Mike Gapes

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Michael John "Mike" Gapes (b. September 4, 1952) is a British politician. He is the Labour and Co-operative Member of Parliament for Ilford South.

Mike Gapes was born in Wanstead Hospital in the London Borough of Redbridge, the son of a postal worker, and educated locally at the Staples Road Infants' School in Loughton, Manford County Primary School in Chigwell and Buckhurst Hill County High School. He continued his studies at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge where he was awarded a master's degree in economics in 1975. He also served as the secretary of the university's student's union in 1973. He completed his education at the Middlesex Polytechnic in Enfield where he earned a diploma in industrial relations in 1976.

Except for a spell as a VSO teacher in Swaziland in a gap year before attending university in 1972, and a few months working as an administrator at the Middlesex Hospital in 1976, he has worked entirely for the Labour Party.

He contested Ilford North at the 1983 General Election but was defeated by the sitting Conservative MP Vivian Bendall by some 11,201 votes. He was elected to the House of Commons at the 1992 General Election for Ilford South when he ousted the sitting Conservative MP Neil Thorne by just 402 votes and has remained the MP there ever since. He made his maiden speech on May 8, 1992.[1]

In parliament he joined the foreign affairs select committee in 1992 and after the 1997 General Election he was appointed as the Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office, Paul Murphy, and Adam Ingram until 1999 when he joined the defence select committee. Following the 2001 General Election he was again appointed a PPS to the Minister of State at the Home Office Jeff Rooker for a year. He rejoined the defence select committee in 2003 and since the 2005 General Election he has served as the chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, the most senior position in international affairs in British politics outside the Government.

He has been an officer of many all-party Parliamentary Groups. He is a former chairman of the United Nations group and a former vice-chairman of Labour Friends of Israel. Due to his role in Labour Friends of Israel, he was the target of a campaign by the anti-Zionist Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK during the 2005 General Election campaign. However, the campaign had little effect on his majority.

He was part of the Northern Ireland team that negotiated the Belfast Agreement in Belfast in 1998. He has travelled widely on parliamentary business including to Iraq, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Sierra Leone.

He is very pro-European, once declaring that he would prefer closer ties to Europe rather than Britain becoming an amusement park for American and Japanese tourists. He is a keen supporter of West Ham United F.C..

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