Bob Marshall-Andrews

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Robert Graham Marshall-Andrews QC (born April 10, 1944) is an English politician and barrister. He is Labour Member of Parliament for Medway in Kent.

Marshall-Andrews entered Parliament in the 1997 general election. He is from the left wing of the Labour Party, and a member of the Socialist Campaign Group. After a period of bedding down as a new MP, he soon showed the modus operandi of lead irritant to the front bench. He has rebelled against the government on 134 occasions since 2001 (20 of those rebellions being in the 2005 parliament), mainly on legal issues. He wishes to see the House of Lords abolished and the United Kingdom Parliament become unicameral. He is often mentioned as a candidate for backbencher of the year.

On the night of the 2005 general election, he appeared on national television announcing his defeat before it had been officially declared, as the only good news Tony Blair would get that night, and launched a scathing attack on the Prime Minister. To his apparent surprise, he then went on to hold the seat, albeit with a majority of only 213 votes.

His penchant for rebellion combined with his friendliness with many Conservative MPs, possibly influenced by his small majority over the Conservatives in his own seat, has led him to become extremely unpopular within his own party. According to The Times, a senior Labour MP has demanded that the whip be withdrawn from him as an example to the 49 Labour MPs who rebelled against the government's plans to detain terror suspects for 90 days.

During a break of the Terror Bill debate on November 9, 2005, Marshall-Andrews was seen talking to Conservative MPs Andrew Mitchell, Greg Knight and Damian Green in the Commons lobby. Loyal Labour MP Barry Sheerman, disgusted by Marshall-Andrews' willingness to consort with the opposition, remonstrated with him. Fellow Labour MP Jim Dowd intervened and at one stage grabbed Marshall-Andrews by the lapels. Dowd and several observersIsabel Oakeshott, "MPs in Terror Law Punch-up", Evening Standard, November 9, 2005, p. 1: "Witnesses say they heard Mr Marshall-Andrews, a practising barrister and part-time judge, call Mr Dowd a 'faggot'."; Toby Helm, George Jones, "Panic and a punch-up as Blair tumbles to defeat at the hands of his own party", Daily Telegraph, November 10, 2005, p. 4: "Witnesses said Mr Marshall-Andrews called Mr Dowd a 'faggot'." heard him saying of Dowd "Here's another faggot""MPs pulled apart at Commons", Financial Times Europe Information Wire, November 9, 2005. The near-scuffle was broken up by government whip Tom Watson, but was widely reported and mentioned by Marshall-Andrews on the satirical news quiz Have I Got News For You. Marshall-Andrews subsequently insisted that he had actually shouted faccio, an Italian word meaning a menial assistant, from which the public school slang 'fag' is thought to derive.

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