SMYTHE, Michael John

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Michael Smythe
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SMYTHE, Michael John

Post by Michael Smythe »

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Name: The Rt. Hon. Maj. Michael John Smith, Rtd.
Avatar: Alistair Darling
Age: 64 (born in 1956)
Ethnicity: White
Marital Status: Once Divorced, Widower, Dating (Diane Spence, b. 1972, m. 1995, div. 1999, d. 2001; and Priscilla Barker-Knowles, b. 1960, m. 2001, d. 2010); dating Beatriz Gonzalez (b. 1996, dating since 2017).

Party: Conservative and Unionist
Primary Tribe: Free Enterprise Group
Secondary Tribe: Tory Reform Group
Brexit Position: Backed Remain, voted in favour of all deals in Parliament, advocated a soft Brexit
Constituency: Kensington and Chelsea (1999-2010), Chelsea and Fulham (2010-Present)
Year Elected: To the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council: 1990 (Earls Court); to Parliament:1999 (Kensington and Chelsea), by-election

Education: Educated at the Loretto School (1966-1970) and the City of London School (1970-1974); read History at Peterhouse, Cambridge (1974-1978); MA in History from Peterhouse, Cambridge (1978-1983)
Career: Researcher, Conservative Research Department (1983-1986); Executive Officer, London Chamber of Commerce (1986-1988); Non-Executive Officer, London Chamber of Commerce (1988-2007); Royal Green Jackets, V Batallion (1980-1999) and the 7th (Volunteer) Battalion of The Rifles, F Company (1999-2007), achieved rank of Major; served on Operation Banner in Northern Ireland in 1988, in Bosnia as part of SFOR in 1998, and on Operation Telic VI in Iraq in 2004, which saw him absent from Parliament from 30 April to 31 October.
Political Career: Shadow Secretary of State for Local Government (2007-2010); Secretary of State for Culture, Media, Olympics and Sport (2010-2012); Secretary of State for International Development (2012-2015); Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, and Skills and President of the Board of Trade (2015-2016); Chief Secretary to the Treasury (2016-2018); Lord President of the Council (2018-2020); Chancellor of the Exchequer (2020-Present)

Michael John Smythe is a Conservative and Unionist politician, the Member of Parliament for Chelsea and Fulham, a former member of the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council, and a retired British Army Major. He is currently the Chancellor of the Exchequer under the Prime Minister Grant Kingston, and has served in Government since 2007. This is his second Great Office of State, having previously served as Lord President of the Council (2018-2020) under Theresa May, Sir Arthur Stanley, and William Croft. Smythe is a most closely associated with the Free Enterprise Group of MPs, though maintains no memberships in any intra-party organizations.

Early Life and Education

Smythe was born on April 16, 1956 in Mayfair, London to Robert Campbell Smythe, a Scottish Conservative Member of Parliament and former Secretary of State for War, and his wife, Anieke (nee van Beek), whom his father married after meeting during the second world war. Smythe spent his early years between his father's Scottish residence and their Mayfair home. At age 10, he was sent to be educated in Musselburgh at the Loretto School. During this time, allegations began to surface that there had been ongoing sexual abuse at the Loretto School by a particular teacher and Smythe was moved to the City of London School where he completed his education by earning A-Level GCSEs in Economics (A*), History (A*), and Philosophy (A*). Though Smythe has never confirmed that he was a victim of the Loretto School abuse scandal personally, he has publicly stated that the scandal "had an immeasurable effect on me, personally, and on many of the boys whom I knew." Some speculation as to whether or not this means that he himself was abused, but he has thus far refused to comment and recused himself from Parliamentary debate on the matter in 2017 on the back of Lady Smith's inquiry.

Smythe continued his education at Peterhouse where, in 1976, he began in earnest to study history under noted professors like Maurice Cowling. It was at Peterhouse that Smythe began to "come into his own" as a political thinker, and decided to join the Conservative Party in his own a right, a decision which he had put off due to his father's association. "I didn't want to be seen as simply following in [my father's] footsteps," said Smythe in an interview. "I wanted to make the decision for myself, and I think I did that while at Peterhouse." The association between the college and the Conservative Party, especially throughout the 1980s is well known, and Smythe is no exception. As an undergraduate, Smythe became a member of the Salisbury Group, formed by his mentor and some other Peterhouse people, and he would eventually go on to write for the Salisbury Review as a graduate student. He has since repudiated his ties with the group, though he credits them with "launching him on the path of considering alternatives to the post-war consensus."

