Gordon Birtwistle
| Gordon Birtwistle | |
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Member of Parliament for Burnley |
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In office 6 May 2010 – 7 May 2015 |
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| Preceded by | Kitty Ussher |
| Succeeded by | Julie Cooper |
| Majority | 1,818 (4.3%) |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
6 September 1943 Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Liberal Democrats |
| Spouse(s) | Married |
Gordon Birtwistle (born 6 September 1943) is a British Liberal Democrat politician and former MP. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Burnley, England, from May 2010 to May 2015. He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 2010 to 2012. From 2013, he was Government Apprenticeship Ambassador to Business.
Birtwistle began work as a craft engineering apprentice in 1958, with Howard & Bullough, who were textile machinery manufacturers in Accrington. He studied engineering at Accrington College on one day release and two nights a week and achieved two higher nationals, one in mechanical engineering and one in production engineering.
At the age of 21, he became a jig and tool draftsman with the same company and stayed there until 1968 when he moved to Lucas Aerospace in Burnley as a machine shop methods engineer. He stayed there until aged 30 when he became a technical representative for Osborne Mushet Tools in Sheffield, who were manufacturers of metal cutting tools.
After five years, he became a director of C&G Cutter Grinding Services in Blackburn named after its two founders Thomas Chew and William Gradwell. The company was sold in the mid-1980s to a large engineering PLC whom he continued to work for. After four years he set up P&J Engineering Supplies, buying and selling engineering tools. In the late 1990s he bought Stewart Engineering (precision engineers) with a partner. This later folded, due to a bad debt in 2002. P&J is still in existence, however Birtwistle retired in 2008.
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