Douglas Carswell

Douglas Carswell MP
Member of Parliament for Harwich
Incumbent
Assumed office  5 May 2005
Preceded by	Ivan Henderson
Majority	920 (1.8%)
Born	3 May 1971 (1971-05-03) (age 38) City of Westminster, London
Nationality	British
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	Clementine
Alma mater	Charterhouse School University of East Anglia King's College London
Website	www.douglascarswell.com

John Douglas Wilson Carswell (born 3 May 1971) is a British politician. He is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Harwich and Clacton.

Early life

Carswell is the son of two medical doctors, and grew up in Africa, where his parents worked amongst resource-starved communities.^[1] His home was in Uganda until his late teens. His father, Wilson Carswell, a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, diagnosed the first confirmed cases of HIV/AIDS, in Uganda in the early 1980s,^[2] and was instrumental in drawing the world's attention to the unfolding pandemic.^[3]

Carswell was educated at St. Andrews School, Turi, Kenya; Charterhouse School; the University of East Anglia, where he graduated with a degree in history in 1993; and at King's College London. He worked as Corporate Development Manager for Television Broadcasting in Italy from 1997-9, and as Chief Projects Manager for INVESCO from 1999 before entering politics. At the 2001 General Election, he was the Conservative candidate at Sedgefield: the constituency of the Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair's majority fell by 7,500 votes, and Carswell managed to increase the Conservative share of the vote by 3.1% of the electorate.^[4] In the months before the 2005 General Election, he worked in the Conservative Party's Policy Unit, reporting to David Cameron.

Member of Parliament

Carswell was elected to Parliament at the 2005 General Election for the constituency of Harwich, defeating the sitting Labour MP Ivan Henderson by 920 votes. Carswell made his maiden speech on 28 June 2005 in the debate on the Identity Cards Bill.^[5] He is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel. Carswell serves on the House of Commons Education Select Committee and the Public Accounts Committee.

Shortly after entering Parliament, Carswell wrote a publication 'Direct Democracy: an agenda for a new model party'. This publication has been described by the The Spectator (June 2, 2007) as 'one of the founding texts of the new, revitalised Toryism .... written by some of the brightest young Conservative thinkers'. It sets out much of the thinking that has now become central to the Conservatives under David Cameron MP.

Carswell has also founded Direct Democracy, a group of like-minded modernisers within the party committed to making localism the core of the Conservative Party's platform. The group has been described by The First Post as one of the most influential Tory think tanks.^[6]

Carswell made his mark at Westminster, bringing about the removal of a Speaker of the House of Commons for the first time in over 300 years.^[7] He defied convention in April 2008 when he became the first MP to publicly call for the Speaker of the House of Commons Michael Martin to be fired after his failure to ensure greater transparency as to how the House of Commons is run.^[8] In May 2009, he then put forward the motion of no confidence, backed by 23 MPs, which triggered Martin's downfall in June^[9][9]

Dod's political biography describes Carswell as being "Tall and Eurosceptic ... one of his party’s radical thinkers". Carswell was described in The Sunday Times Magazine on July 27 2008 as "one of the energetic young Tory modernisers elected to the Commons in 2005".^[10]

In December 2009, Carswell introduced a bill before the House of Commons requesting a public referendum on British EU membership.^[11]

Political positions

Carswell is also a vociferous opponent of action to tackle climate change. He has used his blog to refer to the general agreement among the scientific community that there is a man-made element to climate change as a 'lunatic consensus'. ^[12]

Influence in the Conservative Party

Carswell and his co-author Daniel Hannan, have claimed that ideas in The Plan have informed much of the thinking in speeches and policy announcements made by the leader of the Conservative Party David Cameron - see for example ^[13] and.^[14] However while Cameron has spoken of decentralising power in the UK ^[15] he has not adopted all 30 proposals outlined in The Plan. Nor has he yet subscribed to the view that Britain should withdraw from the EEC,^[16] as Carswell and Hannan advocate.

However, various independent bloggers have noted key similarities between ideas outline in The Plan and Conservative party policy under David Cameron. ConservativeHome drew attention to parallels between the text of The Plan and a speech made by David Cameron in Milton Keynes in May 2009. ^[17]

Guido Fawkes, who describes The Plan as a “huge hit, an Amazon bestseller and the all-time best-selling publish-on-demand publication ever sold by Amazon” also noted the influence of the book on Conservative thinking.^[18]

Carswell has been invited to speak at various conferences on a range of policy topics in which he has no formal role within the party, such as reform of the criminal justice system,^[19] constitutional reform,^[20] defence and local government.

In July 2009, the Conservatives announced they would be using full, open primary contests to select candidates for the first time, yet another illustration of the way that ideas in The Plan have been adopted by the Conservatives.

Publications

• Direct Democracy – Agenda for a New Model Party^[21]
• Paying for Localism,^[22]
• Chief author of The Localist Papers^[23]
• The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain - co-written with Daniel Hannan.

Footnotes

External links

• Douglas Carswell Official Site
• talkcarswell.com Douglas' Blog
• BBC Politics MP Profile
• They Work For You