Veterans In Politics by CampaignForce
Tom Blenkinsop - The MP who joined the Army Reserves
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Episode notes
Tom Blenkinsop was born in Middlesbrough, brought-up in Marton and graduated from Teesside University with a BSc in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and the University of Warwick with an MA in Continental philosophy.
Tom joined the Army Reserve in 2017 in the Royal Military Police in which he still serves today, and was an MP whilst training to be an RMP, something we explore in this episode.
Tom worked as a constituency researcher for Ashok Kumar, Labour MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, from 2002 to 2008. He became a campaign manager for the Community Trade Union in 2008 and continued in the role until his election to Parliament in 2010.
Tom was selected as the Labour candidate for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland in April 2010, following Ashok Kumar's unexpected death the previous month. He was elected at the May 2010 general election. In his first Parliamentary term, he was a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee from 2010 to 2012, the Standards and Privileges Committee from 2010 to 2011 and the Treasury Select Committee in 2011. He joined the opposition front bench under the leadership of Ed Miliband, serving as a whip from 2011 to 2015.
He was re-elected at the 2015 general election. During his second Parliamentary term, he was a member of the Energy and Climate Change Committee from 2015 to 2016, the Privileges Committee from 2015 to 2017, the Standards Committee from 2015 to 2017, and the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee from 2016 to 2017.
After the calling of the 2017 general election, Blenkinsop announced that we would not seek re-election as an MP as he could not campaign for Labour whilst Corbyn served as party leader. Again, this is something we discuss at length in the podcast.
Blenkinsop returned to the Community union as a London-based project manager after leaving Parliament, and became a public affairs advisor for the Federation of Small Business in 2020.
We thank Tom for sharing his story with us!
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