Howells is the son of Glanville Howells, a Communist lorry driver,[1] and of Joan Glenys Howells. Born in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales and raised in Penywaun near Aberdare in the Cynon Valley, he is a former pupil of Mountain Ash Grammar School.
He attended the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology between 1971 and 1974 where he studied for a Joint Honours Degree and was awarded an upper second, which allowed him to follow post-graduate studies in history. Howells later obtained a PhD from the University of Warwick in 1979 for a thesis entitled A view from below: tradition, experience and nationalism in the South Wales coalfield, 1937–1957.[2]
Howells ran the NUM Pontypridd office which co-ordinated the South Wales miners' efforts during the UK miners' strike. A serious incident during the national dispute occurred in his area at the end of November 1984, when taxi driver David Wilkie was killed when two striking miners dropped a concrete block off a local bridge onto Wilkie's taxi, which was taking a strike-breaking miner to work. On being told of the incident in a telephone call from a reporter of the South Wales Echo, Howells rode his bicycle to the NUM offices.
After allegations that he hid evidence associated with the death of Wilkie, and an investigation by South Wales Police, Howells in 2004 commented in a BBC Wales documentary that when he heard the news, he thought "hang on, we've got all those records we've kept over in the NUM offices, there's all those maps on the wall, we're gonna get implicated in this". He then destroyed a large number of papers because he feared a police raid on the union offices.[5] He has commented that the attack by the strikers was a result of pressure to get the miners to return to work.
After the miners' strike and the closure of 29 of the 30 National Coal Board pits in South Wales, Howells became a writer and presenter for television and radio, and a college lecturer.
Parliamentary career
Howells as a Foreign Office Minister in 2007
Howells entered the House of Commons in a by-election in 1989. As a member of the Labour Opposition, he became successively an Opposition Spokesman on Trade and Industry, on Home Affairs, on Foreign Affairs and on Development and Co-operation. Howells suggested in 1996 that the word "socialism" ought to be "humanely phased out" of Labour Party policy documents.[6] (Clause IV (revised in 1995) of the party's constitution states that "The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party").
After leaving the government Howells was appointed to take over from Margaret Beckett as chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, a committee of parliamentarians that oversees the work of Britain's intelligence and security agencies.
In 2003 he said the Labour government was trying to run capitalism more "efficiently" and "humanely".[6] He is a member and the former chairman of Labour Friends of Israel.[8]
In February 2009 Howells was appointed to the Privy Council, making him the Right Honourable Kim Howells, an appointment that coincided with the 20th anniversary of his election to Parliament.
In March 2009 it was revealed that Howells made one of the lowest expense claims among Welsh MPs, being 5th from bottom.[9]
On 15 July 2011 Howells received an Honorary Doctorate for his contribution to Welsh and British politics from the University of Glamorgan.[11] Following racist comments made by Howells[12] concerning the financial reasons for recruiting students from overseas and, particularly, the perceived security risk appertaining to students from Libya, international students organised to demonstrate at the event. Howells withdrew from the ceremony at the last minute after pressure mounted on him.[13] The NUS Wales Black Students' Campaign described Dr Howells' comments as "reckless" and said that the comments "could add to the barriers facing Black and Minority Ethnic students in Wales".[14]
Parliamentary challenges
In February 2006 he was the subject of a complaint from Paul Flynn MP after he mocked Mr Flynn's attitude towards the UK's Afghan drug policy:
It is not enough to assume that if people eat the right kind of muesli, go to first nights of Harold Pinter revivals and read The Independent occasionally, the drug barons of Afghanistan will go away. They will not.[15]
On 22 November 2006 it was announced that on a recent visit to Iraq his helicopter was involved in an incident as it left the city of Basra with witnesses claiming shots were fired at the aircraft.
Howells is known to be outspoken. He told The Scotsman newspaper in September 1995 that devolution was akin to fascism and that it would lead to the "Balkanisation of Great Britain".[16]
In 2002, as a junior Minister at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, he criticised the Turner Prize by writing a note that read:
If this is the best British artists can produce then British art is lost. It is cold mechanical, conceptual bullshit. Kim Howells. P.S. The attempts at contextualisation are particularly pathetic and symptomatic of a lack of conviction.
Throughout his Parliamentary career he was unafraid to speak his mind and often sparked strong criticism from those he criticised or offended. During a House of Commons debate on licensing laws he said that the idea of "listening to three Somerset folk singers sounds like hell".
On the Today programme, while visiting Iraq on 11 March 2006 as Foreign Office minister, he commented in an interview:
[Iraq] is a mess that can't launch an attack now on Iran; a mess that won't be able to march into Kuwait; it's a mess that can't develop nuclear weapons. So yes it's a mess but it's starting to look like the sort of mess that most of us live in.[17]
The destruction of the infrastructure, the death of so many children and so many people. These have not been surgical strikes. And it's very difficult, I think, to understand the kind of military tactics that have been used. You know, if they're chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don't go for the entire Lebanese nation.[18]
Howells said in 2013 that Labour had to change its relationship with the unions or face damaging its reputation and risk losing the next general election.[20]
Personal life
Howells married Eirlys Davies in 1983. He has two sons and one stepdaughter.[citation needed]
