Terry Dicks | |
|---|---|
| Member of Parliament forHayes and Harlington | |
| In office 9 June 1983 – 8 April 1997 | |
| Preceded by | Neville Sandelson |
| Succeeded by | John McDonnell |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1937-03-17)17 March 1937 Bristol, England |
| Died | 17 June 2020(2020-06-17) (aged 83) Bournemouth, England |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Spouse | Janet Cross |
| Children | 4 |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford (DipEcon) London School of Economics (BSc (Econ)) |
Terence Patrick "Phil"Dicks (17 March 1937 – 17 June 2020) was a BritishConservative Party politician. He was MP for the constituency ofHayes and Harlington from the1983 general election until his retirement at the1997 general election, having unsuccessfully contestedBristol South in1979. He obtained the nickname Phil for, according toThe Telegraph, "elevatingPhilistinism to an art form".[1]
Dicks was born withcerebral palsy on 17 March 1937 inBristol[2] to Frank and Winifred Dicks. He saw little of his father",[1] who "did not play a part in his childhood";[3] his mother, a cleaner, died of arthritis.[1] Leaving school at 15, he worked atImperial Tobacco as a clerk until 1959, then at theMinistry of Labour.[1] He was educated at theLondon School of Economics, where he graduatedBSc (Econ). He also held aUniversity of Oxford Diploma in Economics, awarded after asummer school course[4] in 1966.[1]
Dicks was elected toHillingdon Borough Council in 1974. In 1978, as housing committee chairman, he attracted controversy after he offered hostel accommodation to a whiteRhodesian family but sent an Asian family "in a taxi to the Foreign Office" despite the fact that both had arrived in the UK as immigrants. Dicks maintained the Asian family's grounds for staying were "unconvincing while the Rhodesians’ case was not." He was suspended in 1982 when theGreater London Council took issue with comments he made regardingarrears from the Strongbridge Housing Association.[1]
Dicks was selected as the Conservative Party's candidate for the seat ofBristol South in the1979 general election, but he lost to Labour'sMichael Cocks.
Dicks was elected as the Member of Parliament forHayes and Harlington in 1983 in succession to Labour'sNeville Sandelson. He was known for his hardlineright-wing views and caused controversy over several public statements he made. His strong opposition to state funding for the arts inspired Labour MPTony Banks to claim, in a February 1990 debate, that Dicks' presence in the House of Commons was "living proof that a pig's bladder on a stick can get elected to Parliament."[5]
In another arts funding debate in July that year, his remarks were controversial enough for fellow Conservative MPPatrick Cormack, in a heated House of Commons, to say, "This man is a disgrace to the House of Commons." Dicks replied, "My hon. Friend the Member forStaffordshire, South reminds me ofHenry VIII not with all the doublet and hose, but at least well fed."[6][non-primary source needed]
RegardingDerrick Gregory, a man with learning disabilities who had been sentenced to death inMalaysia for drug smuggling, Dicks said he would be writing to the Malaysian government congratulating it on its approach.[7] OnFarzad Bazoft, anObserver journalist hanged bySaddam Hussein in 1990, Dicks said he "deserved to be hanged" on the eve of his execution.[8]
In 1990, whenNelson Mandela declined to meet the thenPrime MinisterMargaret Thatcher on a trip to London, a greatly offended Dicks asked, rhetorically, "How much longer will the Prime Minister allow herself to be kicked in the face by this black terrorist?"[9]
As an MP and a member of the Conservative Family Campaign, Dicks left a legacy as a critic of high-profileHIV/AIDS awareness campaigns at the time of the emergence of the disease in the 1980s.[10] Frequent controversial jokes furthering these opinions and others – such as suggesting "tell 'em that if you shove your willy [British slang term for a penis] up someone's bum you're going to catch more than a cold" as a central message of the government's HIV/AIDS campaign (instead of encouraging gay men to use condoms),[11] descriptions of immigrants to Britain as "theflotsam and jetsam from all over the world,"[12] and ridiculing aSomali refugee family buying water in a London supermarket, saying "where they come from they're happy to drink out of puddles" – fuelled protests, according to theSocialist Worker.[13]
In 1989 Dicks called for the BBCsoap operaEastEnders to be cancelled or screened after 11pm, following a storyline involving a gay kiss between two men.[14]
He was also supportive of measures to decrease periods for abortion.[15]
Dicks did not stand again at the1997 United Kingdom general election.[16] His Labour successor, left-wingerJohn McDonnell, described him as a "stain," a "malignant creature," and an espouser ofracism in his maiden speech in 1997.[17][18]
From 1999 until he retired in June 2009, Dicks was a member ofSurrey County Council, representing the town ofAddlestone. Beginning in 2011, he was a Runnymede district councillor for Chertsey South and Row Town.[19][20]
Due to his cerebral palsy, Dicks referred to himself in the House of Commons as a "spastic".[21][1]
He had four children – three daughters and a son – across two marriages.[1] He died on 17 June 2020, aged 83,[22] reported to be from complications of dementia.[2]
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forHayes and Harlington 1983–1997 | Succeeded by |