- John Whittaker
Infobox Person
name = John Whittaker
birth_date = birth date and age|1945|06|7
birth_place =Oldham ,Lancashire Dr John Whittaker (born
June 7 ,1945 inOldham ,Lancashire ) is aMember of the European Parliament for theNorth West England region, for theUnited Kingdom Independence Party .Whittaker's PhD was in nuclear physics, but he later moved into economic theory and when he joined the academic world it was as an economist. He is a senior lecturer in economics at
Lancaster University . His main research and teaching interests are in monetary policy and macroeconomics [http://www.lancs.ac.uk/staff/whittaj1/] , and recently he has taken a particular interest in the problems associated with the single currency.Whittaker was the UKIP's lead candidate in the North West for the European Parliament elections in
1999 . Though UKIP gained 6.5% of the vote in the region, he fell short of being elected by about 0.5 percent. However, in2004 he was more successful, being one of 12 UKIP candidates to win a European seat in the big UKIP breakthrough of that year.He contested the 2005 general election for the constituencies of Ashton under Lyne, Crosby, Heywood and Middleton, Hyndburn, Manchester Central, Rochdale, Stalybridge and Hyde and Wigan.
In
2005 Whittaker became UKIP's official spokesman on Economic and Monetary Affairs. In September 2006, following the election ofNigel Farage as leader of UKIP, Whittaker was appointed party chairman.External links
* [http://www.johnwhittakermep.co.uk/ Official website]
* [http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/public/geoSearch/view.do?country=GB&partNumber=1&zone=North+West&language=EN&id=28509 Profile at European Parliament website]
* [http://www.ukip.org/ Official website of UKIP]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.