Gerald Kaufman

The Right Honourable Sir Gerald Kaufman
Kaufman in December 2003
Father of the House of Commons
In office 7 May 2015 – 26 February 2017
Speaker	John Bercow
Preceded by	Peter Tapsell
Succeeded by	Kenneth Clarke
Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee[a]
In office 17 April 1992 – 12 July 2005
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	John Whittingdale
Minister of State for Industry[b]
In office 12 June 1975 – 4 May 1979
Prime Minister	James Callaghan
Preceded by	Michael Meacher
Succeeded by	Adam Butler
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment
In office 8 March 1974 – 12 June 1975
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson
Preceded by	Michael Heseltine[c]
Succeeded by	Ernest Armstrong
Shadow Cabinet posts Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs In office 13 July 1987 – 24 July 1992 Leader Neil Kinnock Preceded by Denis Healey Succeeded by Jack Cunningham Shadow Home Secretary In office 31 October 1983 – 13 July 1987 Leader Neil Kinnock Preceded by Roy Hattersley Succeeded by Roy Hattersley Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment In office 8 December 1980 – 31 October 1983 Leader Michael Foot Preceded by Roy Hattersley Succeeded by Jack Cunningham
Parliamentary offices Member of Parliament for Manchester Gorton In office 9 June 1983 – 26 February 2017 Preceded by Kenneth Marks Succeeded by Afzal Khan Member of Parliament for Manchester Ardwick In office 18 June 1970 – 13 May 1983 Preceded by Leslie Lever Succeeded by Constituency abolished
Personal details
Born	Gerald Bernard Kaufman (1930-06-21)21 June 1930 Leeds, England
Died	26 February 2017(2017-02-26) (aged 86) London, England
Political party	Labour
Alma mater	Queen's College, Oxford

Sir Gerald Bernard Kaufman (21 June 1930 – 26 February 2017) was a British politician and author who served as a minister throughout the Labour government of 1974 to 1979. Elected as a member of parliament (MP) at the 1970 general election, he became Father of the House in 2015 and served until his death in 2017.

Born in Leeds to a Polish Jewish family, Kaufman was secretary of the Oxford University Labour Club while studying philosophy, politics and economics at The Queen's College, Oxford. After graduating from Oxford, he worked as a journalist at the Daily Mirror and the New Statesman and as a writer at BBC Television. Again becoming active in the Labour Party, he served as an adviser to Harold Wilson during Wilson's first tenure as Prime Minister before being elected to the House of Commons himself at the 1970 general election to represent Manchester Ardwick.

Kaufman served in the Labour government at the Department of the Environment under Harold Wilson and at the Department of Industry under James Callaghan respectively. After the government was defeated at the 1979 general election, he was a member of the Shadow Cabinet in the 1980s. When the Manchester Ardwick constituency was abolished in boundary changes, he successfully contested Manchester Gorton at the 1983 general election. Later in his career, he served as an influential backbencher as chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee from 1992 to 2005 and was knighted in 2004. Despite criticism during the 2009 parliamentary expenses scandal, when he was found to have made excess claims to the parliamentary fees office, he continued to serve in the House of Commons and was the UK's oldest sitting MP at the time of his death in February 2017.

Known for his forthright views expressed over his political career, Kaufman was an outspoken opponent of fox hunting, an advocate of Palestinian statehood and famously described his party's 1983 general election manifesto as "the longest suicide note in history". A strong critic of the state of Israel, he called for economic sanctions against the state and denounced the state for committing atrocities (which he phrased as war crimes) against the Palestinian people and their nation.

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