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Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne (born 7 July 1941) is a British politician who served as the Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from November 2003 to December 2005. He had previously held cabinet positions in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, including Secretary of State for Employment, Secretary of State for the Environment and Home Secretary. Howard was born in Gorseinon, South Wales. He studied at Peterhouse, Cambridge, following which he joined the Young Conservatives. In 1964 he was called to the Bar and became a Queen's Counsel in 1982. He became a Member of Parliament (MP) in the 1983 General Election, representing the constituency of Folkestone and Hythe. This quickly led to promotion and Howard became Minister for Local Government in 1987. Under John Major (1990–1997), he held several cabinet positions including Secretary of State for Employment (1990–1992) and Home Secretary (1993–1997). Following the Conservative Party's defeat in the 1997 General Election, Howard unsuccessfully made a bid for the post of Conservative Party Leader and held the posts of Shadow Foreign Secretary (1997–1999) and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (2001–2003). In November 2003, following the Conservative Party's vote of no confidence in its leader Iain Duncan Smith, he was elected unopposed. In the 2005 General Election, the Conservatives gained 33 new seats in Westminster, including five from the Liberal Democrats, but this still gave them only 198 seats to Labour's 355. Following the election, Howard resigned as Leader of the Conservative Party and was succeeded by David Cameron. Howard did not contest his seat of Folkestone and Hythe in the 2010 General Election and entered the House of Lords as Baron Howard of Lympne. ==Early life== Howard was born in Gorseinon in the northwest of Swansea, Wales. He is the son of Bernat Hecht, who was born in Romania and came to Britain in 1939. His mother, Hilda (Kershion), lived in Wales from the age of 6 months. Both of Howard's parents were from Jewish families and Howard is a practising Jew.〔(From Transylvania to Smith Square ). ''The Guardian'' (1 November 2003). Retrieved on 15 August 2013.〕〔(Druglord: Guns, Powder and Pay-Offs - Graham Johnson - Google Books ). Books.google.ca. Retrieved on 15 August 2013.〕 When Howard was six, the family name, Hecht, was anglicized to Howard. Howard passed his eleven-plus exam in 1952 and then attended Llanelli Boys' Grammar School. He joined the Young Conservatives at age 15. He obtained eight O-levels and his subsequent A-levels earned him a place at Peterhouse at Cambridge University. He was President of the Cambridge Union Society in 1962. After taking a 2:1 in the first part of the economics tripos, he switched to law and graduated with a 2:2 in 1962. He was one of a cluster of Conservative students at Cambridge University around this time, sometimes referred to as the "Cambridge Mafia", many of whom held high government office under Margaret Thatcher and John Major (see: Cambridge University Conservative Association). Howard was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1964 and specialised in employment and planning law. Unlike his many Cambridge contemporaries, he continued his career at the Bar, becoming a practising Queen's Counsel in 1982 (unlike many barrister-MPs who are awarded the title as an honorific despite no longer practising at the Bar). The late 1960s saw Howard's promotion within the Bow Group, where he became Chairman in April 1970. At the Conservative Party conference in October 1970, he made a notable speech commending the government for attempting to curb trade union power and also called for state aid to strikers' families to be reduced or stopped altogether, a policy which the Thatcher government pursued over a decade later. In the 1970s, Howard was a leading advocate of British membership of the Common Market (EEC) and served on the board of the cross-party Britain in Europe group. Howard was named as co-respondent in the high profile divorce case of 1960s model Sandra Paul (now Sandra Howard). They subsequently married in 1975. Their son Nicholas was born in 1976 and daughter Larissa in 1977. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Michael Howard」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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