Tag: Obituary

Aretha Franklin's second husband, Glynn Turman, calls MSNBC to reflect on her life and "tremendous sense of humor." » Subscribe to MSNBC: http://on.msnbc.com/SubscribeTomsnbc About: MSNBC is the premier destination for in-depth analysis of daily headlines, insightful political commentary and informed…

His father, Norman, the Ulster Unionist MP for St Anne’s, Belfast, died in April that year and John won the seat in the consequent byelection. Son of Norman, a GP, and Margaret, he was born in Belfast into a unionist family. He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and then went into banking rather than to university, owing to his dyslexia. In 1972, after the UK government suspended the Stormont government, Brian Faulkner, the last Unionist prime minister, triggered Laird’s political involvement with the Ulster Scots heritage of those who were descended, as he was, from the Protestants settled in Ireland after King William of Orange defeated the Catholic James II in 1690. He set up a successful PR agency, John Laird Public Relations, and remained its chair until 2001. He opposed the 1974 Sunningdale Agreement, voting in defiance of his party whip, and developed links with the Vanguard Unionist party, which had been founded in 1972 by the former UUP cabinet minister, William Craig, and which organised rallies against Sunningdale. In 1976, when a further political experiment, the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention, was suspended, Laird left politics publicly but maintained links particularly with David Trimble, Craig’s deputy in Vanguard. In 1999 one went to Laird. During the Good Friday negotiations, Trimble sought parity for Protestant culture with Catholic Irish culture. • John Dunn Laird, Lord Laird, politician, born 23 April 1944; died 10 July 2018

Celebrity chef and legendary adventurer Anthony Bourdain is dead from suicide at the age of 61. “Morning Joe” co-host Willie Geist and NBC News Medical Correspondent discuss Bourdain’s legacy, and the rising suicide rate in the country. » Subscribe to…

After the unexpected death of John Smith in May 1994, Jowell was one of the first Labour MPs to assert Blair’s claim to inherit the Labour leadership. “She is a great person, Tessa, just a gem,” wrote Blair. She had also made a number of important social and political connections, moving as she did in a circle of increasingly influential Labour supporters, many of whom shared her belief in the need for a party shakeup. From 1990 until her election to parliament she worked for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and was a senior visiting fellow at the health and social care charity the King’s Fund. In 1971, she was elected to Camden council in London and within two years was chairing the social services committee. In 1970, she had married the social scientist Roger Jowell, who was also a Camden councillor, but she then met and fell in love with Mills. She was promoted to the cabinet as culture secretary in 2001, with the Olympics added as a special responsibility in 2005. When Gordon Brown succeeded Blair as prime minister in 2007, he kept Jowell on as Olympics minister, but she was demoted from the cabinet. In Labour’s last year in office before the 2010 election she was given the job of minister for London and she retained her responsibility for both the Olympics and for London until 2012. • Tessa Jane Helen Douglas Jowell, Lady Jowell, politician, born 17 September 1947; died 12 May 2018