John Hemming (politician)

John Alexander Melvin Hemming (born 16 March 1960) is a British Liberal Democrat politician and a businessman. He served as the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Yardley from 2005 to 2015.
Hemming was an elected councillor for the South Yardley Ward and Group Chair of the Liberal Democrats on Birmingham City Council until 1 May 2008. He was elected as Member of Parliament for Birmingham Yardley at the 2005 general election. He was the first Liberal or Liberal Democrat to win a parliamentary seat in Birmingham since Wallace Lawler won in Birmingham Ladywood in 1969. In 2004, Hemming became deputy leader of Birmingham City Council in a deal where the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats shared control of the City Council. He stood down from this position on his election to parliament in 2005.
In 2007 he became Liberal Democrat Spokesman for the West Midlands and led the West Midlands Liberal Democrat team of spokespeople with Lorely Burt as the Deputy Leader.

Hemming was born in Birmingham. His father was an electrical contractor and his mother a supply teacher. He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, where he won the Rickard Prize for Arithmetic and was a Scholar specialising in Theoretical, Atomic and Nuclear Physics at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he showed an early interest in politics, standing as the Liberal Party candidate for Secretary of the Oxford University Student Union. He was beaten into fourth place by the 'Silly Party' candidate – the pet dog of the master of St Catherine's College, Oxford.

Hemming is a director of JHC plc, a provider of software applications and related services for the securities industry. Their products include trading, asset management and settlement systems for brokers and investment managers. JHC made Hemming a millionaire by the age of 27, and the company had an annual turnover of £12m by 2011. In 2009 Hemming was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for his work with the company.

In 1997, Hemming also set up his own record company, Music Mercia International.

Hemming was first elected to Birmingham City Council in 1990, in Acocks Green ward. He moved to the South Yardley ward following boundary changes in 2004. He ceased to be a member of Birmingham City Council following the elections on 1 May 2008 when he did not run for re-election.

He has fought a number of general elections: in 1983 (Hall Green), 1987 (Small Heath) and 1992, 1997 and 2001 (Yardley) before winning in 2005. He was re-elected in 2010, with a slightly increased majority.

Hemming is a member of the Beveridge Group. He won the "Reform" maths prize.

John Hemming at a rally in support of Hartismere hospital

Following Charles Kennedy's announcement that he would resign as leader of the Liberal Democrats, Hemming announced on his weblog that he was taking soundings as to whether to stand. When Kennedy subsequently resigned, Hemming said that he would stand to ensure there was a contest. Hemming was a rank outsider in the contest (some betting odds were in excess of 400–1). The Times reported that he was "an eccentric who left colleagues aghast by threatening to stand". On 13 January 2006, Hemming withdrew his candidature, saying that Lib Dem members did not believe he should stand. He was a nominator for Mark Oaten, but said he would be willing to do the same for any serious candidate. He subsequently declared for the eventual winner, Sir Menzies Campbell.

On 6 December 2010 Hemming's constituency office was temporarily closed by the police after it was occupied by protesters.

Hemming chaired both the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas (APPGOPO), a parliamentary group looking at the issues of fossil fuel depletion, and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Family Law and The Court of Protection set up to address the concerns raised by both the public and professionals working within the family justice system.

In the 2015 general election, Hemming lost in Birmingham Yardley to Jess Phillips of the Labour Party by 6,595 votes.

He is an opponent of super- and hyper-injunctions, and in March 2011, used parliamentary privilege to reveal the existence of a super-injunction granted to former Royal Bank of Scotland chief Fred Goodwin during a sitting of the House of Commons. Following an incident in May 2011 in which the names of celebrities who had allegedly taken out superinjunctions were revealed on Twitter, he commented: "There is a lot to learn from the USA where freedom of speech is enshrined in their constitution. Where the courts are trying to keep state secrets and Twitter is on the other end, Twitter will win." On 23 May 2011 during a Commons debate he mentioned Ryan Giggs as the footballer involved in one privacy injunction. In the final meeting of the Commons before the session closed for summer recess, he mentioned details of an injunction and alleged cover-up involving a doctor employed by a Welsh NHS trust. The said doctor is accused by a fellow doctor and surgical assistants of performing surgeries on cancer patients beyond his expertise, against guidelines and in so doing, endangering the lives of patients.

Hemming also aided the case of financial journalist Leah McGrath Goodman, who was banned from the UK for two years during her reporting work on the Jersey child abuse investigation 2008 and Haut de la Garenne. The ban was reduced to one year after his actions on behalf of her. He also made a motion in 2012 regarding St Helier Parish Deputy Trevor Pitman's petition to have her UK visa restored.

Shortly after his election in 2005, he made headlines when it was revealed that he was the father of a child with his personal assistant and (then) fellow councillor Emily Cox, though he would stay with his wife and the couple's three children. His wife Christine commented that she forgave him and is standing by him, as he has always been honest about his extramarital affairs, of which she said this was "about number 26".

Following the publication of details of the affairs, Hemming voted for himself for the News of the World's 'Love Rat of the Year' competition, dismissing his rivals for the award as "various drab people". In 2010, his wife appeared in court charged with stealing a cat that belonged to Hemming's mistress. Pleading "not guilty" on 7 February 2011, she was bailed and sent for trial in June. After a three day trial at Birmingham Crown Court, she was found guilty on 30 September 2011 and was sentenced to nine months (suspended) for burglary. A month after the trial a cat was found safe and well, having found itself under the care of another family. However, this turned out to be a different cat.

Between 1–21 December 2013, Hemming posted frequently on topics on Mumsnet (a British parenting forum) regarding the case of an Italian woman sectioned in Britain with her newborn baby taken into care by British Social Services.

During this debate, he posted extracts from un-redacted documents which named the children of the woman involved, potentially breaking a court order, and he was subsequently banned from the parenting site. After confirming the poster really was MP John Hemming, Mumsnet removed the documents that he had posted but not before they had been seen by many of the forum users.