David Watkins

Who is David Watkins?

David John Watkins was a British Labour Party politician.

Watkins was educated at South Central and Merrywood Grammar Schools, Bristol, and Bristol College of Technology. He was an engineering inspector and president of his branch of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. He served as a councillor on Bristol City Council 1954-57 and on the Bristol Education Committee from 1958.

Watkins contested Bristol North West in 1964. He was Member of Parliament for Consett from 1966 to 1983, when the seat was abolished in boundary changes.

Watkins was director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding from 1983 to 1990. His books on the Palestine-Israel conflict include Palestine : an inescapable duty and The Exceptional Conflict.

He died on 23 August 2013 at the age of 87 from complications of a stroke suffered in December 2012.