Kim Howells
Dr
Kim Scott Howells (born
November 27,
1946 in
Merthyr Tydfil) is a
Labour politician in
Wales, and
member of Parliament for
Pontypridd. He entered the
House of Commons in a by-election in
1989. He has been a junior minister in various departments since the
1997 election, and from
September 2004 served as a
Minister of State at the
Department for Education and Skills. Since
May 2005, Dr Howells has served as a
Minister of State at the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with responsibility for: the
Middle East,
Afghanistan and
South Asia, counter-narcotics,
counter-proliferation,
counter-terrorism,
UN and
UN reform. He is former Chairman of
Labour Friends of Israel.
In
2002 when a junior Minister at the
Department for Culture, Media and Sport, he criticised the
Turner Prize by writing a note that read:
If this is the best British artists can produce then British art is lost. It is cold mechanical, conceptual bullshit. Kim Howells. P.S. The attempts at conceptualisation are particularly pathetic and symptomatic of a lack of convictionKim Howells went to
Hornsey College of Art and later gained a PhD from the
University of Warwick. Before entering Parliament he worked as a researcher for the
South Wales Miner, as a writer and presenter for
television and
radio and as a lecturer.
On
January 12,
2006, Howells admitted that he had been the Minister responsible for approving the appointment of Paul Reeve (who had accepted a police caution for downloading child pornography) as a Physical education teacher at a
Norwich school, which had initially been blamed on his boss,
Ruth Kelly. The appointment had caused controversy when it was revealed that Reeve was on the sex offenders' register but not on 'List 99' containing those unsuitable for work with children.
Throughout his Parliamentary career he has been unafraid to speak his mind and has often sparked strong criticism from those he has criticised or offended. During a
House of Commons debate on licensing laws he said that the idea of "listening to three
Somerset folk singers sounds like hell".
In February,
2006 he was the subject of a complaint from
Paul Flynn MP after he mocked Mr Flynn's attitude towards the UK's Afghan Drug policy as being equivalent to: "It is not enough to assume that if people eat the right kind of
muesli, go to first nights of
Harold Pinter revivals and read
The Independent occasionally, the drug barons of
Afghanistan will go away. They will not."
In a
Today programme interview, while visiting
Iraq on
March 11,
2006 as Foreign Office minister, he said:
[Iraq] is a mess that can't launch an attack now on Iran; a mess that won't be able to march into Kuwait; it's a mess that can't develop nuclear weapons. So yes it's a mess but it's starting to look like the sort of mess that most of us live in.On
July 22 2006 Howell criticised
Israel's bombardment of Lebanon while on a visit to
Beirut, breaking with the
Prime Minister and
Foreign Secretary's less critical line, saying:
The destruction of the infrastructure, the death of so many children and so many people. These have not been surgical strikes. And it's very difficult, I think, to understand the kind of military tactics that have been used. You know, if they're chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don't go for the entire Lebanese nation.He once described the
royal family as "a bit bonkers".
*
Wales Labour Party - Kim Howells official profile
*
Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Kim Howells MP*
TheyWorkForYou.com - Kim Howells MP*
The Public Whip - Kim Howells voting record
*
BBC News report of Turner Prize comments 31 October, 2002
*
Report on his comments about the Monarchy and the Somerset Folk Singers. Also details an exchange with Paul Flynn on drugs policy in which Dr Howells became abusive.*
Minister admits Iraq is 'a mess',
BBC, 11 March 2006 (
audio)
