1. Dick Taverne, Baron Taverne, was born on 18 October 1928 and is a British politician and life peer who served as Member of Parliament for Lincoln from 1962 to 1974.
17 Facts About Dick Taverne
1. 2.
Dick Taverne later joined the Liberal Democrats when the SDP merged with the Liberal Party.
3.
Dick Taverne sat as a Liberal Democrat life peer in the House of Lords from 1996 until 2025.
4.
Dick Taverne unsuccessfully contested Putney as the Labour Party candidate at the 1959 general election, and was elected as the Member of Parliament for Lincoln at a by-election in March 1962.
5.
Dick Taverne then resigned from the Labour Party and from Parliament, and formed the Lincoln Democratic Labour Association.
6.
Dick Taverne was re-elected as an Independent Democratic Labour candidate at a by-election in March 1973, and held the seat at the February 1974 general election.
7.
Dick Taverne lost his seat in Parliament at the October 1974 general election.
8.
Dick Taverne was a leading social democratic thinker, publishing The Future of the Left: Lincoln and After in 1974.
9.
Dick Taverne was elected President of the Research Defence Society in 2004.
10.
Dick Taverne was a member of the House of Lords Committee on the Use of Animals in Scientific Procedures, and was a member of the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Lords.
11.
Dick Taverne became interested in science and public policy, and in 2002 founded Sense about Science, a charity with the objective of advancing public understanding of science and the evidence-based approach to scientific issues.
12.
Dick Taverne is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and a Distinguished Supporter of Humanists UK, as well as a vice-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group.
13.
Dick Taverne is a former member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group.
14.
Dick Taverne won the Science Writers' Award as Parliamentary Science Communicator of the Year 2005.
15.
Dick Taverne is a listed member of Republic, the campaign for abolishing the monarchy.
16.
Dick Taverne was interviewed in 2012 as part of The History of Parliament's oral history project.
17.
Dick Taverne is the author of The March of Unreason, published by Oxford University Press in March 2005.