• Leo Abse (born 1917) was a Labour Member of Parliament largely responsible for legalising male homosexual relations in the United Kingdom?

Facts on topics related to Leo Abse

Margaret Thatcher

• fashion designer Katharine Hamnett once met with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher while wearing her own t-shirt with the slogan "58% Don't Want Pershing"?
• Norwegian football commentator Bjørge Lillelien famously taunted Margaret Thatcher after Norway's victory over England in 1981?
• British free market economist Ralph Harris, considered to be an architect of Thatcherism, became a life peer shortly after Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister, but sat on the cross-benches in the House of Lords to show his political independence?
• Private Eye said the reason Margaret Thatcher dropped Patrick Cosgrave as her advisor was that he had vomited on her?
• despite support from Margaret Thatcher, the 1988 National Health Service Lottery was cancelled for contravening gaming regulations?
• in his 1968 Declaration of Perth, British Conservative leader Edward Heath pledged his party's support for Scottish devolution, a policy later reversed by Margaret Thatcher?
• once economic advisor to Margaret Thatcher, Christopher Story went on to publish independent intelligence magazines that are considered important reading by many international top agencies?

Conservative Party (UK)

• British Conservative MP Richard Hornby unsuccessfully challenged former Prime Minister and Labour leader Clement Attlee before securing a safe seat?
• British Conservative MP Sir Adam Butler called in the receivers at the De Lorean Motor Company while serving as minister for economic development in Northern Ireland in 1982?
• British Conservative MP Alan Gomme-Duncan, despite being strongly unionist, did not want the Stone of Scone returned to Westminster Abbey after Scottish nationalists stole it in 1951?
• British Conservative MP Norman Miscampbell turned down a knighthood because he thought it would prevent him enjoying his retirement from politics?
• British Conservative MP Sir Ian Lloyd left his native South Africa in 1955 due to his opposition to apartheid, but was later called "Botha's mouthpiece" for his advocacy of closer links with South Africa to stimulate reform?
• British Conservative Member of Parliament Cyril Banks was friendly with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, and left his party over the Suez Crisis?
• British Conservative Member of Parliament Sir Percy Hurd used to go round villages in Wiltshire telling funny stories?
• British Conservative politician Sir John Loveridge published poetry and exhibited paintings and sculpture after serving 13 years as a member of Parliament?
• British Conservative politician Robert Jones was the only person to represent the parliamentary constituency of West Hertfordshire from its creation in 1983 to its abolition in 1997?
• British Labour politician Margaret Hodge defeated five challengers in the Parliamentary Barking by-election in 1994, including Conservative Theresa May and UKIP's Gerard Batten?

London

• "Carolina in My Mind", James Taylor's nostalgic 1968 song about growing up in North Carolina, was written in London and on the Mediterranean islands of Formentera and Ibiza?
• 16 tunnels, many for tube lines, run beneath London's River Thames?
• 19th century London song-writer Helen, Lady Dufferin was admired by Disraeli, compared with Helen of Troy in a poem by Browning, and had a village named after her?
• 17th century London printer Nicholas Okes printed the first quartos of Shakespeare's King Lear and Othello?
• Admiral Sir Francis Geary was a noted bellringer at St Bride's Church, London?
• Albert Bridge in London (pictured) is the only significant surviving example of a bridge built using the 1858 Ordish–Lefeuvre Principle design?
• Alfred the Great's taking of London in 886 was followed by his treaty with Guthrum, the Viking ruler of East Anglia?
• Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington helped popularize the Portuguese wine Bucelas in London after he discovered it while fighting in the Peninsular War?
• Byron recorded seeing the "tigers sup" at the Exeter Exchange menagerie in central London owned by Edward Cross?
• charcoal merchant Thomas Britton (pictured) ran a series of concerts in his loft at which the most famous musicians in London performed?

