Did you know -- John Hemming Member of Parliament for Birmingham Yardley

5.54.12pm GMT Fri 26th Jan 2007

John Hemming has been the Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham Yardley since May 2005. He had been the party's candidate for Yardley in 1992, 1997 and 2001. Each time he moved the party's vote up more than the the national swing. He was the leader of the Liberal Democrats on Birmingham City Council, Deputy Leader of the City Council and still chairs the Birmingham Strategic Partnership.

His family has been associated with Yardley and Birmingham for centuries since when Yardley was in Worcestershire. His mother was born and brought up in Acocks Green - which area he represents on the City Council and three of his great grandparents are buried in Yardley Cemetery.

He is best known for his campaigning against Election Fraud. He is also known for having brought together the Phoenix Consortium that took over Rover from BMW. This action saved between 40,000 and 50,000 jobs mainly in the West Midlands for 5 years. Many people who work at Rover or Land Rover live in the Yardley Constituency. In 2005, however, the DTI pushed Rover over the edge when it was on the verge of sorting out its long term future. He has been looking at possible solutions from administration as well. Recently he has also worked with the Yardley Citizens Advice Bureaux in Birmingham to protect them against cuts proposed by the City Council when it was controlled by Labour. There are two CABs in Yardley. Recently he has taken up over a thousand issues on behalf of people living in Yardley. He also helped prevent One of Birmingham's leading Rugby Clubs from being forced to leave the City in 2000 and 2002.

He is known well locally for campaigning on many issues. He passionately believes in having a society in which people all can have a good quality of life. He is a strong supporter of the NHS and has campaigned for many years for better treatment of Senior Citizens, having driven the proposals for concessionary fares in 2005. He is particularly concerned about the growing levels of Crime and particularly Violent Crime in Yardley. He is married with three children and lives locally. He believes that good quality education is crucial and is critical of politicians who spend their time attacking teachers. He believes that politicians have caused many of the problems in education forcing teachers at times to teach violent children. It is his view that by undermining teaching as a profession politicians discourage people from applying to be teachers.

John Hemming, MP, MA, FRSA - Curriculum Vitae

John Hemming, who was born in March 1960, is known both as a successful entrepreneur and also as a Liberal Democrat politician.

With over six generations of his family being Birmingham born he is one of a long line of Brummies. He was educated at King Edwards School, Edgbaston, Birmingham and won the Rickard Prize for Arithmetic whilst there. He obtained 10 O Levels, 3 A Levels (all grade A) and 2 S Levels at KES. He then won a scholarship to read Natural Sciences at Magdalen College, Oxford. He graduated in 1981 with a degree specialising in Atomic, Nuclear and Theoretical Physics.

He founded his first business (John Hemming & Co, now JHC plc) in 1983 at the age of 23. This company is now the leading provider of settlement systems to stockbrokers in the UK. He founded the first ecommerce operation on the Internet (MarketNet) outside the USA in 1994. This company now trades at a profit and is one of the few pure internet companies to do so. He also launched the worlds first, banking, insurance, legal and stockbroking services on the internet in 1995. He founded Music Mercia International (MMI), a music company in 1997. He also founded The Purchasing Agency (also known as SafeSimple.Com) - which competes with Visa and Mastercard in 2000.

His technical skills lie particularly in the areas of mathematics and programming. He is an accomplished cryptographer having devised a number of security and payment protocols. He was the first person outside the USA to implement the main SSL World Wide Web security protocol. He is one of the world's leading internet technical experts. He programs in eight different programming languages as well as speaking six human languages.

He was the youngest Liberal Candidate in the 1983 General Election when he stood for Birmingham (Hall Green). He has fought all General Elections since then and is now in a strong position to take Birmingham (Yardley) off the Labour Party. He only needs a small swing and is in second place with the Conservatives out of the running. He is also Leader of Birmingham City Council's Liberal Democrat Group and City Councillor for South Yardley.

In March 2000 he founded the Phoenix Consortium which managed to beat the bid by Alchemy to take the MG Rover group off BMW. John Hemming was the first to stand up and call for an alternative. He also devised the core of the deal. He and the other community representatives were, however, forced out in May 2000.

He was a candidate for Britain's First Astronaut and was a drummer in a Heavy Metal Rock Group. He is a Jazz pianist (having performed with Andy Hamilton and the Blue Notes and the John Patrick Quartet) and has three children.