Rod Richards
Encyclopedia
Roderick Richards was the Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

 Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Clwyd North West
Clwyd North West (UK Parliament constituency)
Clwyd North West was a parliamentary constituency in Clwyd, North Wales. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom by the first past the post system.-History:...

, in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

, from 1992 to 1997, when he lost his seat in the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 landslide. He was also the Conservative leader in the Welsh Assembly in 1999, after being elected as an Assembly Member for North Wales
North Wales
North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...

.

Background

Welsh speaking
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

 Richards was educated at Llandovery College
Llandovery College
Llandovery College is an independent school in Llandovery, Carmarthenshire, Wales. It was founded and endowed by Thomas Phillips in 1847 to provide a classical and liberal education in which the Welsh language; the study of Welsh literature and history were also to be cultivated.Llandovery...

 and at Aberystwyth University(1965–68). He first rose to public prominence in the 1980s as a Welsh-language newsreader for BBC Wales
BBC Wales
BBC Cymru Wales is a division of the British Broadcasting Corporation for Wales. Based at Broadcasting House in the Llandaff area of Cardiff, it directly employs over 1200 people, and produces a broad range of television, radio and online services in both the Welsh and English languages.Outside...

. Before that, he had spent some time in the Royal Marines
Royal Marines
The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...

, including service in Northern Ireland. He also served on the intelligence staff of the Ministry of Defence
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....

, and worked as an economic forecaster.

UK Parliament

He first tried to enter parliament at the 1987 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1987
The United Kingdom general election of 1987 was held on 11 June 1987, to elect 650 members to the British House of Commons. The election was the third consecutive election victory for the Conservative Party under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, who became the first Prime Minister since the 2nd...

, when he stood unsuccessfully for the Carmarthen
Carmarthen (UK Parliament constituency)
Carmarthen was the name of a parliamentary constituency in Wales which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom between 1542 and 1997...

 seat. He was unsuccessful again two years later at a by-election for the Vale of Glamorgan
Vale of Glamorgan (UK Parliament constituency)
Vale of Glamorgan is a county constituency in South Wales, represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom...

, but at the 1992 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1992
The United Kingdom general election of 1992 was held on 9 April 1992, and was the fourth consecutive victory for the Conservative Party. This election result was one of the biggest surprises in 20th Century politics, as polling leading up to the day of the election showed Labour under leader Neil...

 he was elected as MP for the former parliamentary seat of Clwyd North West. During John Major's government he was appointed Welsh Office
Welsh Office
The Welsh Office was a department in the Government of the United Kingdom with responsibilities for Wales. It was established in April 1965 to execute government policy in Wales, and was headed by the Secretary of State for Wales, a post which had been created in October 1964...

 junior minister in 1996, but was forced to resign when revelations about his private life appeared in a Sunday tabloid newspaper.

National Assembly for Wales

Although defeated in his constituency seat during the first Welsh Assembly elections in 1999
Welsh Assembly election, 1999
The first National Assembly for Wales elections were held on 6 May 1999. The overall turnout of voters was 46.3%. Although the Welsh Labour Party were the biggest party, they did not gain enough seats to form a majority government and instead entered into coalition with the Liberal Democrats...

, he was elected to the new body as lead candidate on the Conservatives' regional top-up list. He was appointed the Conservative party leader in the Welsh Assembly defeating Nick Bourne
Nick Bourne
Nicholas Henry Bourne is a Welsh Conservative politician. He served as the Leader of the Welsh Conservative Party and as a member of the National Assembly for Wales for the Mid and West Wales electoral region from August 1999 until May 2011...

, who was then widely regarded as William Hague
William Hague
William Jefferson Hague is the British Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State. He served as Leader of the Conservative Party from June 1997 to September 2001...

's first choice for the job (and eventually went on to become leader), but stood down after he was accused of assaulting a young woman. He was cleared of assault in June 2000.

Rod Richards had the party whip withdrawn from him following his decision to abstain rather than vote with his fellow Conservatives against the Assembly's budget at the end of 1999. He continued to sit in the Assembly, as an 'Independent Conservative' until 2002 when he resigned as an Assembly Member (AM), saying he was leaving the assembly immediately in the interests of his health.

Personal

At the High Court
High Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice is, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...

 in London in February 2003, Rod Richards was declared bankrupt with debts estimated at more than £300,000.

On 30 April 2006 he entered the debate regarding John Prescott
John Prescott
John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott is a British politician who was Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. Born in Prestatyn, Wales, he represented Hull East as the Labour Member of Parliament from 1970 to 2010...

's marital affair. Speaking on a Radio Five Live phone in, Richards described how after his own affair in 1996, Prescott had acted in an 'ungentlemanly' fashion, both in public and in private.

It was reported on 17 April 2008 that Richards had been arrested in connection with an alleged assault on a Conservative party worker. He was later released after receiving a caution from police.

Offices held

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