Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Gerald Kaufman
The Right Honourable Sir Gerald Bernard Kaufman (born June 21, 1930) is a British Labour Member of Parliament who was a government minister during the 1970s. He is now Chairman of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee. He is known as a moderate, and a supporter of Tony Blair's reforms. He infamously called the Labour Party's left-wing 1983 election manifesto [1] "the longest suicide note in history".
Born in Leeds and educated at Leeds Grammar School and the University of Oxford (Queen's College), he became a Fabian Society staffer and a political journalist on the Daily Mirror and the New Statesman. He was a member of Prime Minister Harold Wilson's informal "kitchen cabinet". In 1965 he became a Labour Party press officer. He was elected MP for Ardwick in Manchester in 1970 and has represented Manchester Gorton since 1983.
He was a minister throughout Labour's time in power in the 1970s, first in the Department of the Environment, then in the Department of Industry. In opposition he became Shadow Home Secretary and Shadow Foreign Secretary. In 1992 he went to the back benches and became Chair of what was then the National Heritage committee.
He is the writer of several books, of which the best known is How to be a Minister (1980), an irreverent look at the difficulties faced by ministers trying to control the civil service, in much the same vein as the television series Yes, Minister. He also wrote scripts for the 1960s television satire That Was The Week That Was.
Kaufman is an outspoken opponent of hunting with hounds. He is also a leading member of Poale Zion an international Zionist-socialist Jewish group affiliated to the Labour party in Britain. Nonetheless, he has become one of the leading Jewish critics of Israel. He has often accused Sharon's government of having a poor human rights record, and of failing to solve the security problems faced by both Israelis and Palestinians. Kaufman has called for economic sanctions and an arms ban against Israel, citing the success of such measures against apartheid South Africa[2]. However, surprisingly, for a critic of Israel, he voted in favour of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He was awarded a knighthood for "services to parliament" in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2004.
Kaufman has recently claimed he has been the target of anti-Semitism from both members of pro-fox hunting groups and the Board of Deputies of British Jews. [3]
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