Bob Neill
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Robert James MacGillivray Neill (born 24 June, 1952) is a British politician and barrister. He has been Conservative Party member of the London Assembly for Bexley and Bromley since 2000, and was elected as Member of Parliament for Bromley and Chislehurst in the by-election on June 29, 2006.
History
Neill attended Abbs Cross Technical High School, Abbs Cross Lane, Hornchurch, and was later a councillor in the London Borough of Havering, served as Greater London Council member for Romford 1985-86. He previously stood for the Dagenham parliamentary constituency in 1983, at the age of 30, coming within 2,997 votes of winning the historically Labour seat from Bryan Gould MP. He also stood for election in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in 1994 and 1998.
Neill was first elected to the London Assembly in the 2000 assembly election. He served as Leader of the Conservative Group on the Assembly from 2000/2 and again from 2004.
He is also a member of the EU's Committee of the Regions[link], and a member of the Federalist EPP-ED (European People's Party - European Democrats). A pro-European, he supported former Conservative Chancellor Kenneth Clarke in both of his bids for the leadership of the Conservative Party.
A Freemason, he is a member of the Greater London Lodge. [link] His partner is Southend Conservative Councillor Daphne White [link]
Bromley and Chislehurst By-Election
On 3 June 2006 he was adopted as the Conservative candidate for the Bromley and Chislehurst by-election which took place on 29 June 2006. His selection by the local Conservative Association raised eyebrows, as new leader David Cameron had pressed for an "A-List" candidate, to help present Cameron's vision of the new Conservative Party. The Parliamentary constituency forms a part of Neill's London Assembly constituency. He stated at his selection that he would not resign his London Assembly seat as the resultant by-election, which would see around 400,000 voters go to the polls, would be unduly expensive.
Neill's position as a non-executive director of the North East London Strategic Health Authority would be a disqualification from membership of the House of Commons under the House of Commons Disqualification Act of 1975, and so the propriety of his signing a declaration that he was not disqualified at time of nomination was questioned by several of the other byelection candidates and the press. Neill pointed out that the Strategic Health Authority will be abolished on July 1 2006, before he would actually take his seat in Parliament if elected. [link]
Neill won the by-election with 40% of the vote and by 2.2% of votes cast on a reduced turnout, down from the 51% of the vote and 29% majority achieved by his predecessor at the 2005 general election. Factors contibuting to this were assumed by commentators to include a substantial drop in the turnout, (down from 64.8 to 40.18%), the drop disproportionally hitting the Conservative vote, the presence of a very high-profile UKIP candidate, a very large defection of Labour votes to the Liberal Democrat candidate - Labour ended up coming fourth, after UKIP - and a campaign heavily focused on him personally by the Liberal Democrats. In his acceptance speech Neill criticised "a minority of candidates", (specifically targeting the Liberal Democrat candidate), for their ad hominem attacks on him. These included proven statements that he had three jobs [link] [link] [link]and claims that as a result he would only be able to be a part-time MP.
External link
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