Greg Clark
| Greg Clark | |
|---|---|
|
| |
| Name | Gregory David Clark (born 28 August, 1967) |
| Nicknames | Greg (everyone) |
| Politics | |
| Party | Conservative |
| Constituency | Tunbridge Wells (2005 - present) |
| Positions | Secretary of State for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (July 2016 - present) • Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (May 2015 - July 2016) • Minister of State for the Constitution (October 2013 - May 2015) • Minister of State for Cities (July 2011 - May 2015) • Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (October 2008 - May 2010) |
| Likes | Polly Toynbee, homeopathy, Middlesbrough FC |
| Dislikes | Global warming |
| Friends | Michael Heseltine |
| Enemies | The Daily Mail |
| Relationships | |
| Partners | Helen Clark |
| Children | Allegra (1999), Leila (2003) and ? (?) |
| Personal Attributes | |
| Nationality | English |
| Religion | Vaguely Christian |
| Sexuality | Straight |
| Height | ? |
| Eye Colour | Blue |
| Handedness | Right |
| Accent | Received Pronunciation |
A Cabinet Office and Cities Minister for much of the Coalition era, Greg Clark is liked in fandom for being moderate and reasonable. Also the Daily Mail hates him, always a mark in someone's favour.
Life and Career[edit | edit source]
Early Life[edit | edit source]
Greg was born in Middlesbrough and grew up on a council estate in Normanby, the oldest of four siblings. His father and grandfather were milkmen who ran a family business, and his mother worked at Sainsbury’s. Greg did not appreciate being dragged along on the morning milk run- "I was never a particularly early riser" - but he liked the door-to-door collections on Thursday and Friday nights, which he says were good practice for canvassing. His dad taught him to drive on his milk float.
Greg attended St Peter's Roman Catholic School, his local comp. He read economics at Cambridge and then got a PhD from the London School of Economics.
Pre-political Career[edit | edit source]
Within six months, I had been sent to Mexico to reorganise a cement factory, I worked for an airline in Iceland and did a project looking at sales of breathing apparatus in Argentina.~ Greg Clark
After earning his PhD Greg went to work for the prestigious Boston Consulting Group. He consulted on business strategy for firms all over the world, from South America to the UK. From 1997 to 2001 he was the Controller of Commercial Policy for the BBC.
Early Political Career[edit | edit source]
I could see that to be around the table, where decisions are taken, is a great opportunity. That really opened my eyes to how stimulating and exciting politics is.~ Greg Clark, on his discovery that wielding power is fun
Greg led the student branch of the SDP at Cambridge, but he was a member of the Owenite faction that refused to merge with the Liberals. In 1988 he dumped his dying party and joined the Tories, but he had no ambitions of pursuing a political career, although he continued to take an interest in policy. In between jetting around the world on his consulting gigs he wrote papers for the Social Market Foundation think tank, but that was the limit of his involvement.
In 1996 he became a special adviser to Trade and Industry Secretary Ian Lang. The taste of power was a revelation to Greg, who realised that writing the regulations was a lot more fun than teaching businesses how to follow them. The Tories lost the election a year later and Greg lost his job, but in March 2001 William Hague appointed him Director of Policy for the Conservative Party.
Greg, who was still not entirely au fait with the rules of the new, ruthless world he had entered, expected to work for him through the next Parliament[1]. Hague was gone within six months. But Greg was likeable, capable, and uninterested in joining any of the party's internal factions, so he survived the transition to IDS and then to Michael Howard. How happy Greg the moderniser and social liberal was about either of them is an open question, since he's not the sort to slag off party colleagues- "Clark is rather shy about his role in the Tories' 2005 election campaign," as the Independent puts it delicately.[2]
In 2002 he was elected to the Westminster City Council, where he served as the Cabinet Member for Leisure and Lifelong Learning until his election to Parliament. Greg was selected as the PPC for the extremely safe seat of Tunbridge Wells after his predecessor essentially got bored of opposition and stood down, and in 2005 his constituents sent him to Parliament with a healthy 10,000 vote majority.
