John Mann (British politician)

John Mann MP
File:John Mann.jpg
Member of Parliament for Bassetlaw
Incumbent
Assumed office 8 June 2001
Preceded by	Joe Ashton
Majority	8,215 (16.6%)
Personal details
Born	(1960-01-10) 10 January 1960 Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England
Nationality	English
Political party	Labour
Spouse(s)	Joanna White
Children	2 daughters and 1 son
Alma mater	University of Manchester
Website	johnmannmp.com

John Mann (born 10 January 1960) is a Labour Party politician in England who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bassetlaw since the 2001 general election, after the retirement of previous MP Joe Ashton.

John Mann serves on the Treasury Select Committee. Previously he had been Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to Tessa Jowell and Richard Caborn.

Early life

Mann is the son of James (Jim) and Brenda Mann. He attended Waterloo Infants school and Pudsey Waterloo Junior school in Pudsey, Yorkshire, then won a scholarship at the independent Bradford Grammar School. Mann has a degree in Economics from the University of Manchester and a Diploma in Training Management.

He married Joanna White in July 1986 in Leeds. They have two daughters and a son in their early 20s. He supports Leeds United.

Political life

Active in the Labour Party from his youth (Pudsey South Labour Party), his activities have taken him from residence in London (he was a councillor in the London Borough of Lambeth), to Lewes in East Sussex, Baldock in Hertfordshire and Worksop in Bassetlaw.

He was chair of the National Organisation of Labour Students in 1983 and 1984, and as a consequence a member of Labour's National Executive Committee. He subsequently co-authored a Fabian Society tract on the organisation of Labour's youth wing, which formed the basis of the later reorganisation of the youth wing by Tom Sawyer to reduce the influence of Militant tendency.

Before entering Parliament he previously worked for the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union as Head of Research and Education and as the National Training Officer at the TUC National Education Centre in North London (now closed). Mann has also been a party employee and a trade union liaison officer. He also ran a company organising conferences. Mann is a member of Unite and GMB, YHA, the British Mountaineering Council, IPD and the Co-operative Party.

Election as MP

Mann was first elected as MP for Bassetlaw in 2001, and subsequently retained his seat at the general elections in 2005, 2010 and 2015.

Mann served on the Treasury Select Committee twice, 2003–2005, and 2009–2015, during which time he raised issues around debt, financial misselling (with particular reference to Credit Cards) and claims handlers. Some commentators have noted Mann's reputation for asking brusque questions, particularly of senior bank executives and George Osborne.

John Mann was the first Labour MP to call for Gordon Brown to resign after the 2010 General Election. Some months earlier, when Brown was Prime Minister, Mann had written an open letter demanding a number of changes to the Labour party structures.

Mann was also vocal in criticising other MPs over the expenses scandal, arguing that MPs could not be trusted to self-regulate. He criticised the shredding of documents related to expenses before 2010, saying "it looks like MPs trying to protect MPs again". He was also responsible for lodging the complaint that resulted in an inquiry into Maria Miller's expense claims.

In 2014 Mann was responsible for compiling a dossier of historic allegations of child abuse, detailing allegations of 12 former ministers that may have been involved. He said he believes some of them were "definitely child abusers". All enquiries were subsequently dropped.

Mann was from the outset an opponent of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. During the leadership campaign he wrote an open letter to Corbyn saying that it would be "inappropriate" for Corbyn to become leader due to allegations that Corbyn had failed to act over allegations of child abuse in his constituency. In November 2015, Mann avoided saying whether he has confidence in Corbyn's leadership.

Positions on antisemitism

John Mann chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism. The Group commissioned the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism in 2005. The inquiry panel, chaired by former Europe Minister Denis MacShane, gathered written and oral evidence on antisemitism in Britain and published a report of their findings on 7 September 2006. The panel's recommendations included improved reporting and recording of antisemitic attacks; a crackdown on anti-Jewish activity on university campuses; and improved international co-operation to prevent the spread of racist material online. In May 2009 John Mann received the American Jewish Committee's Jan Karski Award in recognition of his commitment to fighting antisemitism in all of its forms.

Mann, together with Denis McShane, appeared as an expert witness in the 2013 employment tribunal brought by academic Ronnie Fraser against the University and College Union. In rejecting the complaint, the tribunal chair, Judge Antony Snelson, found that Mann and McShane had given "glib evidence, appearing supremely confident of the rightness of their positions." The judge further said of Mann "And when it came to anti-Semitism in the context of debate about the Middle East, he announced, 'It's clear to me where the line is...' but unfortunately eschewed the opportunity to locate it for us... Both parliamentarians clearly enjoyed making speeches. Neither seemed at ease with the idea of being required to answer a question not to his liking.'"

Clashes with Ken Livingstone

On 28 April 2016, Mann publicly confronted Ken Livingstone over comments in which Livingstone had claimed that Hitler "was supporting Zionism before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews". Mann publicly accused Livingstone of being a "Nazi apologist" and a "fucking disgrace". Following this incident, Mann was reprimanded by Labour's chief whip Rosie Winterton, with party spokesperson saying that she had told Mann that it is "completely inappropriate for Labour members of Parliament to be involved in very public rows on the television". Ken Livingstone was suspended from the Labour party in relation to his earlier comments. On an unrelated issue, six months earlier, Mann had repeatedly called Livingstone a "bigot" in a radio phone-in, following a controversy over Livingstone remarking that MP Kevan Jones was "obviously very depressed and disturbed".

Following his outburst at Livingstone, an online petition accusing Mann of "appallingly unprofessional and toxic behaviour" and calling for him to be subject to a "disciplinary procedure" gathered over 19,000 signatures in four days. John Mann wrote in The Jewish Chronicle in early May: "If Labour cannot combat racism then we are nothing – and racism always includes antisemitism. If we cannot do that now, then we have no reason to exist".

Drug policy

One of Mann's earliest campaigns in his constituency was his inquiry against heroin use in the area. In September 2002, Mann called for more treatment for heroin users in North Nottinghamshire. The inquiry he instigated called for heroin addicts to be given the choice between treatment or prison. At the same time more local GPs were trained to help heroin addicts get their lives back under control. Following the reforms the number of addicts in treatment in Bassetlaw rose from 2 to 400, and acquisitive crime fell by 75%.

Mann has continued to advocate similar policies, for instance in his Fabian Society pamphlet The Real Deal: Drugs Policy that Works.

Local campaigns

Mann is an active campaigner in his constituency Bassetlaw and an advocate of using campaigning strategies he refers to as "organising to win" elsewhere. He has organised numerous campaigns in his constituency, examples of which include campaigning to save Bassetlaw Hospital Accident and Emergency Department, helping former coal miners fight double charging solicitors to get their compensation back, and fighting Bassetlaw District Council's policy of "topple testing" headstones in local cemeteries. Mann keeps a weekly column in the Worksop Guardian and – along with other local figures – writes occasional pieces for the Retford Times.

External links

• John Mann MP official site
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by John Mann

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Joe Ashton	Member of Parliament for Bassetlaw 2001–present	Incumbent