Smythe graduated with a First Class degree in History in 1978 and, subsequently, was allowed to continue his studies, earning a Master's Degree in 1983. He was an active member of both the Cambridge Union and the Cambridge University Conservative Association of which he served as President from 1979 to 1982. While at Cambridge, Smythe joined the Vth Battalion of the Royal Green Jackets (Volunteers) based in Mayfair.

Career

Immediately after his education was complete, Smythe joined the Conservative Research Department as a researcher. In 1985, he was sent, along with David Cameron, on a fact-finding mission to Apartheid South Africa. Smythe later called this trip "a wake-up call" and an "imperative moment in my personal and political development." It was during this trip that Smythe began to move away from his Salisbury Group roots and embrace a wider, more mainstream conservatism. He worked for the CRD until 1986 when, in order to secure him some professional, non-political experience, he was offered a position as an Executive at the London Chamber of Commerce after being tipped as a potential future parliamentary candidate. During this time, he led trade delegations on behalf of London business first to Canada and then to the United States. In 1988, he resigned his executive role with the LCCI in order to volunteer for service with his battalion in Operation Banner. He spent six months in Northern Ireland. During this time, and afterwards, he remained a non-executive officer with the London Chamber of Commerce, retaining that position until he was promoted to the Conservative frontbench in 2007.

He served two other tours of duty with his regiment, the second being in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1998 and the third, while a sitting MP, in Iraq for Operation Telic VI in 2004, causing him to take an extended leave of absence from Parliament for six months. Upon his return from Iraq, Smythe was a vocal critic of the Labour Government's handling of the conflict, criticizing their "organizational and conceptual planning, which has left our boys with precious little leadership fighting a war that they didn't want to fight for a cause that makes almost no sense at all." Despite his initial support for the Iraq invasion of 2003, Smythe became a prominent opponent.

In 1990, Smythe was selected to contest a seat on the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council for Earls Court. The selection all but guaranteed him a seat on the council, as it has never voted anything other than Conservative. He sat on the Council for nine years before being selected to replace the late Alan Clarke in a by-election for the Kensington Chelsea Parliamentary Constituency. During his time on the Borough Council, Smythe was selected to contest the Berwick-upon-Tweed constituency which was widely expected to vote for the incumbent Liberal Democrat. Though unsuccessful in being elected, Smythe impressed by growing the Conservative Party's vote share by more than 5,000 votes. In 1997, he was selected to contest the marginal seat of Barrow and Furness. Despite a valiant campaign which was praised by commentators, Smythe was unable to overcome the popularity of Labour's charismatic leader, Tony Blair, and he lost the seat to the incumbent MP, but kept within a 4,000 vote margin. Finally, in 1999, Smythe was selected as the Conservative Party's candidate to run in a by-election to replace Alan Clarke who had died of a brain tumour earlier that year, beating out Michael Portillo after receiving the leader's support.

Parliamentary Career

From 1999 until 2007, Smythe remained on the backbenches of the Conservative Party. He served a single term as Chairman of the 1922 Committee in 2003, and as a member of the Procedure Committee (2000-2003), the Backbench Business Committee (Chair 2004-2006), and on the Treasury Select Committee (2006-2007) before being promoted to serve as Shadow Secretary of State for Local Government and Communities under David Cameron, replacing Caroline Spelman, who had been promoted to Conservative Party Chair.

