Paul Marsden

Infobox MP
honorific-prefix =
name = Paul Marsden
honorific-suffix =
party =

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constituency_MP = Shrewsbury and Atcham
term_start = 1 May1997
term_end = 11 April2005
parliament =
majority =
predecessor = Derek Conway
successor = Daniel Kawczynski
birth_date = Birth date and age|1968|3|18|df=y
birth_place = Frodsham, Cheshire
death_date =
death_place =
nationality = British
spouse =
relations =
children =
residence =
alma_mater = Teesside Polytechnic
occupation = Director of Policy, BUAV
profession =
religion = Church of England


website =
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Paul William Barry Marsden (born March 18 1968) is a former British politician, writer, business consultant and currently Director of Policy at the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV).

Background

Paul William Barry Marsden was born on 18th March 1968 at 40 Queensway, Frodsham in Cheshire and educated at Helsby High School, Mid-Cheshire College, Teesside Polytechnic, the Open University and Newcastle College. Prior to his political career, he worked as a manager at Taylor Woodrow and as a management consultant at NatWest Bank and Mitel Telecom.

Member of Parliament and Liberal Democrat Shadow Minister

He was the Member of Parliament for Shrewsbury and Atcham from the 1997 to 2005 and was known for his outspoken, anti-war views and for twice switching his political party affiliation. He was a member of the Labour Party from 1983 to 2001, member of the Liberal Democrats from 2001 to 2005 and a Labour supporter in 2005.

Marsden was first elected at the 1997 general election as a Labour candidate in a seat which had never previously been held by Labour, and retained it at the 2001 election. He defected to the Liberal Democrats in December 2001, after robust confrontations with Labour whips over his opposition to military action in Afghanistan and civilian casualties. By crossing the floor of the House of Commons, his actions contributed to a parliamentary vote being granted before the 2003 Iraq war.

In 2001, he visited Pakistan and the Afghan border to highlight the plight of Afghan refugees living in camps who had fled the war. Marsden also negotiated the release of Christina Lamb and her photographer Justin Sutcliffe who had been arrested and held by the Pakistan Police and intelligence services. In 2002, he visited Malawi to turn the media spotlight on the southern African famine. Later he travelled to Johannesburg to lobby the United Nations conference discussing the famine affecting Southern Africa. In 2003, prior to the war in Iraq war, he visited the USA and laid a Union flag and wreath in commemoration of the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks. He was appointed Liberal Democrat Shadow Minister for Health in 2002 and Shadow Transport Minister in 2003.

In July 2004 Marsden announced that he was retiring from politics and would not contest the May 2005 general election. On April 5 2005, within hours of the start of the election campaign, Marsden announced his intention to rejoin the Labour Party, stating that although he still disagreed with the government over the war and levels of investment in public services, he did not want to see Labour MPs who shared his views lose their seats. He later apologised to Liberal Democrat supporters for leaving the party. He was the first British politician since Winston Churchill to re-cross the floor of the House of Commons.

The subsequent Labour candidate in Shrewsbury and Atcham, Michael Ion, lost the seat in the 2005 general election to the Conservative,Daniel Kawczynski.

Over eight years as MP, Marsden raised over £10K for local and international charities through sponsored marathon running, abseiling and swimming.

Parliamentary positions

*1997-present Inter-Parliamentary Union All Party Group - Associate Life Member
*2004-05 All Party Parliamentary Entrepreneurship Group - Secretary
*2001-05 Director of Shrewsbury CAB - Non-Executive
*2004 Mental Health Bill Scrutiny Committee - Member
*2003-05 All Party Parliamentary Infertility Group - Secretary
*2003-04 Transport Select Committee - Member
*2003-04 Liberal Democrat Shadow Transport Minister
*2003-04 All Party Parliamentary Road Safety Group - Joint Chair
*2003-05 British-Chinese All Party Parliamentary Group - Treasurer
*2002-03 Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Minister
*2002 All Party Group for Peace and Conflict Resolution - Chair
*2000-01 Equal Access to Cancer Care Parliamentary Committee - Chair
*1999-05 All Party Kidney Heath Group - Secretary
*1999 Health Bill Standing Committee - Member
*1998-05 Shropshire & Wrekin M.E. Support Group - Patron
*1998 All Party Parliamentary Management Group - Chair
*1997-01 Agriculture Select Committee - Member

