Parliamentary Career
He was elected as a councillor to the London Borough of Wandsworth in 1986 and at the 1992 general election was elected to Parliament for the seat of East Surrey, succeeding Sir Geoffrey Howe.
In 1994 Ainsworth became the Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Jonathan Aitken, and in 1995 became PPS to the Secretary of State for National Heritage, Virginia Bottomley. He was promoted by John Major in 1996 to the Whips' Office. When the Major government fell the following year he remained a whip in opposition and was promoted to Deputy Chief Whip by William Hague.
On 5 January 2010, Ainsworth announced that he was to stand down at the forthcoming general election. The Conservative majority in East Surrey in 2005 was 15,921 in 2005.
Read more about this topic: Peter Ainsworth
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)