| Andrew MacKinlay | |
|---|---|
| Member of Parliament for Thurrock |
|
| In office 9 April 1992 – 6 May 2010 |
|
| Preceded by | Timothy Janman |
| Succeeded by | Jackie Doyle-Price |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 24 April 1949 London, United Kingdom |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Labour |
| Spouse(s) | Ruth Segar |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
Andrew Stuart MacKinlay (born 24 April 1949) is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Thurrock from 1992 until he stepped down at the 2010 general election.
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Andrew Mackinlay was educated variously at St Joseph's School, Wembley [1]; Our Lady Immaculate Primary School, Tolworth; the Salesian College (grammar school, now called Salesian School) on Highfield Road in Chertsey; and Kingston College.
He worked for ten years from 1965 as a committee clerk with Surrey County Council and from 1975 until his election to parliament he was a union official with the National Association of Local Government Officers (NALGO). He joined NALGO in 1965 and the Labour Party the following year. He was elected as a councillor in 1971 in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames and served for seven years.
He stood unsuccessfully for Labour in the following elections:
In 2003, he famously described Dr. David Kelly as "chaff" during Dr. Kelly's appearance before the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. His question was:
so in this context "chaff" is a reference to the radar countermeasure rather than to something of little value. It emerged during Kelly's subsequent inquest that Kelly had been deeply upset by his treatment before the Committee and he had privately described an MP, assumed to be MacKinlay, as an "utter bastard" [2][3] MacKinlay reportedly apologised to Kelly's wife for the remark following Kelly's death.
According to one report, in May 2007, MacKinlay made the nomination that resulted in Gordon Brown having enough nominations to be certain of not facing a contest over the leadership of the party.[4] However, another report states that the decisive nomination was made by Tony Wright[5] with MacKinlay yet to nominate at that point.
On 24 July 2009, he announced that he would not stand at the next General Election due to disillusionment with the way in which other MPs caved in to party pressure rather than standing up for their beliefs.[6] He said that the final straw was the failure of a number of Labour MPs who had expressed support for Gary McKinnon, awaiting extradition to the US on computer hacking charges, to vote against a review of the extradition treaty.[7]
On 1 October 2009, MacKinlay accepted a public apology and libel damages from the BBC over allegations made on BBC2’s Newsnight programme that he proposed an amendment to a Government motion on MPs’ expenses so he would benefit financially.[8][9][10] The damages were reported as being £15,000.[11]
On 4 September 2009, MacKinlay supported the views of Eric Joyce on the Afghanistan war.[12]
He is a keen researcher on World War I history, travelling and discovering Ireland, and is an honorary patron of Tilbury Football Club. He married his wife Ruth (née Segar) on 21 October 1972. They have two sons and a daughter. When an MP, he employed his wife as his Personal Assistant.[13] He is a member of the editorial board of the political magazine 'Total Politics',[14] whose editor is his daughter, Sarah MacKinlay.
He supports the abolition of the monarchy.[15]
On 28 June 2008 he was reported by Mail Online to have received a warning from Downing Street after MI5 discovered that he was holding meetings with a suspected Russian spy Alexander Polyakov, officially a counsellor at the Russian Embassy in London; it was also claimed that MacKinlay had been targeted by aides of Russia's richest man, Oleg Deripaska, as a 'stooge' for use in a High Court battle.[16]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Timothy Janman |
Member of Parliament for Thurrock 1992–2010 |
Succeeded by Jackie Doyle-Price |