Culture Secretary | 2010-2012

Upon victory in the general election of 2010, Smythe was promoted to cabinet, taking on the office of Secretary of State for Culture, Media, Olympics, and Sport. During his tenure as Culture Secretary, Smythe devised and championed a plan to give Britain the fastest broadband speeds in Europe. There was initial scepticism about his plans with concerns they could lead to BT regaining its monopoly. While speeds did increase when he was in office this was, in the main, due to customers switching to different packages. He also spearheaded the drive for local TV and as a result of this policy Ofcom awarded local television licences to Belfast, Birmingham, Brighton & Hove, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Grimsby, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Plymouth, Preston, Sheffield, Southampton, and Swansea. In terms of culture policy, his main focus was to boost philanthropy given the spending cuts that the arts along with other sectors was experiencing. Changes were made to the inheritance tax - including measures to encourage private gifts to the arts.

Smythe was consequently given the quasi-judicial power to adjudicate over the News Corporation takeover bid for BSkyB. He chose not to refer the deal to the Competition Commission, announcing on 3 March 2011 that he intended to accept a series of undertakings given by News Corporation, paving the way for the deal to be approved. Following a series of scandals concerning phone hacking, a House of Commons motion was planned that called on News Corporation to abandon the bid. The bid was eventually dropped. Smythe was alleged to have had improper contact with News Corp. Emails released to the Leveson Inquiry detailed contacts between Smyhte's special advisor Adam Smith and Frédéric Michel, News Corp's director of public affairs and therefore a lobbyist for James Murdoch. The revelations led to calls from the Labour opposition and others for Smythe's resignation. Adam, Smyhte's special adviser, resigned on 25 April shortly before Smythe made an emergency parliamentary statement in which he said that Smith's contact with Michel was "clearly not appropriate". Smythe said Lord Justice Leveson should be able to investigate and rule on the accusations and requested the earliest date possible to give evidence to the Inquiry to set out his side of the story.

Smythe appeared before the Leveson inquiry on 31 May 2012, when it emerged that Smyhte had himself been in text and private email contact with James Murdoch. Journalist Iain Martin claimed that at a 2010 event held at UCL which Murdoch attended he saw Smythe hide behind a tree to avoid being seen by journalists: "I wandered back into the party and ran into one of the organisers. The Culture Secretary is out there hiding behind a tree, I said. We know, came the response, but he doesn’t want to come in because all the media correspondents are here." Smythe later told the Leveson Inquiry that "I thought, this is not the time to have an impromptu interview, so I moved to a different part of the quadrangle...there may or may not have been trees!"

Lord Justice Leveson cleared Smythe of bias when the report was published, stating that "in some respects, there was much to commend in Mr Smyhte's handling of the bid". He concluded: "What was not evident from the close consideration of events which the Inquiry undertook was any credible evidence of actual bias on the part of Mr Smythe. Whatever he had said, both publicly and in private, about News Corp or the Murdochs, as soon as he was given the responsibility for dealing with the bid the evidence demonstrates a real desire on his part to get it right. His actions as a decision maker were frequently adverse to News Corp's interests. He showed a willingness to follow Ofcom's advice and to take action, to the extent recommended by the regulators, in response to the consultation."

As Culture Secretary, Smythe was the government minister responsible for the London Olympics and Paralympics. When it transpired that contractors G4S could not provide enough security staff for the Games, Smythe announced that soldiers would be drafted in and that he had been forced to "think again" about the default use of private contractors. Smythe took the decision to double the budget for the Danny Boyle-directed opening ceremony which received acclaim, and overall the Games were considered a huge success internationally. According to Danny Boyle, the Artistic Director for the opening ceremony, the government initially suggested removing the section of the opening ceremony about the NHS, although Smythe denied this.

The Games received widespread acclaim for their organisation, with the volunteers, the British military and public enthusiasm praised particularly highly. In the aftermath, Smythe set up the school games as an Olympic Legacy project. Although there was criticism at the time of cuts in the school sports budget, 11,953 schools took part in the School Games in the first year. Smythe also campaigned to increase the emphasis on the importance of the tourism industry, especially the potential of the Chinese tourist market.

