Tom Watson MP
Tom Watson at 5th COMMUNIA Workshop
Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office
In office 25 January 2008 – 5 June 2009
Prime Minister	Gordon Brown
Preceded by	Gillian Merron
Succeeded by	Shriti Vadera
Member of Parliament for West Bromwich East
Incumbent
Assumed office  7 June 2001
Preceded by	Peter Snape
Majority	11,652 (32.8%)
Born	8 January 1967 (1967-01-08) (age 43)
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Alma mater	University of Hull
Website	tom-watson.co.uk

Thomas Anthony Watson (born 8 January 1967) is a British Labour Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for West Bromwich East since 2001. Watson was a Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office until he resigned in June 2009^[1].

History and career

Tom Watson was educated at King Charles I school, Kidderminster, and the University of Hull, where he was elected President of the Students Union in 1992. He was Chair of the National Organisation of Labour Students from 1992–93. He then worked as a marketing officer and advertising account executive. In 1993, he began to work for the Labour Party as National Development Officer for Youth. He then worked on the party's 1997 general election campaign before becoming the National Political Officer of the AEEU trade union.

He was elected MP for West Bromwich East in 2001. In 2003, he included a weblog on his website. Attention was drawn to it by a page in which he parodied attempts by professional politicians to communicate with younger readers, entitled 'Teens!', which included such phrases as "We know that you're too busy fighting off your biological urges and being l33t hax0rs to Get Involved, but politics is cool, m'kay?". In 2004, he won the New Statesman New Media Award in the category of elected representative for using his weblog to further the democratic process. He is also an active user of Twitter^[2].

Parliamentary achievements

In his first year in Parliament Watson launched a campaign to ban album sales of convicted sex offender Gary Glitter.^[3]

In 2002, Watson moved a Ten Minute Rule Bill to change organ donation laws. The Organ Donation (Presumed Consent and Safeguards) Bill was part of a joint campaign with the British Medical Association to increase the supply of organ donors in the UK.^[4]

Tom Watson was campaign organiser for the Labour Party in the Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election in July 2004, in which he succeeded in narrowly retaining the seat in difficult political times for the party in the wake of the Iraq War. This campaign drew criticism for its 'dirty' tactics, particularly a Labour leaflet proclaiming "Labour is on your side - the Lib Dems are on the side of failed asylum seekers."^[5][6]

Watson was appointed as an Assistant Government Whip on 9 September 2004 and was nominated as a "Top Toadie" by The Guardian Diary on 6 January 2005.^[7] He was promoted on 5 May 2006 to Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence.

During his time at the MoD, Watson was instrumental in ensuring that the soldiers shot for cowardice in World War One received pardons.^[8] Watson was said to have acted having met the relatives of Private Harry Farr, who was executed during the Great War despite strong evidence that he was suffering shellshock.^[9] The mass pardon of 306 British Empire soldiers executed for certain offences during the Great War was enacted in section 359 of the Armed Forces Act 2006, which came into effect on royal assent on 8 November 2006. This number included three from New Zealand, twenty three from Canada, two from the West Indies, two from Ghana and one each from Sierra Leone, Egypt and Nigeria.^[10]

After returning to Government during Gordon Brown's premiership,^[11] Watson took a particular interest in digital affairs, and in making non-personal Government data more available to the public. During his time at the Cabinet Office, the Power of Information Taskforce examined the case for freer access to Government data, culminating in a report and a competition, ShowUsABetterWay, which gave a £20,000 prize for the best idea for a website that used Government data in innovative ways.^[12] He also established policies requiring Government to consider open source software as well as proprietary solutions during IT procurements.^[13] Before leaving office, Watson created a new post for a Director of Digital Engagement within the Cabinet Office.^[14]

Parliamentary events

On 5 September 2006, it was reported that Watson had signed a letter to Tony Blair urging the Prime Minister's resignation to end the uncertainty over his succession.^[15]. The Government Chief Whip, Jacqui Smith, told Watson that evening that he must either withdraw his signature to the letter, or resign his post. On 6 September 2006, he resigned his ministerial position and released a further statement calling on Tony Blair to resign.^[16] {{cquote|It is with the greatest sadness that I have to say that I no longer believe that your remaining in office is in the interest of either the party or the country … How and why this situation has arisen no longer matters. I share the view of the overwhelming majority of the party and the country that the only way the party and the government can renew itself in office is urgently to renew its leadership.

Tony Blair was quoted by the BBC as saying that the statement and letter from Watson was "disloyal, discourteous and wrong" and that he would be seeing Watson later in the day. He said that he had planned to dismiss Watson from Government for having signed the letter urging him to resign. Within days of the incident suggestions appeared that Watson had been to Chancellor Gordon Brown's residence in Scotland only the day before the memo was sent to Tony Blair. Watson claimed he was dropping off a present for Brown's new baby Fraser and that neither the issue of the note, nor "any politics" were discussed.^{[citation needed]}

As Watson recounted on his weblog, his reception at Labour Party Conference a few weeks after his resignation got a mixed reaction from Labour Party colleagues. Some sought him out to congratulate him, whilst others sought him out to be sarcastic or to be abusive. One such encounter was with Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who asked Watson, whilst he was waiting to be interviewed by Channel 4 News, if he was "going to resign again?"

Watson's actions, by his own admission on his weblog and elsewhere, angered many of his colleagues within the Labour Party, but also pleased many. He returned to government following Brown's appointment as Prime Minister in June 2007, in apparent contradiction of a promise made in 2006 never to do so.^{[citation needed]}

Smeargate

In April 2009 it was alleged that he knew about the smear e-mail exchanges by Labour advisor Damian McBride, the public exposure of which prompted McBride's exit from Downing Street, though he has strongly denied this.^[17] The apology issued by Prime Minister Gordon Brown relating to the smears was described by Nadine Dorries, one of the targets of the campaign, as being "more about saving Tom Watson."^[18] Watson later took legal action against specific claims that he was copied into the e-mails sent by Mr McBride, and was awarded damages and legal costs from the Mail on Sunday, which carried the story.^[19] In addition, The Sun agreed to pay substantial damages after it also ran articles claiming he was involved in the plot. In settling the case, the paper accepted that the stories were untrue.^[20]

Expenses

On 10 May 2009 it was revealed that since being re-elected as MP in 2005, Watson claimed the maximum £4,800 allowance for food in a single year. From 2005-2009, Watson and Iain Wright claimed over £100,000 on the apartment they share.^[21]

Opposition to the Digital Economy Act

Tom Watson lead a small number of MPs in speaking out firmly against the Digital Economy Act 2010, as the bill was being passed through parliament in April 2010 during the 'wash-up' period before the election. He took part in a protest against the bill outside Parliament on 24 March 2010.^[22]

In opposition

In August 2010, Watson was guest editor of the Labour Uncut website^[23].

References

External links

• Official blog
• Tom Watson MP on Ask Aristotle from The Guardian
• Tom Watson MP on TheyWorkForYou.com
• Tom Watson MP on the Open Rights Group wiki
• Tom Watson's voting record on Public Whip
• Full text of resignation letter, BBC News Online, 6 September 2006

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