Parliamentary Bills

* 'Access to the Countryside draft Bill' 1999, supporting voluntary access to the countryside (withdrawn following introduction of Government's Right to Roam Bill)
* 'Cancer Care Bill' 1999, resulting in a comprehensive Cancer Care directory of services for patients
* 'Health Care Standards for Elderly People Bill' 2000, contributing to a new government initiative to tackle age discrimination against pensioners in hospitals
* 'Doorstep Recycling Bill' 2001, to provide for doorstep recycling by local authorities
* 'Prescriptions Bill' 2002, to provide free prescriptions for the chronically ill

Parliamentary petitions

Marsden's Parliamentary petitions, not including those sent directly to No. 10 Downing Street or to Ministers:

28 Mar 2001 : Hansard Column 10772,281 signaturesSupporting Shrewsbury Town Football Club's new stadium; the New Meadow

19 Apr 2000 : Hansard Column 1072 1,176 signaturesSupporting greater access to fertility treatment on the NHS

14 Mar 2000 : Hansard Column 2731,850 signaturesOpposing the planned closure of the Lloyds TSB Bank in the rural village of Pontesbury

9 Mar 1999 : Hansard Column 269157 signaturesSupporting rural road haulier businesses affected by the increasing cost of fuel

Writer and business consultant

After retiring from politics, Marsden co-authored the book 'Voices for Peace' published by Simon and Schuster in 2001. Four years later he researched and published a local history book, "The Blackfriars of Shrewsbury" and returned to business consultancy in 2005. He has also written poetry.

His consultancy work developed strategic, financial and business plans for SME companies in the security, transport, health and charity sectors. He undertook brand evaluations and strategic reviews and developed health and safety, HR, financial, CRM, ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 management systems for companies.

Marsden worked for Clearwater Special Projects Ltd as their Quality & International Contracts Manager in 2006 and led the approval process which resulted in Clearwater becoming the first bodyguarding company in the UK to be awarded as an 'Approved Contractor' by the Security Industry Authority (SIA). Marsden also secured UN Global Compact accreditation for Clearwater.

He is an ongoing Business Consultant to a woodland trust in Cheshire.

Director of Policy, BUAV

In 2007, Marsden was appointed Director of Policy at the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, which peacefully campaigns for an end to animal testing through political lobbying, undercover investigations and approving cruelty free products.

Current campaigns include ending testing on household products and extending the European Cosmetics ban on animal testing around the globe.

Political profiles & letters

* [http://politics.guardian.co.uk/person/0,9290,-3371,00.html - Guardian Politics Ask Aristotle - Paul Marsden]
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/10/23/nspin23.xml - Daily Telegraph report on Marsden speaking out]
* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/article726868.ece - The Times report on Labour Chief Whip and Marsden]
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2002/06/18/dt1804.xml - Daily Telegraph letter on prescriptions]
* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/debate/letters/article386251.ece - The Times letter on defecting]

External links

* [http://www.buav.org - BUAV website]
* [http://www.clearwaterprojects.com - Clearwater Special Projects Ltd website]
* [http://www.christinalamb.net/home.html - Christina Lamb, Journalist & Author website]
* [http://www.parliament.uk - Parliament website]
* [http://www.mitel.com - Mitel Telecom website]
* [http://www.taylorwoodrow.com/home - Taylor Woodrow website]

Quotes about Paul Marsden

*Daily Mail, Sir Ming Campbell, 24 February 2008 How drink destroyed Charles Kennedy, by Menzies CampbellI went to see Charles in his office. "I think it's in the interests of yourself, your family and the party that you should now step down," I said. "I don't think we can go on as we are. It's not tolerable." I went to the weekly parliamentary party meeting later in the afternoon with apprehension. Charles demanded an end to the gossip and asked for loyalty. It was as if my conversation with him had never happened. Paul Marsden, the former Labour MP who defected to the Lib Dems and then returned to Labour before the 2005 General Election, kept the story going the weekend before Christmas [2005] by writing in The Mail on Sunday that Charles had a "serious problem" with alcohol.

