25 Facts About Kim Howells

Kim Scott Howells was born on 27 November 1946 and is a Welsh Labour Party politician.

Kim Howells was the Member of Parliament for Pontypridd from 1989 to 2010, and held a number of ministerial positions within the Blair and Brown governments.

Kim Howells went to Hornsey College of Art where he was active in the May 1968 student occupation, and was the first protester to breach the Metropolitan Police cordon at the demonstration against the Vietnam War outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square in 1968.

Kim Howells featured as a student leader at Hornsey College of Art in director John Goldschmidt's film Our Live Experiment is worth more than 3,000 Textbooks, made for Granada Television and shown on the ITV network.

Kim Howells attended the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology between 1971 and 1974 where he studied for a Joint Honours Degree and was awarded an upper second, which allowed him to follow post-graduate studies in history.

On returning home to South Wales from college, Kim Howells worked as a researcher and editor for the South Wales Miner, before becoming a South Wales National Union of Mineworkers official and local representative of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Kim Howells ran the NUM Pontypridd office which co-ordinated the South Wales miners' efforts during the UK miners' strike.

On being told of the incident in a telephone call from a reporter of the South Wales Echo, Kim Howells rode his bicycle to the NUM offices.

Kim Howells then destroyed a large number of papers because he feared a police raid on the union offices.

Kim Howells has commented that the attack by the strikers was a result of pressure to get the miners to return to work.

Kim Howells entered the House of Commons in a by-election in 1989.

Kim Howells suggested in 1996 that the word "socialism" ought to be "humanely phased out" of Labour Party policy documents.

Kim Howells held a string of junior ministerial posts in various departments following the 1997 election until October 2008.

Kim Howells then served in the Department for Trade and Industry until June 2001, and then as a junior minister with the trade and broadcasting brief at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport until June 2003.

Kim Howells served as a Minister of State from June 2003 to September 2004, when he became Minister for Higher Education.

Kim Howells left that post when he was made Minister for the Middle East in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in May 2005.

Kim Howells remained a Minister of State at the Foreign Office after Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, but returned to the backbenches when Brown conducted a reshuffle in October 2008.

Kim Howells is a member and the former chairman of Labour Friends of Israel.

In March 2009 it was revealed that Kim Howells made one of the lowest expense claims among Welsh MPs, being 5th from bottom.

On 18 December 2009 Kim Howells announced that he would stand down at the 2010 general election.

On 15 July 2011 Kim Howells received an Honorary Doctorate for his contribution to Welsh and British politics from the University of Glamorgan.

Kim Howells withdrew from the ceremony at the last minute after pressure mounted on him.

Kim Howells told The Scotsman newspaper in September 1995 that devolution was akin to fascism and that it would lead to the "Balkanisation of Great Britain".

Kim Howells once described the British royal family as "a bit bonkers".

Kim Howells said in 2013 that Labour had to change its relationship with the unions or face damaging its reputation and risk losing the next general election.