chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don't go for the entire Lebanese nation.^[3]

He once described the royal family as "a bit bonkers".^[4]