*The Guardian, Election scrapbook, 9 April 2005The turn of the Shrew... Paul Marsden's return to the Labour party has not received a universal welcome from activists in Shrewsbury, where he is the sitting MP. Mr Marsden infuriated the local party by defecting to the Lib Dems in 2001, and has not won them over with his announcement that he is to return to the fold. The party should tell Mr Marsden "to get lost", Councillor Derek Woodvine told the Shropshire Star. "He has demonstrated his treachery on more than one occasion. He is incapable of being loyal and that is imperative in a political party."

*The Guardian, Tom Happold, 6 April 2005Paul Marsden, the Liberal Democrat MP who defected from Labour in 2001, is seeking a return to the Labour party - making him what Churchill would call a re-rat. Winston Churchill, who abandoned the Tory party for the Liberals in 1904 only to return 21 years later, famously said that "anyone can rat, but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat". If that is the case, Paul Marsden will need all his ingenuity to make a success of his new life in the Labour party, which he deserted for the Liberal Democrats four years ago.Mark Oaten, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, described Mr Marsden's decision as "bizarre"

*The Times, Helen Nugent, 16 April 2004More charity events hit by VAT cash grabPaul Marsden, Liberal Democrat MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham, who is running the marathon on Sunday and has raised more than £10,000 over the past five years, said: “This is despicable. It is another Gordon Brown stealth tax. “It’s a kick in the teeth for so many people who take part in the marathon for the best of reasons.”

*Daily Telegraph, Frank Johnson, 27 November 2003Andrew Robathan (C, Blaby) asked Mr Hain to institute a Commons poet laureate. As Mr Robathan spoke, Mr Hain had a look about him of: where's this one leading?It was leading to Paul Marsden. He is the married Liberal Democrat MP for Shrewsbury. His affair with his researcher has just reached the tabloids. Worse, so did his poetry about it.Mr Robathan quoted from it: "She came in the night, breasts rising as I feel the urge to bite, who would mess with this amazing sight." Unlike so much modernist poetry, then, Mr Marsden's rhymes. Mr Marsden, elected a Labour member, defected to the Liberal Democrats in this Parliament. Mr Robathan said it would show Labour's "generous and forgiving nature" if Mr Marsden became the first Commons poet laureate. Mr Hain replied that he was tempted "but I think on reflection I won't be seduced" - presumably fearing to become the subject of a Marsden poem. Mrs Marsden, it should be said, has promised to stand by her husband, though not necessarily in his capacity as poet. It should also be said that my tabloid researches revealed that, after his infidelity began, Mr Marsden even wrote a poem confessing his "unmentionable sins". We bet he did, Labour MPs would retort - such as becoming a Liberal Democrat!

*The Times, David Rowan, 28 October 2003TechnobabbleNow some clever volunteers have built a website that does the searching for you. The Public Whip (www.publicwhip.org.uk) automatically analyses every MP’s voting record, and presents the results in an easily searchable form. You can discover that Paul Marsden, MP, is the leading rebel and that the Prime Minister has a mere 7.7 per cent attendance record.

*The Guardian, Backbencher, 17 July 2003DEMOCRATIC DOGGEREL The Backbencher's colleague Matthew Norman has already drawn attention to Paul Marsden's (Lib Dem, Shrewsbury and Atcham) collection of poetry, Waiting for Westminster, and Demon Drink will ring painfully in the ears of his boss. But how Paul must wince when he re-reads some of his juvenilia - particularly another work from 1999, ‘Thirty Minutes’, written when he was still on the Labour backbenches: The Yorkshire growl questions Europe,But Tony knows their game is up.A string of figures refutes the cost,And a roar of approval follows the witty riposte. The pity is in the poetry, to misquote Wilfred Owen. Surely question time deserves better?

