Parliament
On the outbreak of war in 1939, Key left teaching to become a civil defence worker in London and deputy controller of civil defence in Poplar. When George Lansbury (Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for the Bow and Bromley division of Poplar) died in 1940, Key was elected at the Bow and Bromley by-election to follow him; he was opposed only by a Communist candidate in the byelection. From 1941 until the end of the war, Key was Regional Commissioner for the London Civil Defence region, with special responsibility for shelters.
Read more about this topic: Charles Key
Famous quotes containing the word parliament:
“At the ramparts on the cliff near the old Parliament House I counted twenty-four thirty-two-pounders in a row, pointed over the harbor, with their balls piled pyramid-wise between them,—there are said to be in all about one hundred and eighty guns mounted at Quebec,—all which were faithfully kept dusted by officials, in accordance with the motto, “In time of peace prepare for war”; but I saw no preparations for peace: she was plainly an uninvited guest.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A Parliament is that to the Commonwealth which the soul is to the body.... It behoves us therefore to keep the facility of that soul from distemper.”
—John Pym (1584–1643)
“The war shook down the Tsardom, an unspeakable abomination, and made an end of the new German Empire and the old Apostolic Austrian one. It ... gave votes and seats in Parliament to women.... But if society can be reformed only by the accidental results of horrible catastrophes ... what hope is there for mankind in them? The war was a horror and everybody is the worse for it.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)