Ann Winterton
Encyclopedia
Jane Ann, Lady Winterton (née Hodgson) (born 6 March 1941 in Sutton Coldfield
Sutton Coldfield
Sutton Coldfield is a suburb of Birmingham, in the West Midlands of England. Sutton is located about from central Birmingham but has borders with Erdington and Kingstanding. Sutton is in the northeast of Birmingham, with a population of 105,000 recorded in the 2001 census...

) is a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

 politician who was the Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) for Congleton
Congleton (UK Parliament constituency)
-Elections in the 1990s:- Notes and references :...

 from 1983 to 2010. She is married to Sir Nicholas Winterton
Nicholas Winterton
Sir Nicholas Raymond Winterton is a retired British Conservative Party politician. He was the Member of Parliament for Macclesfield from 1971 until he retired from the House of Commons at the 2010 general election....

, who also served as a Conservative MP representing the neighbouring constituency of Macclesfield
Macclesfield (UK Parliament constituency)
Macclesfield is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.- Boundaries :...

.

Parliamentary career

Winterton was educated at Erdington Grammar School for Girls. Following her election to represent Congleton in 1983, she was a member of several select committees, including Agriculture (1987–1997), the Chairman's Panel (1992–1998) and the National Drug Strategy (1998–2001), Social Security (2000–2001) and the Unopposed Bills Panel since 1997. She is a representative of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and a Patron of Cheshire National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. She is also President of the Congleton Pantomime Society.

Along with her husband, she managed to ask questions at Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

's last Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime minister's questions is a constitutional convention in the United Kingdom that takes place every Wednesday during which the prime minister spends half an hour answering questions from members of parliament...

 in 2007.

Pakistani joke

Winterton became Shadow Rural
Rural
Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...

 Affairs Minister in 2001, and was sacked the next year for telling the following joke
Joke
A joke is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices...

 at a rugby
Rugby football
Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...

 club dinner:
An Englishman
Englishman
Englishman may refer to:*English people*Grey Partridge*Jason Englishman, Canadian rock music singer and guitarist*Jenny-Bea Englishman, real name of the Canadien singer Esthero*Erald Briscoe, reggae musician who records under the name Englishman...

, a Cuban
Cubans
Cubans or Cuban people are the inhabitants or citizens of Cuba. Cuba is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...

, a Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

 man and a Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

i were all on a train.
The Cuban threw a fine Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...

 cigar
Cigar
A cigar is a tightly-rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco that is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the mouth. Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Philippines, and the Eastern...

 out the window. When he was asked why, he replied: "They are ten a penny
Penny
A penny is a coin or a type of currency used in several English-speaking countries. It is often the smallest denomination within a currency system.-Etymology:...

 in my country."
The Japanese man threw an expensive Nikon
Nikon
, also known as just Nikon, is a multinational corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, specializing in optics and imaging. Its products include cameras, binoculars, microscopes, measurement instruments, and the steppers used in the photolithography steps of semiconductor fabrication, of which...

 camera
Camera
A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...

 out of the carriage, adding: "These are ten a penny in my country."
The Englishman then picked up the Pakistani and threw him out of the train window.
When the other travellers asked him to account for his actions, he said: "They are ten a penny in my country."'

Joke about the 2004 Morecambe Bay cockling disaster

In February 2004 she had the Conservative whip removed (that is to say, she was suspended from the party) for telling the following joke (which alluded to the recent death
2004 Morecambe Bay cockling disaster
The Morecambe Bay cockling disaster occurred on the evening of 5 February 2004 at Morecambe Bay in North West England, when at least 21 cockle pickers were drowned by an incoming tide off the Lancashire/Cumbrian coast....

 of twenty-three illegal immigrant Chinese cockle-pickers in Morecambe Bay
Morecambe Bay
Morecambe Bay is a large bay in northwest England, nearly due east of the Isle of Man and just to the south of the Lake District National Park. It is the largest expanse of intertidal mudflats and sand in the United Kingdom, covering a total area of 310 km².-Natural features:The rivers Leven,...

