David Triesman, Baron Triesman

David Maxim Triesman, Baron Triesman (born 30 October 1943) is a British politician, Merchant Banker and former trade union leader.

Triesman is a Labour member of the House of Lords, having previously been a minister in the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

A former Chairman of the Football Association, he now serves as HM Opposition (Labour) Lords Spokesman for Foreign Affairs since Cameron's Coalition Government.

Triesman (named Maxim after Maxim Gorky, the Russian author, whom his mother admired) was born into a North London Jewish community, the son of Michael Triesman, of Belarusian and Latvian descent, and Rita Triesman (née Lubran) of French descent.

Triesman was educated at the Stationers' Company's School in London, before going up to the University of Essex and subsequently the University of Cambridge, Kings College.

At Essex University, Triesman and a group of fellow students seized control declaring it a 'free university'. He was subsequently suspended from Essex in 1968 after interrupting a meeting addressed by a defence industry scientist but readmitted after two weeks.

Triesman has been involved in business in real estate, banking, publishing and fine art. He has served on the boards and advisory boards of several companies including chairing Victoria Management, the advisory board of UBS and Templewood Merchant Bank and some of its subsidiaries. He is an Executive Board member of the Salamanca Group and its subsidiaries, One Ocean Enterprises, Funding Affordable Homes (and its Housing Association).

In 1959, aged 16, Triesman became a member of the Labour Party but eleven years later resigned and joined the Communist Party where he remained until the autumn of 1976, when he rejoined the Labour Party.

For a number of years he was a Lecturer and research director, and union leader at South Bank Polytechnic (now London South Bank University).

Triesman first became a full-time union official of NATFHE in 1984, with the post of National Negotiating Secretary. He was General Secretary of the Association of University Teachers from 1993 until 2001 and the General Secretary of the Labour Party from 2001 to Dec 2003. He was created a Life Peer on 9 January 2004 taking the title Baron Triesman, of Tottenham in the London Borough of Haringey, prior to which he was elected a Visiting Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge in 2000, for the study of economics and Higher Education. He has published a number of academic papers in economics and epidemiology. He is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Warwick and a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics. Triesman is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and the Royal Society of Arts. In 2015, he was awarded the Icebreaker Award by the Chinese Ambassador to the UK for services to Chinese-UK relations including football.

Triesman is also a member of the Henry Jackson Society's Political Council., and a member of the European Leadership Network Board and Top Level Group.

Government office

Under Tony Blair's third Labour administration, Triesman served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with responsibility for relations with Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Overseas Territories, the Commonwealth, UK visas, migration policy working directly to the Prime Minister, consular policy, the British Council, the BBC World Service and the Chevening Scholarships Scheme. During this period he conducted negotiations with Iran to secure the release of a group of British naval and marine personnel who had been taken prisoner in the Upper Persian Gulf. In the reshuffle of 29 June 2007, he was moved to the newly created post of Parliamentary Under-Secretary of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. In this role he had responsibility for quality in higher education, innovation and intellectual property and future planning. In 2004, he was appointed as a Lord in Waiting. He is a member of the European Affairs External Affairs Select Committee. He is chairman of the Design Commission. He is co-chairman of the All Party St Lucia Group and a member of the All Party China and Chinese in Britain Group.

He was critical of Gordon Brown's premiership, making critical remarks after the 2010 General Election campaign, saying: "I think Gordon Brown's been awful."

A longtime fan of Tottenham Hotspur and Patron of the club's charitable Foundation, Triesman became the first independent Chairman of the Football Association in January 2008. Triesman was a Board member at Wembley National Stadium, the Premier League shareholders' meeting, and the Football Foundation, He is a qualified senior football referee.

In February 2011 he testified before a parliamentary committee on the state of the administration of English football. He was heavily critical of the FA, saying it was shying away from governing the game. He was especially damning of the FA's administrative procedures and its working relationship with other football bodies, in particular the Premier League.

On 16 May 2010, the Mail on Sunday revealed Lord Triesman made comments about alleged bribery attempts by Spain and Russia of referees in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Triesman asserted, "there’s some evidence that the Spanish football authorities are trying to identify the referees ... and pay them." It was announced that he was to 'quit' both the FA and England's 2018 bid.

On 10 May 2011, Triesman, speaking before a British parliamentary select committee, affirmed his suspicions of bribery concerning four FIFA members, claiming that they sought bribes in return for backing England's failed 2018 World Cup bid. Whilst the FIFA Executive Committee dismissed the allegations, all the FIFA officials named have subsequently been either convicted of offences, or face extradition to the USA for trial. They with other FIFA executives have been banned for different periods from all contact with football.

Triesman spent many years in a relationship with the writer and critic Michelene Wandor until they split up in the late 1990s. He is married and has a daughter.