John Whittingdale

John Whittingdale
Name	John Whittingdale (born 16 October 1959)
Nicknames	?
Politics
Party	Conservative
Constituency	Maldon (2010-present)Maldon and East Chelmsford (1997–2010), South Colchester and Maldon (1992–1997)
Positions	• Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport • Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee • Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Likes	Falling asleep at the tennis
Dislikes	Being woken up at the tennis
Friends	You can link to their pages here
Enemies	Ditto
Relationships
Partners	Ancilla Murfitt (1990 - 2007)
Children	2
Personal Attributes
Nationality	British
Religion	?
Sexuality	Straight
Height	In feet and inches
Eye Colour	?
Handedness	?
Accent	?
Languages	You can delete this line if they only know English

A quote about or by the person. It doesn't matter if you can't find one, just leave it blank. ~ The source, if known

Best known for having to put up with Chris Bryant, falling asleep at Wimbledon and his dating life.

Life and Career

Early Life

John was educated at Sandroyd School and Winchester College, followed by University College London where he was Chairman of UCL Conservative Society. He graduated with a 2:2 in Economics in 1982.

Early Career

From 1982–84, John was head of the political section of the Conservative Research Department. He then served as Special Adviser to three successive Secretaries of State for Trade and Industry, Norman Tebbit, 1984–85; Leon Brittan, 1985–86, and Paul Channon, 1986–87. He worked on international privatisation at NM Rothschild in 1987 and in January 1988, became Political Secretary to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Upon her resignation John was appointed OBE and continued to serve as her Political Secretary until being elected to Parliament in 1992. If he ever writes a book he is sure to have some interesting stories from his time as a SpAd. Unfortunately this has not yet happened.

Parliamentary Career

John entered the Commons in 1992 and was immediately made PPS to the Minister of State for Education and Employment but resigned, as is customary, after voting against the government for an amendment that would have allowed media publishers with more than a 20 per cent share of the national press market to buy an ITV company. In 2004 he became Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport but following David Cameron's election to leader of the party he returned to the backbenches. He was a prominent member of Thatcherite pressure groups within the Conservative Party and in 2008, he was elected as a Parliamentary Member to the Board of the Conservative Party and Vice Chairman of the Conservative Parliamentary 1922 Committee.

On 14 July 2005, he became the Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee and as such was heavily involved in the Committee Inquiry into phone hacking. This gained him some, but not a lot, of favourable press and people were more interested in pie-throwing and Tom Watson.

Since 11 May 2015 John has served as the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. This has meant that he has had to deal with issues such as making the BBC pay for the license fee and [[Chris Bryant]. In his role as Secretary of State he was once accosted by a drunk Sue Perkins.

One of the perks of being Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is that you get to go to a lot of plays, sporting events and other such "cultural" performances. Memorably, John attended Wimbledon in 2015 along with the tennis-loving Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow. When the Secretary of State appeared to drift off during a match, the Speaker took it as a personal offense and ensured that he would not miss some vitally important bits of the match. It was, thankfully, all caught on camera.

• 

  Asleep?

• 

  Not me!

Although John survived the Cameron administration, he was sacked from Cabinet by Theresa May in July 2016. There were allegedly "whoops and cheers" from people in the BBC offices when the news was announced as they weren't too keen on having the license fee taken away from them (among other things).

Full List of Appointments
• Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (11 May 2015 - 14 July 2016)
• Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee (14 July 2005 – 11 May 2015)
• Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (19 June 2004 – 6 May 2005)
• Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (18 September 2001 – 23 July 2002)

Personal Life

He married in 1990 and the marriage was dissolved in 2007. The couple had two children together who are now adults.

John's half-brother is a former treasurer of the defunct Paedophile Information Exchange, and was convicted of child sexual abuse offences in November 2014.

It was revealed by Byline.com that while Chair of the CMS Committee, John had a relationship with a dominatrix - all of the newspapers that his ex had gone to previously had dropped the story stating that there was "no public interest" in publishing it. This was generally believed to be bollocks as at the time a lot of the newspapers were fighting a legal battle to release details of a celebrity threesome story about someone who's not at the seat of power in the UK. Eventually the story got into the papers and the stories kept on coming. As well as dating the dominatrix, John sent her pictures from when he was staying at Chequers, and took her to a number of public functions. Another ex of his - a former topless model - came forward and said that he had even shown her Cabinet papers. Then it was revealed that while he was Chair of the CMS committee, John accepted a meal and private lapdance by two women at a lapdancing club. Not at all surprising, but at the time he was heading up a review into the industry and the regulation around it and never bothered to declare the dinner in any CMS papers.

John claims throughout all of this that he met the women online and that as soon as he learnt he was dating a dominatrix - 6 months into their relationship - he ended things. Both the dominatrix and George Osborne's old friend Natalie Rowe say that the relationship went on for far longer and that he was aware of her occupation since the beginning. They also both say that it John who got dumped, not the other way around.

David Cameron repeated consistently that he had "full confidence" in John to continue in his role at the Department for Culture Media and Sport so people kept patiently waiting for him to get reshuffled after the 2016 EU Referendum. John did get thrown out of Cabinet after the result, but by new Prime Minister Theresa May who had replaced Cameron by that point.

Ideology

John is party of the old Thatcherite faction of the party. He voted against same-sex marriage.

Portrayal

In the Media

A lot of the right-wing media like John because he is cutting back the BBC who is their main rival. The BBC is actually pretty fair given he is presiding over their destruction. Other than that, John doesn't really feature much in the press as people are generally more interested in what his Shadow is doing.

In Fanon

John has yet to appear in the fandom in any noticeable way. He's sort of one of those people that you know to look at vague and you know their name but you don't generally put the two together. That was until he became Secretary of State and now people just tend to marvel at how he can put up with Chris Bryant's incessant trolling.

Meme

John has yet to appear on the meme.