David Triesman, Baron Triesman

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David Maxim Triesman, Baron Triesman (born 30 October 1943) is a British politician, a Labour member of the House of Lords and a minister at the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.

[edit] Biography

Triesman was educated at the Stationers' Company School, London, the University of Essex and King's College, Cambridge.

Mr Triesman's radicalism saw him suspended from Essex in 1968 after breaking up a meeting addressed by a defence industry scientist.[1] A strike by fellow students forced the university to reinstate him.[1] He resigned the Labour Party in 1970, having joined in 1960 when he was 17. In 1970 he joined the Communist Party and he stayed in that party until the winter of 1976/1977, then rejoined the Labour party in 1977.

He was a lecturer and has become a visiting fellow at Cambridge once again in recent years.

David Triesman first became a full-time union official at NATFHE in 1984. He became the General Secretary of the Association of University Teachers trade union from 1993 to 2001 and the General Secretary of the Labour Party 2001 to 2003. He was made a Life Peer in January 2004 as Baron Triesman, of Tottenham in the London Borough of Haringey.

For David Triesman’s contribution in establishing the extant precedent that a trade union may not provide assistance to complainants of racist or sexist harassment where the complaint is against member(s) of the same union, see Weaver v NATFHE.Weaver v NATFHE race discrimination case

Lord Triesman is currently the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, created in the 29 June 2007 reshuffle. Prior to this he was the Parliamentary Under Secretary in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with responsibility for: relations with Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Overseas Territories, the Commonwealth, UK visas, migration policy, consular policy, the British Council, the BBC World Service and the Chevening Scholarships Scheme.

A fan of Tottenham Hotspur, Lord Triesman became the first independent chairman of the Football Association in January 2008[2]

[edit] References

Political offices
Preceded by
Margaret McDonagh
General Secretary of the Labour Party
2001–2003
Succeeded by
Matt Carter
Preceded by
Bill Rammell
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
2005–2008
Succeeded by
(current incumbent)
Languages