Constituency : Twickenham 1997-2015, 2017-19
Now we come to the current leader of the party. Vince won Twickenham from the Tories. He was standing for Parliament for the fifth time.
Vince was born in York. His parents worked in the chocolate industry. He was educated at Nunthorpe Grammar School and Cambridge where he was President of the Union in 1965. He started working in Kenya as a financial advisor to the government . He subsequently did a PhD at Glasgow University. He started political life as a Liberal at Cambridge but switched to Labour in 1966. He stood for Glasgow Hillhead in 1970, coming a distant second. He was a Labour councillor in the city from 1971 to 1974. He then became a civil servant initially working for the Foreign Office. He was a special advisor to John Smith as Trade Secretary in the late seventies. He then switched to working for the Commonwealth and attended the Commonweath Heads of Government Meetings. In 1982 he went over to the SDP. He contested York in 1983 and 1987 slipping to third place in the latter election as Labour revived. In 1990, he went to work for Royal Dutch Shell. He stood at Twickenham in 1992 coming a good second.
Vince contributed to the Orange Book but describes himself as a social democrat looking to reconcile "economic liberalism with wider moral values and social justice". He became Treasury spokesman in 2001 and became Gordon Brown's most feared opponent as he forensically dissected the government's financial policy and rang alarm bells about the level of personal debt in the UK. He also criticised the growth of quangos and sought to move the party away from being left of New Labour. He called for the nationalisation of Northern Rock, a policy eventually adopted by the government.
Vince supported Menzies Campbell for the leadership after Charles Kennedy's resignation. He became Deputy Leader . He took over temporarily when Campbell resigned in 2008 but decided against standing for leader after seeing the criticism Campbell received over his age. He made a good impression in the role particularly after likening the beleaguered Gordon Brown to Mr Bean. He was found to be Britain's most trusted politician.
When the Coalition government was formed, Vince was made Business Secretary, striding away from Downing St without realising he now had a ministerial car. Vince appeared somewhat reluctant to take office and was tipped to be the most likely minister to resign . However he soon neutered himself by boasting to an undercover reporter that he could bring down the government and that he had "declared war on Rupert Murdoch". He was subsequently removed from deciding on Murdoch's BSkyB bid though stayed in office. Subsequently, Vince showed little regard for the notion of collective responsibility and congratulated Labour leader Ed Miliband on one of his Conference speeches. His tenure will probably be best remembered for the privatisation of the Royal Mail in 2013 although he was criticised for being too cautious about the share price. Towards the end of the coalition, his allies plotted for him to replace Nick Clegg as leader but there was no open challenge.
Despite having built his majority to five figures over the years, Vince's was the most high profile defeat in 2015. He declined a peerage tough accepted a knighthood and devoted his time to writing a novel. In 2017 , he won his seat back with a huge majority and was elected leader unopposed following Tim Farron's resignation.
Since becoming party leader Vince has led the opposition to Brexit and resisted calls for a new centre party. He was criticised far failing to make enough impact but silenced his critics in May 2017 when the party made spectacular gains in the local elections. He has indicated that he will be stepping down after the European elections.
Vince is a keen ballroom, dancer and appeared on Strictly Come Dancing in 2010.
He is now 76.
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