Martin Higgins

The Hon. Martin Joseph Higgins (b. May 6, 1949) is a Georgeland Conservative politician who has been a leading member of his party for a number of years. Higgins was born in Cardiff, Wales in 1949 but emigrated with his family to Georgeland when he was six and grew up in Doubledance with his mother and stepfather. His stepfather was a wealthy property developer in the 1950s and the income this brought Higgins' family led to his education at exclusive private schools and at Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Higgins studied economics at university and in 1975 became a lecturer in economic theory at the University of Mainland, having published two books on the subject. In 1983 he entered politics, standing for the House of Commons seat of Cooper and winning. He has held cooper ever since, at his margin has increased at ever election to make the seat one of the most Conservative in the country. After serving as a Shadow Minister for some years during the Quarton era, Higgins missed out on the opportunity to serve as a Cabinet minister in 1995 when the Tories briefly won office under Eric Edge. Higgins became Speaker of the House of Commons instead, but lost the position eight months later when a new election elected Campbell Rhodes as Prime Minister. Higgins became Shadow Minister for Trade, and served as Shadow Treasurer 1997-1999. He was briefly Treasurer under Michael Fisch's caretaker government in 1999 before the Tories again lost power and Higgins became Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs. He retained this position until Samuel Richardson was moved to the job in 2002, and Higgins was made Shadow Attorney General. After Richardson's ascention to the leadership, Higgins publicly stated he expected to return to his Foreign Affairs job, which resulted in a public embarrassment when the job went to Stephen Hamer. Higgins remained Shadow Attorney General. After Richardson's sudden death in 2006, there was much speculation that the solidly right-wing Higgins would seek the party leadership against the moderate Luke Macaulay. However, Higgins opted not to stand and endorsed the candidacy of Mary Byrne. When Macaulay was elected leader, he offered Higgins the position of Shadow Deputy Prime Minister, which Higgins accepted. Despite being Shadow Deputy Prime Minister, Higgins is not the deputy leader of his party and would be highly unlikely to hold the Deputy Prime Minister's job in the event the Tories became the government. Indeed, Macaulay has stated he would abolish the department (but not the position) and much of Higgins' role as Shadow has been to directly call for the department's abolition. Higgins is a Roman Catholic. He is married to Elsie Higgins; the couple have three grown-up children.