*Guardian, Matthew Tempest, 18 March 2003Iraq Emergency DebatePaul Marsden, the former Labour MP who defected to the Lib Dems over the bombing of Afghanistan, stands up and compliments some of the other speakers, notably Robin Cook, Bob Marshall-Andrews and John Randall. "No doubt we are in a state of permanent war - others countries will follow Iraq," he warns, but he commends the government on having a vote ahead of the bullets flying. “ This is a crusade for war," he adds.

*The Times, Greg Hurst, 26 February 2003Paul Marsden (LD, Shrewsbury and Atcham), who defected from the Labour Party after opposing the 2001 Afghanistan campaign, said that inspections should continue for many more months to avert war.

*Daily Telegraph, Spy, 27 June 2002Finally, Peterborough reckons a special prize for humbuggery must go to Paul Marsden, who noisily defected from Labour to the Liberal Democrats before the last election, saying: "Tony Blair does not vote very often, which is a great worry for parliamentary democracy."Since then, the Shrewsbury MP has participated in comfortably less than half of the divisions called in the Commons. The cheeky beggar!

*The Guardian, Matthew Tempest, 10 December 2001New Labour suffered its first defection today, as Paul Marsden, the Labour MP who rebelled against his party's line on the war in Afghanistan, left to join the Liberal Democrats. After two months of bitter accusations from both Mr Marsden and the government, the Shrewsbury and Atcham MP announced his defection this afternoon.

*Daily Telegraph, Andy McSmith, 10 December 2001PAUL MARSDEN became the first Labour MP for a generation to defect to another mainstream party when he announced yesterday that he had joined the Liberal Democrats.This follows weeks of arguments with the leadership over the war in Afghanistan, anti-terrorist legislation and other issues.The episode which tipped him into defecting appears to have been a late night confrontation in the Stranger's Bar, in the Commons, when he claims to have been manhandled and abused by "thugs" from the Labour Whips office.In a statement issued through the Liberal Democrat press office, Mr Marsden said he had "lost confidence" in the Government because of its "obsession with control freakery and spin" and its failure to deliver promises to improve schools, hospitals, pensions and transport.

*Daily Telegraph, Letters, 7 December 2001SIR - I disagree entirely with Paul Marsden's views on Afghanistan (report, Dec 6) - but I wish there were more MPs like him - in all parties.From: Tim Wells, Swindon, Wilts

*Daily Telegraph, Leader, 6 December 2001Marsden fights back against party machine ONE of the many theories being circulated in the Commons about Paul Marsden, rebel Labour MP, by the Government's increasingly exasperated business managers is that he is stark, staring mad. He knows this is being said about him, just as he knows about the rumours that he is thinking of jumping ship and becoming a Liberal Democrat. He believes that it is all part of the political campaign to silence a persistent dissenter.One of the reasons he annoys Government Whips may be that he looks like the sort of person who can easily be pushed around.He has a quiet, inoffensive manner that quite belies his streak of stubborn determination and the intemperate language with which he attacks the "thugs" in the Whips' Office. His seat, Shrewsbury and Atcham, is one which Labour cannot seriously have expected to win in the 1997 election.The sitting Tory MP had a majority of almost 11,000, and it must have been love of the Labour Party rather than personal ambition that made Mr Marsden decide to stand as Labour candidate in such a hopeless prospect.He was the son of a Labour councillor, and worked locally as a quality control manager. To almost everyone's astonishment, and possibly his own, he scraped into Parliament with a majority of 1,670. During his first few years as an MP, he worked loyally on the back benches, showing a special interest in agriculture - an area of Government policy which most Labour MPs prefer to ignore.His first public act of rebellion came during the fuel protests a year ago, when he warned the Government that the price of petrol was too high. This was hardly a surprising stand, given how rural his constituency is. More seriously, Mr Marsden became embroiled in a local feud which spilled over into Labour's headquarters at Millbank. There was an attempt in his local party to deselect him as candidate.At first, he seemed inclined to quit, but later came back fighting and successfully held on to his job despite what appeared to be the determined efforts of full-time party staff to lever him out. He was then re-elected to Parliament with a healthy majority of 3,579.The experience left him convinced that the party machine was out to get him, and almost from the day he returned to the Commons Mr Marsen appeared to be in the mood to rebel. The war in Afghanistan, and the accompanying anti-terrorist legislation, has given him his first cause on which to take on the Government. There are likely to be many more.