) at a Whitehall
Whitehall
Whitehall is a road in Westminster, in London, England. It is the main artery running north from Parliament Square, towards Charing Cross at the southern end of Trafalgar Square...

 private dinner party to improve Anglo-Danish relations, and refusing to apologise:
One shark turned to the other to say he was fed up chasing tuna and the other said, 'Why don't we go to Morecambe Bay and get some Chinese?'


A month later, Winterton apologised for the joke, and had the whip restored. Lord Taylor of Warwick
John Taylor, Baron Taylor of Warwick
John David Beckett, Baron Taylor of Warwick is a British member of the House of Lords who became the first black Conservative peer in 1996, after unsuccessfully standing as their parliamentary candidate in Cheltenham in the 1992 general election. Taylor initially practised as a barrister and has...

, the only black Conservative peer in the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

, condemned her being restored and said she was not fit to be an MP.

Nick Palmer
Nick Palmer
Nicholas Douglas Palmer is a British Labour Party politician. He was the Member of Parliament for Broxtowe in Nottinghamshire from 1997 until he lost the seat at the 2010 general election to Conservative Anna Soubry, by 390 votes.Described by Andrew Roth as "quietly effective", he was...

, Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 MP for Broxtowe
Broxtowe (UK Parliament constituency)
Broxtowe is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election...

, who was at the dinner, told BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

's Today
Today programme
Today is BBC Radio 4's long-running early morning news and current affairs programme, now broadcast from 6.00 am to 9.00 am Monday to Friday, and 7.00 am to 9.00 am on Saturdays. It is also the most popular programme on Radio 4 and one of the BBC's most popular programmes across its radio networks...

: "People were a bit stunned really. It was a very low-key friendly dinner. I was very sorry for the host — it was just a group of people discussing Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 issues. Most people make a bad joke now and then, but to make a joke about people who have just died in particularly horrible circumstances — the contrast between standing on the beach in the dark being drowned and sitting round a comfortable table making jokes about them is just, just horrible."

Michael Howard
Michael Howard
Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne, CH, QC, PC is a British politician, who served as the Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from November 2003 to December 2005...

, leader of the Conservatives, said in a statement: "Ann Winterton's remarks about the tragic deaths in Morecambe Bay were completely unacceptable. Such sentiments have no place in the Conservative Party. I deplore them and I apologise for them on behalf of my party."

Comment in 2005

In September 2005 (following the May general election
United Kingdom general election, 2005
The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005 to elect 646 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party under Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, but with a majority of 66, reduced from 160....

) Winterton said she felt that Britain is a country where:
"Crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

 is out of control ... and where thousands of illegal immigrants are waved in with no checks on whether they are criminals or potential terrorists. [...] We live in times of tremendous change, but the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 is still, thankfully, a predominantly white, Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 country. [...] Some might say we are now paying the price for the so-called ‘benefits’ of the multicultural society, the product of almost uncontrolled immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...

 and the abuse of asylum
Right of asylum
Right of asylum is an ancient juridical notion, under which a person persecuted for political opinions or religious beliefs in his or her own country may be protected by another sovereign authority, a foreign country, or church sanctuaries...

."

MPs' Use of Expenses

Together with Nicholas Winterton
Nicholas Winterton
Sir Nicholas Raymond Winterton is a retired British Conservative Party politician. He was the Member of Parliament for Macclesfield from 1971 until he retired from the House of Commons at the 2010 general election....

, Ann has been investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards
Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards
The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is an officer of the British House of Commons.He or she is appointed by a Resolution of the House of Commons and works a four-day week.- Tasks :...

, who has concluded that they misused their MPs' expenses to pay rent for a flat that they had already bought outright. The Wintertons transferred the ownership of the flat into a family trust to avoid the inheritance tax
Inheritance tax
An inheritance tax or estate tax is a levy paid by a person who inherits money or property or a tax on the estate of a person who has died...

 threshold. Since 2002 they had paid the rent for living in the flat from their MPs' expenditure. The Wintertons had declared their intentions to the Commons' Fees Office. On 25 May 2009 it was announced that both the Wintertons would stand down as MPs at the next General Election. Winterton was one of 98 MPs who voted in favour of legislation which would have kept MPs expense details secret.

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