International Development Secretary | 2012-2015

Following a reshuffle of cabinet, Smythe was promoted to a more senior role, this time as International Development Secretary. David Cameron had been impressed by Smythe's handling of the Olympic Games, especially in his work in increasing tourism, and therefore gave Smythe to opportunity to work in a larger department. Whilst he was in the role of International Development Secretary, the UK became the first G8 country to meet the commitment to spend 0.7% of its gross national income on international development, meeting the UN official development assistance target subsequently legislating for this. Smythe also led the UK response to international natural disasters such as Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013 and the Nepal earthquake in 2015. In 2014, Smythe, together with Equalities Minister Nicky Morgan, held the first-ever Girl Summit in London, which saw leaders and young people from all over the world come together to work to help combat female genital mutilation and early and forced marriage. Smythe led the international response to the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone in 2014–2015, committing a £230 million aid package including support for 700 treatment beds and funding for children orphaned by the crisis. Smythe stated that children would not be “left behind once Ebola was defeated.” “Operation Gritrock” was the first-ever UK military campaign led by DFID, and was also supported by NHS personnel.

In 2015, Smythe announced a new economic empowerment programme for women at the Global Goals Summit and campaigned successfully for Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender Equality to be included amongst the UN Sustainable Development goals during international negotiations. Following an initiative by Smythe, Ban Ki Moon, then UN Secretary General, announced in 2016 the creation of the UN's first high-level panel on women's economic empowerment.

During the refugee crisis, Smythe oversaw £1 billion of aid spending to support Syrian refugees with water, food, shelter and medical care. Smythe further pressured UK businesses and other countries to “put their hands in their pockets” to help before warning the European migrant crisis could last 20 years if nothing was done. Smythe argued during negotiations for the Paris Climate Change Agreement that climate change would continue to be a root cause of refugee migration and launched an insurance scheme to help developing nations deal with natural disasters caused by climate change.

Business, Innovation and Skills Secretary & President of the Board of Trade | 2015-2016

Having secured a Parliamentary Majority under David Cameron, Smythe received a promotion to become BIS Secretary and President of the Board of Trade. After being appointed as Business Secretary, Smythe said that there would be "significant changes" to strike laws under the new Conservative government, announcing that strikes affecting essential public services will need the backing of 40% of eligible union members under new government plans.

Smythe is a supporter of remaining in the European Union. He described himself as a Eurosceptic with "no time for ever-closer union", but he wrote in The Daily Telegraph, "Just like Bank of England Governor Mark Carney and IMF head Christine Lagarde, I still believe that Britain is better off in. And that’s all because of the Single Market. It’s a great invention, one that even Lady Thatcher campaigned enthusiastically to create."

In February 2017, it was revealed in court that Smythe had ignored the advice of a senior civil servant in order to keep granting export licences for weapons to Saudi Arabia, despite allegations of war crimes in the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen. A February 2016 email from Edward Bell, head of the Export Control Organisation, was read out as part of a judicial review into British arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The email said: "To be honest, and I was very direct and honest with [Smythe], my gut tells me we should suspend [weapon exports to Saudi Arabia]". In a later email, he said: "[Michael Smythe] decided not to take a decision about this last night and the matter has now been raised with [the prime minister]".

Chief Secretary to the Treasury 2016-2018

Not a natural ally of Theresa May's, Smythe was passed over for a cabinet-level role when she took charge of the party. Smythe was, however, extended the courtesy role of Chief Secretary to the Treasury, largely as a way to let the more Thatcherite-friendly wing of the party have a seat at the treasury policy table. During this period, Smythe was relatively quiet in the public eye until it was revealed that he had begun dating a Spanish actress who is forty years his junior.

Lord President of the Council 2018-2020

Owing to his excellent handling of previous briefs, and his wide-ranging experience in various departments, together with his academic background in the modern history of British politics, Smythe was appointed Lord President of the Council, a Great Office of State, by Theresa May in 2018. It was hoped that this would sure up the more market-friendly wing of the party by giving a senior leadership position to someone closely associated with them. He continued in this role under Sir Arthur Stanley and William Croft.

Chancellor of the Exchequer | 2020-Present

It has recently been announced that newly-elected Prime Minister, Grant Kingston has appointed Michael Smythe to serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer for his government.
The Rt. Hon. Michael J. Smythe
Member of Parliament for Chelsea and Fulham
Chancellor of the Exchequer

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