1. Sir John Alan Redwood was born on 15 June 1951 and is a British politician and academic who was the Member of Parliament for Wokingham in Berkshire from 1987 to 2024.
31 Facts About John Redwood
1. 2.
On 24 May 2024, John Redwood announced that he would stand down as MP for Wokingham and not seek re-election in the 2024 general election.
3.
John Redwood is a veteran Eurosceptic who was described in 1993 as a "pragmatic Thatcherite".
4.
John Redwood was the co-chairman of the Conservative Party's Policy Review Group on Economic Competitiveness until 2010.
5.
John Redwood supported Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum, and is a member of the British Eurosceptic pressure group Leave Means Leave.
6.
John Redwood was born in Dover, the second child of William Redwood, an accountant and company secretary, and his wife, Amy Emma, the manager of a shoe shop.
7.
John Redwood had an elder sister, Jennifer, who died as a baby in 1949.
8.
John Redwood's childhood began in a council house, and he describes his family buying their own house as a "big breakthrough" for the family.
9.
John Redwood was educated at private Kent College in Canterbury, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated with a BA in modern history in 1971.
10.
John Redwood was a postgraduate at St Antony's College, Oxford, from 1971 to 1972 and was elected an Examination Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, from 1972 to 1979, which later led to a distinguished fellowship in 2007.
11.
John Redwood was an Oxfordshire county councillor, representing the Conservative Party between 1973 and 1977, the youngest ever at the age of 21 when elected.
12.
John Redwood was made a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in July 1989 for corporate affairs at the Department of Trade and Industry.
13.
John Redwood became Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities following the 1992 general election, where he oversaw the abolition of the Community Charge, known colloquially as the "poll tax", and its replacement with the Council Tax.
14.
John Redwood was opposed to attempts to reduce the age of consent for homosexuality in both 1994 and 1999, choosing to vote to keep Section 28 in November 2003.
15.
John Redwood voted for the reintroduction of capital punishment in 1988,1990 and 1994 and voiced support for the reintroducing of the death penalty when he launched his leadership bid on 26 June 1995.
16.
John Redwood was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions in June 1999, but was dropped in a mini reshuffle in February 2000, being succeeded by Archie Norman.
17.
In 2021, John Redwood publicly argued with Greta Thunberg over the UK's climate emissions on Twitter.
18.
On 24 May 2024, two days after announcement of the date of the 2024 general election, and just 40 days before the actual date, John Redwood announced he would be not be standing again for his Wokingham constituency, saying that he had 'other things I wish to do'.
19.
John Redwood deferred some road-widening schemes in Wales because of suggested harm to the environment.
20.
John Redwood committed a gaffe in 1993, when he attempted to mime to the Welsh national anthem at the Welsh Conservative Party conference, when he did not know the words.
21.
John Redwood subsequently learned the anthem but, in August 2007, an unconnected news story on John Redwood was illustrated with the same clip.
22.
When John Major called upon his critics to "put up or shut up" and tendered his resignation to allow for a leadership challenge, Redwood resigned from the Cabinet, and stood against Major in the subsequent party leadership election on 26 June 1995.
23.
When Major resigned as party leader following the General Election defeat of May 1997, John Redwood stood in the resulting election for the leadership, and was again defeated.
24.
John Redwood denied this interpretation, saying that he simply advises investors of where international markets are heading and did not write an investment column "recommending investors pull their money out of the United Kingdom".
25.
In statements to media and in the House of Commons, John Redwood has consistently defended the position that the UK should not pay the so-called Brexit bill.
26.
In December 2019, John Redwood voted in favour of the Withdrawal Agreement through which the UK accepts to pay its outstanding financial obligations to the EU.
27.
In June 2021, John Redwood criticised the composition of the G7 which includes the president of the European Commission and the president of the European Council in addition to representatives from France, Germany and Italy.
28.
John Redwood has often been compared to a Vulcan, a comparison originally made by Matthew Parris, due to his physical appearance and intonation, a preference for making arguments with logic over passion and a perception for being cold and humourless.
29.
John Redwood said that he does not like the description but "if you don't like the heat then get out of the kitchen".
30.
John Redwood worked as an investment analyst, manager and director for Robert Fleming and for NM Rothschild in the 1970s and 1980s.
31.
John Redwood was previously a non-executive chairman of Mabey Securities, an investment arm of the engineering firm Mabey.