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Martin Bell OBE


Martin Bell addresses a Frontline Club forum
Member of Parliament
for Tatton
In office
1 May 1997 – 7 June 2001
Preceded by Neil Hamilton
Succeeded by George Osborne
Majority 11,077
Born 31 August 1938 (1938-08-31) (age 72)
Redisham, Suffolk
Nationality British
Political party Independent
Alma mater King's College, Cambridge
Occupation War reporter

Martin Bell, OBE, (born 31 August 1938, Redisham, Suffolk) is a British UNICEF (UNICEF UK) Ambassador, a former broadcast war reporter and former independent politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tatton from 1997 to 2001.

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[edit] Background

Bell is the son of author-farmer Adrian Bell, the brother of literary translator, Anthea Bell OBE and the uncle of weblogger-banker Oliver Kamm, who served as his political adviser during his term as a Member of Parliament (MP).

He was educated at The Leys School in Cambridge[1] and King's College, Cambridge, where he achieved a 1st Class Honours Degree in English.[2] At Cambridge, he served on the committee of Cambridge University Liberal Club, including a term as Publicity Officer.[3] He failed to obtain a commission during his two-year national service and served out his time as an acting corporal in the Suffolk Regiment serving in Cyprus during the emergency.[4]

[edit] BBC correspondent

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Martin Bell joined the BBC as a reporter in Norwich in 1962 as a twenty-four year-old, following his graduation.

He moved to London three years later, beginning a distinguished career as a foreign affairs correspondent with his first assignment in Ghana. Over the next thirty years, he covered eleven conflicts and reported from eighty countries, making his name with reports from wars and conflicts in Vietnam, Middle East, Nigeria, Angola, and in Northern Ireland (during the "Troubles").

He won the Royal Television Society's Reporter of the Year award in 1977 and 1993, and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1992. That same year, whilst covering the war in Bosnia Bell was seriously wounded by shrapnel while recording a report. The grenade was fired by Serbian forces.[citation needed]

He remained an official BBC correspondent, although from the mid-1990s he filed relatively few reports, and became disillusioned with the BBC.

[edit] Independent politician

In 1997, twenty-four days before that year's British General Election, Martin Bell announced that he was leaving the BBC to stand as an independent candidate in the Tatton constituency in Cheshire. Tatton was one of the safest Conservative seats in the country, where the sitting Conservative Member of Parliament, Neil Hamilton, was embroiled in "sleaze" allegations. The Labour and Liberal Democrat parties withdrew their candidates in Bell's favour in a plan masterminded by Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's press secretary.[5][6]

Hamilton was trounced, and Martin Bell was elected an MP with a majority of 11,077 votes[7] – overturning a Conservative majority of over 22,000 – and thus became the first successful independent parliamentary candidate since 1951.[8]

He did not often speak in the House of Commons, and when he did, it was mostly on matters of British policy in the former Yugoslavia and the Third World. Although Bell voted with the Labour government of Tony Blair on many issues, on a few others, such as reducing the homosexual age of consent and banning fox hunting, he voted with the Conservatives. On 12 November 1997, he was cheered from the Conservative benches when he asked Blair about the Bernie Ecclestone affair, "Does the Prime Minister agree that the perception of wrong-doing can be as damaging to public confidence as the wrong-doing itself? Have we slain one dragon only to have another take its place, with a red rose in its mouth?".[9]

He was urged by large numbers of his Tatton constituents to stand again in the 2001 general election. Bell said that the only outcome which could make him change his mind would be Neil Hamilton being re-selected by the Tatton Conservative Party as candidate for the next General Election. However, future Chancellor George Osborne was selected in March 1999, as Conservative party candidate for Tatton. Hamilton lost his libel case against Mohammed Al-Fayed in December 1999, ending any prospect of him making a political comeback. Though he regretted making the pledge of saying he would only serve for one term, Bell stuck to his promise.

In 2001, Bell was nonetheless persuaded to stand as an independent candidate against another Conservative MP Eric Pickles in the "safe" Essex constituency of Brentwood and Ongar, where there were accusations that the local Conservative Association had been infiltrated by a Pentecostal church.[10] Although he garnered nearly 32% of the vote coming second, Bell was however unsuccessful in the 2001 election, and announced his retirement from politics, saying that "winning one and losing one is not a bad record for an amateur".

The Channel 4 drama 'Mr White Goes to Westminster' was loosely based on Bell's political career.

[edit] Post "retirement"

Bell made a brief return to television news in 2003 when he provided analysis of the Iraq invasion for ITN's Channel Five News. The short films he compiled from the daily video footage brought a unique historical and humanitarian perspective to the events that was in stark contrast to the coverage of much of the mainstream media.

