Bob Blizzard

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Robert John 'Bob' Blizzard (May 31, 1951) British politician and is the Labour Party Member of Parliament for Waveney.

Bob Blizzard was born in 1951 in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk and was educated at the Culford School, Bury St Edmunds and the University of Birmingham, from where he was awarded a degree in 1971.

After his own education, he dedicated his working life as a teacher. In 1973 he became an English teacher at the Gravesend Secondary School. He was appointed as the Head of the English Department at the Crayford School in Bexley in 1976. In 1986 he became the Head of English at the Lynn Grove High School in Gorleston-on-Sea.

He was elected as a councillor to Waveney District Council in 1987, and became its leader in 1991. He stepped down from the council on his election to Westminster. Bob Blizzard was selected to fight the Conservative held seat of Waveney at the 1997 General Election. In the year of the Labour landslide he defeated the sitting MP David Porter by over 12,000 votes, and he was elected as the first Labour MP for Waveney. He made his maiden speech on June 10, 1997.

In 1999 he became the Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Nick Brown, and remained Brown's PPS after the 2001 General Election in his boss's new roll as Minister of State at the Department for Work and Pensions. Blizzard resigned in March 2003 in protest at the Iraq War. After the 2005 General Election, Blizzard was appointed as PPS to the Europe Minister at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Douglas Alexander.

He has been criticised in Lowestoft for trying to turn himself into a minor celebrity without doing anything of substance for the town. He has recently taken every opportunity to appear many times in the press, invariably expressing indignation, and on local television stunts.