Peter Soulsby

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Sir Peter Alfred Soulsby (b. December 27, 1948, Bishop Auckland) is a British Labour Party politician. He served as leader of Leicester City Council from 1981 to 1999. He has been Member of Parliament for Leicester South since 2005.

Since 1998 he has been on the board of British Waterways. He is a Unitarian, and was knighted in 1999 for his services to local government. He has also served as a member of the Audit Commission.

He was first elected to Leicester City Council in 1974 and remained a Labour councillor until he was defeated in Spinney Hills ward in May 2003. Despite his own opposition to the Iraq war and his participation in rallies and marches, his defeat (and that of other sitting Labour councillors) reflected the widespread local opposition to the war.

In 2004 he was the Labour Party's candidate in the Leicester South by-election - he had previously been the election agent for the previous MP, Jim Marshall, and like Marshall was not always in agreement with the party's policies. Despite his anti-war stance, Soulsby lost by 5.6% to Parmjit Singh Gill of the Liberal Democrats in a by-election which was dominated by the Iraq war and the newly-formed left-wing party Respect, which took 12.7% of vote. In the 2005 general election, less than a year later, he won the seat back for Labour from Gill.

On 31 October 2006, Soulsby was one of 12 Labour MPs to back Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party's call for an inquiry into the Iraq War.^[1] He also rebelled against the government on its proposals to permit the detention of terrorist suspects for 90 days without trial.^[2]