Tony Colman (politician)

Anthony John Colman (born 23 July 1943) is a British businessman and politician who was the Labour member of Parliament for Putney, London from 1997 to 2005. Dr Colman is a Visiting Research Fellow at UCT EGS South Africa (Environment and Geographical Science Department, University of Cape Town), UEA WSRC UK (Water Security Research Centre, University of East Anglia) and the Columbia Water Center, Earth Institute, New York. His PhD (UEA 2013) is on surmounting the barriers to the delivery of WRM (Water Resource Management) and WSS (Water Supply and Sanitation) in Southern Africa and particularly Botswana. He is currently doing fieldwork on the challenges to food security from declining soil moisture in the dry lands of South Africa, examining the supplier chain / farmer nexus, with comparators in the UK and USA. His Masters (UEA 2009) is on energy questions in Southern Africa. He is a Councillor of the World Future Council since 2007. He is NED of africa practice ltd (since 2006) and of pupil asset.com ltd (from 2014).

Early life

He was educated at Paston Grammar School, Magdalene College, Cambridge (MA) and the University of East Anglia (MA; PhD).

Business career

Before being elected to Parliament he was a councillor and leader of London Borough of Merton from 1991 to 1997. He also had a successful career in business, which included being a director of the Burton Group.^[1]

Parliamentary career

Colman first stood for Parliament at South West Hertfordshire in 1979, but was beaten by the Conservative Geoffrey Dodsworth. He won Putney in the 1997 election, defeating David Mellor, but lost it in 2005 to Justine Greening.

His Parliamentary interests included trade and industry, the environment, pensions and finance. He is currently Associate Director of Africapractice, a corporate citizenship and communications consultancy. Since 2006, he is a founding member of the World Future Council.

References

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Tony Colman
• Tony Colman talks about the World Future Council on YouTube