Tom Harris

Tom Harris may refer to:

See also

Tom Harris (British politician)

Thomas Harris (born 20 February 1964) is a former Scottish Labour Party politician and a former journalist and press officer. He stood as a candidate for the 2011 Scottish Labour Party leadership election, but effectively admitted defeat on 10 December a week before the result was declared.

Harris was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Glasgow Cathcart from 2001 to 2005, and for Glasgow South constituency from 2005 to 2015. He first entered government when he was made a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Transport in September 2006 by PM Tony Blair. When Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister in June 2007 Harris kept his junior ministerial role, but in an October 2008 reshuffle he was sacked and returned to the backbenches. On 9 June 2009 he was the first Scottish Labour MP to call for Gordon Brown to stand down as prime minister. In 2012 he returned to frontbench politics as shadow environment minister.

Early life and career

Tom Harris was born in Ayrshire and raised in Beith, Scotland. He was educated at the Garnock Academy in Kilbirnie and Napier College, Edinburgh where he was awarded an HND in Journalism in 1986. He worked as a trainee newspaper journalist with the East Kilbride News in 1986 before joining the Paisley Daily Express in 1988.

Tom Harris (botanist)

Professor Tom Harris was a distinguished paleobotanist and keen gardener.

Tom Harris was an academic at the University of Reading who was Head of the Department of Botany.

Harris supervised William Chaloner (botanist) and Winifred Pennington, both later professors of botany.

Tom Harris would say to students: "If you're not prepared to die for botany, you'd better be prepared to kill for it!"

The Harris Garden, located on the University of Reading's Whiteknights Campus, was named after him.

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