David Amess

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MP David Amess MP
Image:DavidAmessbio.jpg
Member of Parliament
Incumbent
Assumed office  1997
Preceded by	Paul Channon
Constituency	Southend West
Born	March 26, 1952 (age 55) Plaistow, United Kingdom
Political party	Conservative
Occupation	politician
Religion	Roman Catholic

David Anthony Andrew Amess (born 26 March 1952) is a British politician. He is the current Conservative Member of Parliament for Southend West.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Political career 2.1 Positions 3 Trivia 4 External links

[edit] Early life

He was born in Plaistow, London to James and Maud Ethel Amess, and raised Roman Catholic. He attended St. Bonaventure Grammar School and then Bournemouth College of Technology, where he earned a degree with honours in Economics and Government.

Amess taught at the St John the Baptist Primary School in Bethnal Green for a year, and then spent a short time as an underwriter before becoming a recruitment consultant.

In 1983 he married Julia Monica Margaret Arnold. They have five children: one son and four daughters.

[edit] Political career

He contested the safe Labour Party seat of Newham North West at the 1979 General Election, and the seat was retained by Labour's MP Arthur Lewis. In 1982, Amess was elected as a councillor to the London Borough of Redbridge.

The sitting Conservative MP for Basildon, Harvey Proctor, moved to Billericay in the 1983 General Election, and Amess won the nomination to fight the Basildon seat. He was elected as the Member of Parliament for Basildon on June 9, 1983.

Amess continued to serve both as an MP and a local councillor until 1986, when he stood down from Redbridge Borough Council to concentrate on his Westminster MP seat. He held his Basildon seat narrowly at the 1987 General Election, in part by capturing a significant personal following element in the vote. During the 1987 campaign, the constituency was visited by future Prime Minister John Major.

Following the election Amess was appointed a Parliamentary Private Secretary to Michael Portillo, a position he held for ten years throughout Portillo's ministerial career. Amess held his seat again at the 1992 General Election.

In 1997 Amess moved to represent Southend West in Essex after the retirement of former Cabinet minister Paul Channon. Amess received the nomination and was returned to Westminster again, in the wake of the landslide Labour victory. His former Basildon fell to the Labour candidate.

[edit] Positions

Amess normally adheres to Conservative party policy on votes. However he is very strongly in favour of the ban on fox-hunting. He voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq but has since been critical of the Labour government's failure to find the weapons of mass destruction with which they justified the action at the time. He is one of the few Conservative MPs to support the impeach Blair campaign and is strongly against Labour's proposed anti-terror laws and the erosion of civil liberties. He is in favour of a return to capital punishment, and this was reinforced after a family member was stabbed to death. Mr Amess is a leading member of Conservative Friends of Israel. In June 2005 Amess supported a bill put forth by Laurence Robertson that would almost entirely ban abortion. [1]

[edit] Trivia

He appeared in the Drugs episode of Brass Eye in which he was fooled into filming an elaborate video warning against the dangers of a fictional Eastern European drug called Cake, and went as far as to ask a question about it in Parliament (the question was recorded in Hansard). He also agreed to an interview with Mark Thomas on the very first episode of the Mark Thomas Comedy Product, where he drew a map of his constituency on a young woman's stomach and proceeded to play noughts and crosses on it. And then, after being shown pictures of David Martin doing the same, let Mark (dressed as a giant bear) take pictures of his bottom.

MT: "Coz you're pro-hanging, aren't you?"

DA: "I am. [Pause] Well, no; I'm not not hanging."

MT: "Shooting?"

DA: "Er..er.. "

MT: "Electrocution! Poison gas? Hitting? Stoning? Stone them! Stone them!"

DA: "I'm sure there's a humane way of doing it."

Amess is a Roman Catholic and speaks passionately on issues such as abortion and In Vitro Fertilisation.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] External links

• ePolitix - David Amess official site
• Conservative Party - David Amess biography
• Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: David Amess MP
• TheyWorkForYou - David Amess MP

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Harvey Proctor	Member of Parliament for Basildon 1983 – 1997	Succeeded by Angela Smith
Preceded by Paul Channon	Member of Parliament for Southend West 1997 – present	Incumbent