*Daily Telegraph, 19 November 2001THOUSANDS of protestors marched through central London yesterday calling for an end to the war in Afghanistan….. Paul Marsden, the Labour MP has been highly critical of the bombing of Afghanistan, accused Tony Blair of being "drunk with power" in his handling of the war on terrorism.

*The Guardian, Nicholas Watt, 3 November 2001The 33-year-old MP gained notoriety last month when he published details of a private confrontation with the chief whip, Hilary Armstrong, after he questioned Britain's involvement in the war. Since then he has further incurred the wrath of Labour's frontbench by voting against the government on the attacks. Mr Marsden called on the prime minister to "spend more time saving lives instead of pursuing a war which costs lives".

*The Guardian, Leader, 23 October 2001Paul Marsden is an unlikely hero. As a timid backbench face in the loyal New Labour crowd, he seemed until this month to exemplify parliament's failings. All of a sudden he has become a shining example of its strengths. First he cheeked the prime minister in a Commons debate over air strikes on Afghanistan, calling for a parliamentary vote on the use of force. Then he compounded the sin by going public about the government's private response. On both counts he has done British democracy a service.

*Daily Telegraph, Sarah Womack, 22 October 2001TONY BLAIR was braced for a Commons rebellion today in a vote over whether Jo Moore should be sacked….. Paul Marsden, a leading anti-war MP, said he would urge fellow Labour MPs to defy a three-line whip.

*The Mail on Sunday, 21 October 2001 Hilary Armstrong, Labour Chief Whip, “Look, Paul, let me put it another way, those that aren't with us are against us.”….“It was people like you who appeased Hitler in 1938.”

*The Independent, 9 October 2001Labour's Paul Marsden introduced a brilliantly discordant note by asking when we in Britain would enjoy a written constitution so that (and this caused a flurry of excited amusement) Parliament would declare war, [] and not the Prime Minister. Mr Blair smiled, seraphically almost, that we had inalienable rights in this country. The man's untouchable.

*Daily Telegraph, Michael Kallenbach and Andrew Sparrow 8 October 2001Raising a point of order before the main debate, Paul Marsden (Lab, Shrewsbury and Atcham) said he viewed with "great disquiet" that fact that for the third time Parliament had been recalled and for the third time MPs had been denied a vote on the war.

*The Independent, Ben Russell, 15 September 2001Paul Marsden, Labour MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham, said he had heard reports of Nato bombings planned for Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Afghanistan. He said: "The whole place could go up in a tinderbox in the Middle East if we are not careful."

*The Guardian, Rupert Jones, 1 April 2000Paul Marsden, Labour MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham, highlighted the village of Pontesbury in his constituency, which is losing its last bank - a Lloyds TSB branch - later this month. A petition of almost 2,000 signatures failed to make any impact on the bank's bosses, leaving villagers facing a round trip of nearly 20 miles to the nearest branch in Shrewsbury. [The Bank was saved later by Lloyds TSB]

*The Guardian, Simon Hoggart, 8 July 1999Paul Marsden of Shrewsbury rose to explain that this week's white paper on health would save 380,000 lives in 10 years - another miracle! Lazarus himself could have used NHS Direct, the telephone surgery: ("take two aspirin, and contact us by ouija board in the morning.") Mr Blair relaxed in the balm of Mr Marsden's praise.