Michael Howard (politician)

The son of a Romanian Jewish shopkeeper, Howard attended Peterhouse College, Cambridge and was President of the Cambridge Union[?] in 1962. A barrister, he became a QC in 1982 and entered Parliament in 1983 as member for Folkestone and Hythe[?].

Ann Widdecombe once famously remarked "there is something of the night about him".

Howard's most embarrassing moment as Home Secretary came when television interviewer, Jeremy Paxman, relentlessly asked him the same question (14 times in all) during an edition of the Newsnight programme. Enquiring whether Howard had intervened when then Director of the Prison Service Derek Lewis sacked a prison governor, Paxman asked "Did you threaten to overrule him?" Howard still did not give a straight answer.