Introduction
David Ian Marquand, FBA, FRHistS, FRSA (born 20 September 1934) is a British academic and former Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP).
Background and political career
Born in Cardiff, his father was Hilary Marquand, also an academic and former Labour MP. His younger brother was the film maker Richard Marquand, and James Marquand is his nephew. Marquand was educated at Emanuel School in Battersea, London, Magdalen College, Oxford, St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and at the University of California, Berkeley.
Marquand first stood for Parliament at the Welsh seat of Barry in 1964, but was defeated by the Conservative incumbent Raymond Gower. He was elected the MP for Ashfield from 1966 to 1977, when he resigned his seat to work as Chief Advisor (from 1977 to 1978) to his mentor Roy Jenkins who had been appointed President of the European Commission.
During the 1970s split between 'Croslandite' and 'Jenkinsite' social democrats within the Labour Party, Marquand was part of the Jenkins group and joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP) when it was founded. Marquand sat on the party’s national committee from 1981 to 1988 and was an unsuccessful candidate for the party in the High Peak constituency in the 1983 General Election. When the SDP merged with the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democrats, Marquand remained with the successor party until rejoining the Labour Party in 1995, following the election of Tony Blair as Labour leader. In October 2016, it was reported that Marquand had left Labour once more, and had joined Plaid Cymru.
Academic career and writings
Marquand’s academic career began as lecturer in politics at the University of Sussex and included the occupancy of two chairs in politics, first at Salford and then at Sheffield and finally as Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford. Marquand is currently a Visiting Fellow, department of politics, University of Oxford and Honorary Professor of Politics, University of Sheffield.
Marquand’s writings are broadly based upon issues surrounding British politics and social democracy. He is widely linked to the term “progressive politics” and the concept of a “progressive dilemma” in British politics, although he has since distanced himself from the term (if not the ideas it represents). Marquand has written extensively on the future of the European Union and the need for constitutional reform in the United Kingdom.
Originally a tentative supporter of Blair’s New Labour, he has since become a trenchant critic, arguing that “New Labour has ‘modernized’ the social-democratic tradition out of all recognition”, even while retaining the over-centralization and disdain for the radical intelligentsia of the old “Labourite” tradition. He is one of 20 signatories to the founding statement of the democratic Left group Compass.
In August 2008 Marquand published an article in The Guardian newspaper which was seen by some as being complimentary about Conservative Party leader David Cameron. Marquand called Cameron not a crypto-Thatcherite but a Whig and argued that Cameron “offers inclusion, social harmony and evolutionary adaptation to the cultural and socio-economic changes of his age.…”
Marquand was among 30 people to put his name to a letter to The Guardian – 'Lib Dems Are The Party of Progress' – in support of the Liberal Democrats in the May 2010 election but withdrew this support less than a month after the election. Marquand rejoined the Labour Party and came come out in full support of its then leader Ed Miliband.
He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1998. He is recognised by the newly opened Marquand Reading Room at his old school, Emanuel School in London.