Parliamentary Career[edit | edit source]
Opposition[edit | edit source]
The traditional Conservative vision of welfare as a safety net encompasses another outdated Tory nostrum - that poverty is absolute, not relative. Churchill's safety net is at the bottom: holding people at subsistence level, just above the abyss of hunger and homelessness. It is the social commentator Polly Toynbee who supplies imagery that is more appropriate for Conservative social policy in the twenty first century.[3]~ Greg Clark
Although he is not a Cameroon, Greg has always been a moderniser. In the 2005-2010 Parliament he was given two of the wetter, hug-a-husky type briefs, first Shadow Minister for Charities, Voluntary Bodies and Social Enterprise and then Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, shadowing Ed Miliband.
When Boris Johnson became Mayor of London in 2008, Greg was given his office in the Houses of Parliament. Boris left behind a three-foot bust of the Athenian statesman Pericles. Greg replaced it with a smaller one of Adam Smith.
Coalition Years[edit | edit source]
Last year was the lowest level of housebuilding since World War Two, which means the problem is getting worse and worse causing more misery for more people for as long as this isn't addressed. People do have an interest in the future - to not care shows a degree of nihilistic selfishness which is quite rare.~ Greg Clark, commenting on the National Trust's resistance to Coalition housebuilding plans
When the Coalition was formed Greg was bumped from his seat at the Cabinet table by the Lib Dems, probably on the logic that he practically was one. He started out as Minister for Decentralisation, but people kept piling more briefs on him. First it grew to "Decentralisation and Cities", then it was "Cities and Constitution", then it was "Universities, Science and Cities". This is evidence either that Greg was so extraordinary at his Cities brief that Cameron could not bear to replace him no matter what department he ended up in, or that the Coalition didn't care about cities and couldn't be bothered to dedicate a minister to them. Either way, Greg did the best he could under the circumstances.
Greg also enjoyed a brief stint at the Treasury as Finance Minister. In his "Cities and Constitution" incarnation he was assigned to the Cabinet Office, succeeding Mark Harper and Chloe Smith as Nick Clegg's stunt double at Deputy Prime Minister's Questions.
| Full List of Appointments |
|---|
| • Shadow Minister for Charities, Voluntary Bodies and Social Enterprise (7 November, 2006 - 2 July, 2007) |
| • Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office (2 July, 2007 - 6 October, 2008) |
| • Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (6 October, 2008 - 11 May, 2010) |
| • Minister of State for Decentralisation (13 May, 2010 - 4 September, 2012) |
| • Minister of State for Cities (19 July, 2011 - 11 May, 2015) |
| • Financial Secretary to the Treasury (4 September, 2012 - 7 October, 2013) |
| • Minister of State for the Constitution (7 October, 2013 - 11 May, 2015) |
| • Minister of State for Universities and Science (15 July, 2014 - 11 May, 2015) |
| • Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (11 May, 2015 - 14 July, 2016) |
| • Secretary of State for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (14 July, 2016 - present) |
Personal Life[edit | edit source]
Greg married his wife Helen in a chapel at a charity hostel for homeless women in Soho, where he was a trustee. Helen is Anglican and they attend an Anglican church- Greg describes his own religious views as "pretty relaxed". He's very reticent about his private life and never talks about his family or his children- they're not even mentioned on the bio section of his website.
Although he has lost his Teeside accent, Greg is still proud of his roots. His wife bought him a Victorian medal off Ebay depicting Henry Bolckow, an industrialist who brought coal and ironworks to Middlesbrough and was elected as its first mayor and MP, and Greg carries it with him everywhere.
Portrayal[edit | edit source]
In the Media[edit | edit source]
Coverage of Greg tends to be minor and fairly flattering, as he's a nice, reasonable man who gets along with practically everyone. The sole exception is the Daily Mail, which loathes nice, reasonable people and has denounced him as a vile commie Toynbee-lover.
In Fanon[edit | edit source]
Although Greg is popular on the comm as a capable and non-wanky minister, he has yet to appear in fic.