Parliament of the United Kingdom

• Captain Richard Whitaker Porritt was the first British Member of Parliament to be killed in World War II?
• Derbyshire M.P. George John Venables-Vernon who enthused about Italian literature is the namesake of Vernon County in Australia?
• British architect Rodney Gordon considered running for Parliament, but could not decide which party he wanted to be in?
• British politician David Renton, Baron Renton served for over 60 years in Parliament, representing two parties and then as a life peer, and was the oldest member of the House of Lords when he died?
• Helene Hayman, Baroness Hayman, elected the first Lord Speaker of the House of Lords in 2006, was the first woman to give birth while serving as a British Member of Parliament in the 1970s, and is reported to have been the first woman to breast feed at the Palace of Westminster?
• Lawrence Turner, who presented a Parliamentary petition calling for W. S. Gilbert's copyright on the libretti of Gilbert and Sullivan operas to be extended indefinitely, was the grandson of comic actor George Grossmith who starred in them?
• Robert Crouch led the Parliamentary campaign on the Crichel Down affair involving his constituency, which forced the resignation of Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Sir Thomas Dugdale?
• approximately 37,500 Local and Personal Acts have been passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom since 1539?
• former Anglican clergyman and Liberal Party life peer Tim Beaumont was the only Green Party representative in the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1999 until his death in 2008?
• in 1960, Archbishop Gerald Patrick Aloysius O'Hara became the first papal representative to visit the British Houses of Parliament in four centuries?

Northern Ireland

• "Blood and the Moon" is a poem written by Irish poet William Butler Yeats in 1928 in response to the 1927 assassination of Kevin O'Higgins, the Vice President of the Executive Council of the Free State?
• civil engineer George Matthew McNaughton was involved with the construction of Silent Valley Reservoir in Northern Ireland?
• Northern Irish singer Clodagh Rodgers received death threats from the IRA after performing "Jack in the Box" at the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest?
• RAOC officer George Styles was awarded the George Cross in 1972 for defusing booby-trapped bombs planted by terrorists in Northern Ireland, including two bombs left at the Europa Hotel in Belfast within a matter of days?
• British Conservative MP Sir Adam Butler called in the receivers at the De Lorean Motor Company while serving as minister for economic development in Northern Ireland in 1982?
• Anne Gregg, best known as former presenter of the BBC's travel programme Holiday through the 1980s, was one of the first people from Northern Ireland to become a national British television personality?
• Martin Meehan was the first person to be convicted of membership of the Provisional IRA and the last prisoner released following the abolition of internment in Northern Ireland?
• Timothy Creasey, a British Army officer, was commander of the Sultan of Oman's Forces for three years before serving in Northern Ireland?
• Vernon Erskine-Crum was appointed General Officer Commanding of the British Army in Northern Ireland in 1971, during the Troubles, but was relieved within a month after suffering a heart attack?
• William Long, Minister of Home Affairs in Northern Ireland at the start of The Troubles, later became the skipper of a fishing boat?

Scotland

• 11-year old Prince Joseph Wenzel of Liechtenstein is regarded by Jacobites as third in line for the throne of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland?
• 16th century Scottish Bishop of Ross Henry Sinclair was simultaneously Lord President of the Court of Session, and was succeeded in that office by his brother, John Sinclair, Bishop of Brechin?
• Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Burnett was born in the United States to a Scottish father, educated in England and eventually became the Australian Chief of the Air Staff?
• Albrecht von Wallenstein's series of victories was ended by the Scots Alexander Seaton and Alexander Leslie in the Battle of Stralsund (1628)?
• bowls player Willie Wood was the first athlete to compete in 7 Commonwealth Games, despite being barred from the 1986 games in his home country of Scotland for refusing to reclassify as an amateur?
• Mayo hurler Adrian Freeman played in England, Scotland, North America and the Middle East before his recent death in an Australia car crash?
• Norwegian writer Gabriel Scott was named both after the country of Scotland and after Sir Walter Scott?
• Scotland's Craigellachie Bridge, a revolutionary cast iron structure built by Thomas Telford in 1814, inspired a popular Strathspey reel tune?
• Scotland's Lothian, Borders & Angus Co-operative Society was founded in 1839, five years before the Rochdale Pioneers?
• Scotland's North West Highlands Geopark contains some of the oldest rocks in Europe and the site of a famous geological controversy?