David Marquand
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David Ian Marquand FBA (born 20 September 1934) is a British academic and former Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP).
Marquand was educated at Emanuel School, Magdalen College, Oxford, St Antony's College, Oxford, and at the University of California, Berkeley. His father was Hilary Marquand, also an academic and former Labour MP.
Marquand's writings are broadly based upon issues surrounding British politics and social democracy. He is widely linked to the term 'Progressive Politics' and the concept of a 'progressive dilemma' in British politics, although he has since distanced himself from the term (if not the ideas it represents).
He was the MP for Ashfield from 1966 to 1977, when he resigned his seat to work as Chief Advisor (from 1977 to 1978) to his mentor Roy Jenkins who had been appointed President of the European Commission.
Marquand became the subject of an oft-repeated put-down in the House of Commons, during Jenkins' farewell speech. Jenkins, who had difficulty pronouncing the letter r, had said "I leave this party without rancour", whereupon Dennis Skinner heckled "I thought you were taking Marquand with you".
During the 1970s split between 'Croslandite' and 'Jenkinsite' social democrats within the Labour Party, Marquand was part of the Jenkins group and joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP) upon its founding. Marquand sat on the party’s national committee from 1981-88. When the SDP merged with the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democrats, Marquand became a Lib Dem, rejoining the Labour Party following the election of Tony Blair as Labour leader.
Originally a tentative supporter of Blair's New Labour, he has since become a trenchant critic, arguing that ‘New Labour has "modernised" the social-democratic tradition out of all recognition’, retaining the over-centralisation and disdain for the radical intelligentsia of the old 'Labourite' tradition. He is one of 20 signatory to the founding statement of the democratic Left group Compass.
Marquand has written extensively on the future of the European Union and the need for constitutional reform in the United Kingdom.
Marquand's academic career began as lecturer in politics at the University of Sussex and included the occupancy of two chairs in politics, first at Salford and then at Sheffield as well as Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford. Marquand is currently a Visiting Fellow, department of politics, University of Oxford and Honorary Professor of Politics, University of Sheffield. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1998. He is recognised by the newly opened Marquand Reading Room at his old school, Emanuel School in London.
[edit] Bibliography
- ‘Inquest on a Movement: Labour’s Defeat & Its Consequences’, Encounter, 53 July 1979
- Parliament for Europe, Jonathan Cape, 1979
- (w. David Butler), British politics and European elections, Longmans, 1981
- (ed.) John Mackintosh on Parliament and Social Democracy, Longmans, 1982
- The Unprincipled Society, Fontana Press, London, 1988
- (w. Colin Crouch (eds.)), The New Centralism: Britain Out of Step in Europe?, Blackwell, Oxford, 1989
- (w. Colin Crouch (eds.)), 'The Politics of 1992: Beyond the Single European Market, Blackwell, Oxford, 1990
- (w. Colin Crouch (eds.)), Towards Greater Europe? A Continent Without an Iron Curtain, Blackwell, Oxford, 1992
- (w. Colin Crouch (eds.)), Ethics and Markets: Cooperation and Competition within Capitalist Economies, Blackwell, Oxford, 1993
- (w. Colin Crouch (eds.)) Re-inventing Collective Action, from the global to the local, Blackwell, 1995
- (w. Seldon A (eds.)), The Ideas that Shaped Post-War Britain, Fontana Press, London, 1996
- 'Community and the Left', in Giles Radice (ed.), What Needs to Change: New Visions for Britain, Harper Collins, London, 1996
- The New Reckoning: Capitalism, States and Citizens, Polity Press, Oxford, 1997
- Ramsay Macdonald: A Biography, Metro Books, London, 1997
- ‘Premature Obsequies: Social Democracy Comes in From the Cold’, The New Social Democracy, Blackwell, Oxford, 1999
- The Progressive Dilemma: From Lloyd George to Blair, Phoenix Giant, London, 1999
- ‘Pluralism vs. Popularism’, Prospect, June 1999
- (w. Ronald Nettler), Religion and Democracy, Blackwell, Oxford, 2000
- ‘Can Blair Kill off Britain’s Tory state at last?’, New Statesman, 14/05/2001
- The Decline of the Public: The Hollowing Out of Citizenship, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2004
- 'The public domain is a gift of history. Now it is at risk', New Statesman, 19/01/2004
- ‘A direct line to the Almighty’, New Statesman, 02/05/2005
- ‘A leader I’d have followed’, New Statesman, 15/08/2005
- 'The betrayal of social democracy...’, New Statesman, 16 Jan 2006
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by William Warbey |
Member of Parliament for Ashfield 1966–1977 |
Succeeded by Tim Smith |
