Investors in Cats
Welsh Icons - Polititians
Kim Howells

Welsh Icons
About Wales

and all things Welsh

 Click here to Vote Now

 Back

 Previous

Next

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.

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 conviction

Kim 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 equivelant 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.

He once described the royal family as "a bit bonkers".
 


 

Post this page to: del.icio.us Yahoo! MyWeb Digg reddit Furl Blinklist Spurl

Comments

Name
E-mail (Will not appear online)
Title
Comment
;-) :-) :-D :-( :-o >-( B-) :oops: :-[] :-P
To prevent automated Bots form spamming, please enter the text you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.



[Home] [Food & Drink] [Symbols] [Sport] [Products] [Places] [Buildings] [Artists] [Entertainers] [Events] [Famous Welsh] [Journalists] [Musicians] [Politicians] [Songs] [Writers] [Welsh Info] [About Us] [Vox Pop] [Site Map] [Contact Us] [Forums] [Our Sponsors] [Welsh Produce]

All copyrights acknowledged with thanks to Wikipedia. Another site by 3Cat Design 2006-2007
Whilst we try to give accurate information, we accept no liabilty for loss or incorrect information listed on this site.
If you do spot a mistake, please let us know.
Email: [email protected]

 

Key

Bold Red
Internal Link

Red
External Link

 Admission Charges
 Address
 Arts/Galleries
 Buses
 B&B's/Guesthouses Campsites/Carvans
 Castles
 Credit Cards
 Disabled Facilities
 Email
 Farmers Markets
 Fax
 Film
 Food
 Football
 Gardens
 Golf
 Historic Houses
 Hotels
 Libraries
 Museums
 Opening Hours
 Pubs/Bars
 Rugby
 Shops/Gifts
 Taxis:
 Telephone No.
 Theatres
 Tourist Information
 Trains
 Vets
 Web Address
 Welsh Produce
 Youth Hostels
llustration(s) or photograph(s) viewable Illustration(s) or
       photograph(s)

 

This Month

December 20th

Geoffrey Howe (politician) born 1925 in Port Talbot

December 27th

John Charles (footballer) born 1931 in Swansea

December 29th

Aled Jones (singer/broadcaste) born 1970, Anglesey

December 31st

Anthony Hopkins (actor) was born 1937