Bell reversed his previous decision and stood for the European Parliament in the June 2004 elections, but was ultimately unsuccessful as an independent candidate in the UK's eastern region, winning only 6.2% of the vote (see European Parliament election, 2004 (UK)).[11]

Before the 2005 election he became affiliated with the Independent Network to help promote independent candidates (its most prominent candidate being Reg Keys who fought against prime minister Tony Blair in the Sedgefield constituency).[12]

Bell now acts as an ambassador for UNICEF[13] and as a critic on the state of journalism today, although he describes himself as "too old" for both journalism and politics.

In April 2006, Scottish National Party MP Angus MacNeil asked the Metropolitan Police to investigate whether any law had been broken in the Cash for Peerages scandal. Bell wrote jointly with MacNeil to Prime Minister Tony Blair calling for all appointments to the House of Lords to be suspended.[14]

In May 2009, he came out in support of the Green Party in the weeks before the 2009 European elections, supporting the Green Party's 'Clean Campaigning' pledge in the wake of the scandal over MPs' expenses.[15]

On 21 May 2009, he appeared on the special live edition of BBC's Question Time which was held in Salisbury in the midst of the political scandal surrounding MPs' expenses.[16]

He announced that he was considering standing against a third Conservative MP, Sir Nicholas Winterton, the MP for Macclesfield in the 2010 General Election, but following the latter's announcement that he was not going to seek re-election, did not do so.[17] He indicated that he might stand against Hazel Blears in Salford (the first sitting MP of a party other than the Conservative party against whom he expressed an interest in standing)[18] although in the end he did not stand in any constituency.

[edit] Publications

  • In Harm's Way (London, 1995, revised edition 1996) ISBN 0140251081
  • An Accidental MP (Viking, London, 2000, Penguin paperback 2001) ISBN 0670892319
  • Through Gates of Fire: a Journey into World Disorder (London, 2003, Phoenix paperback 2004) ISBN 0753817861
  • The Truth That Sticks: New Labour's Breach of Trust (Icon Books, London, 2007) ISBN 184046822X
  • A Very British Revolution: The Expenses Scandal and How to Save Our Democracy (Icon Books, London, 2009) ISBN 9781848310964

[edit] References

  1. ^ "The Leys School". Tatler. http://www.tatler.co.uk/Schools/2006/Details.aspx?Type=Public&Area=Midlands&ID=345&List=. Retrieved 26 April 2007. [dead link]
  2. ^ "Martin Bell". http://redhammer.info/?page_id=136. 
  3. ^ http://keynessociety.wordpress.com/about-the-keynes-society/
  4. ^ [1]
  5. ^ "Man-in-white stands for Euro seat". BBC. 5 March 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/3535309.stm. Retrieved 26 April 2007. 
  6. ^ Alastair Campbell, The Blair Years, Random House, London, 2007
  7. ^ "Tatton". Guardian (London). http://politics.guardian.co.uk/hoc/constituency/0,9338,-1360,00.html. Retrieved 26 April 2007. 
  8. ^ "Martin Bell profile". Guardian (London). 3 June 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2007/jun/03/martinbell. Retrieved 9 June 2009. 
  9. ^ "Blair under attack over party funding". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/29256.stm. Retrieved 12 May 2010. 
  10. ^ "Martin Bell, the white-suited `ethics man', turns Essex man to". Independent. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20001209/ai_n14361499. Retrieved 26 April 2007. [dead link]
  11. ^ "European Elections: Eastern region". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/threecounties/election/2004/election_european.shtml. Retrieved 26 April 2007. 
  12. ^ "ELECTION '05: Father who lost son in Iraq leads single-issue". Independent. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20050407/ai_n13564131. Retrieved 26 April 2007. [dead link]
  13. ^ "Martin Bell OBE, UNICEF UK Ambassador". Unicef. http://www.unicef.org.uk/celebrity/celebrity_biography.asp?celeb_id=3. Retrieved 26 April 2007. 
  14. ^ "Bell presses Blair over honours". BBC. 16 April 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4912678.stm. 
  15. ^ "Boost for Greens as high-profile figures back campaign". Green Party. http://eastern.greenparty.org.uk/region/easternregion/news/futher-boast-for-greens-as-high-profile-figures-back-campaign.html. Retrieved 21 May 2009. 
  16. ^ "Question Time". BBC. 19 May 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/8056002.stm. Retrieved 26 March 2010. 
  17. ^ "Bell tempted to take on Sir Nick but admits challenge is ‘highly unlikely’". Macclesfield Express. 13 February 2008. http://www.macclesfield-express.co.uk/news/s/1036325_bell_tempted_to_take_on_sir_nick_but_admits_challenge_is_highly_unlikely. 
  18. ^ "Bell may challenge Blears". Manchester Evening News. http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1117610_bell_may_challenge_blears_. Retrieved 30 May 2009. 
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Neil Hamilton		 Member of Parliament for Tatton
1997–2001		 Succeeded by
George Osborne
[hide]v · d · eVietnam War correspondents
Print journalists
Photojournalists
Broadcast journalists
Persondata
Name Bell, Martin
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth 31 August 1938
Place of birth Redisham, Suffolk
Date of death
Place of death

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