33 Facts About Bob Blackman

Robert John Blackman MP was born on 26 April 1956 and is a British politician who has been the chairman of the 1922 Committee and chair of the Backbench Business Committee since 2024.

Bob Blackman served as the Joint Executive Secretary of the backbench 1922 Committee from 2012 to 2024.

Bob Blackman was the Member of the London Assembly for Brent and Harrow between 2004 and 2008.

Robert Bob Blackman was born on 26 April 1956 in Kensington.

Bob Blackman worked in various sales and management positions for BT and worked at their training school in Milton Keynes as a tutor and later as a regulatory compliance manager for BT until his election to Parliament.

Bob Blackman unsuccessfully stood as the Conservative candidate in the Tokyngton ward of Brent London Borough Council in 1986.

Bob Blackman was the leader of the Conservative group on Brent council from 1990 to 2010, having been council leader between 1991 and 1996, when his party lost control of the council.

Bob Blackman stood as the Conservative Party candidate for the London Assembly constituency of Brent and Harrow at the 2000 elections, losing to the Labour candidate Toby Harris.

Bob Blackman defeated Harris at the 2004 assembly elections and was elected as the Conservative group's whip on the London Assembly.

In 2024, Bob Blackman successfully ran for the position of chairman of the Conservative parties "1922 Committee".

Bob Blackman has taken the oath of allegiance on both the King James Version and the Bhagavad Gita multiple times.

In 2010, Bob Blackman was elected a member of the Communities and Local Government Select Committee and was elected secretary of the 1922 Committee in 2015.

Bob Blackman called for the adoption of plain packaging legislation for cigarettes in November 2012, and supported Cameron's plan calling for energy companies to provide simplified energy bills to their customers.

In December 2012, when the Conservative Party launched a consultation into legalising same-sex marriages, Bob Blackman suggested that David Cameron should resurrect Section 28, stating that he believed that "Section 28 was the right rules to have in school so that we should not in any way shape or form promote same-sex relationships" and said he would be "very opposed" to seeing teachers being forced to say same-sex relationships are equivalent to heterosexual relationships.

On 5 February 2013, Bob Blackman voted against the bill in the House of Commons second reading vote on marriage equality in Britain.

Bob Blackman is an officer of the Conservative Friends of Israel group.

Bob Blackman has been part of several delegations to Israel, including during the Operation Defensive Shield conflict when he visited for an Israeli military briefing on the Iron Dome defence system.

In 2015, the compliance officer for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority made a judgement that Bob Blackman had submitted 732 inaccurate mileage claims.

On 1 July 2015, Bob Blackman was elected chair of the All Party Political Group on Smoking and Health, after serving as its secretary for several years.

Bob Blackman subsequently joined the European Research Group, a Eurosceptic group within Parliament.

In October 2017, Bob Blackman drew criticism from Tom Peck of The Independent for hosting Tapan Ghosh, an anti-Islam extremist from India, at a House of Commons event.

Bob Blackman shared anti-Islam posts on Twitter by far-right activist Tommy Robinson and was a member of various anti-Islam groups on Facebook.

In Parliament, Bob Blackman serves on the Procedure Committee, the Backbench Business Committee and the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.

In March 2019, Bob Blackman was among a group of MPs who argued for a number of measures to encourage people to quit smoking and prevent young people from taking it up, including raising the legal smoking age to 21 and introducing a levy on large tobacco companies.

Presumably Bob Blackman is referring here to a return by Kashmiri Pandits to the Kashmiri Valley.

Bob Blackman attended a Diwali event held in October 2022 at the Houses of Parliament as a guest of the Hindu Forum of Britain.

Bob Blackman was elected unopposed as the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee on 9 September 2024.

In 2013, The Guardian published an article "Plush hotels and caviar diplomacy: how Azerbaijan's elite wooed MPs", criticising Bob Blackman's five-day visit to Azerbaijan, paid for by The European Azerbaijan Society.

OpenDemocracy reported in February 2022 that Bob Blackman tabled four pro-regime motions in the House and had written to two foreign secretaries, urging them to strengthen ties with Azerbaijan and condemn its opponent Armenia.

Bob Blackman urged the then foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, to take Azerbaijan's side in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.

Bob Blackman employs his wife as a part-time office manager.

In 2012, it was reported that Bob Blackman had been involved in an 11-year affair with Carol Shaw while they both served on Brent Council in the 1990s.

Bob Blackman was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2023 Birthday Honours for political and public service.