Denis MacShane
British politician (born 1948)
Denis MacShane (born Josef Denis Matyjaszek; 21 May 1948) is a British former politician, author, commentator and convicted criminal who served as Minister of State for Europe from 2002 to 2005. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Rotherham from 1994 to his forced resignation in 2012.
Born in Glasgow to an Irish mother and Polish father who died from war-related illness in 1958, MacShane was educated on a Middlesex County scholarship at St Benedict's School, Ealing and studied at Merton College, Oxford. He worked as a BBC journalist and trade unionist before completing a PhD at Birkbeck, University of London. He contested the Solihull constituency in October 1974 but was unsuccessful. After failing to be selected to contest a constituency at the 1992 general election, he was elected to parliament for Rotherham at a 1994 by-election. Following the 2001 general election, he was appointer a junior minister at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In April 2002, he became Minister of State for Europe and was appointed to the Privy Council. He returned to the backbenches following the 2005 general election.
In November 2012, Labour suspended MacShane when the Standards and Privileges Committee found he had submitted 19 false invoices "plainly intended to deceive" the parliamentary expenses authority.
The public source identifies “Denis MacShane” as british politician (born 1948). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Denis, MacShane and British.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q695061. VIAF identifies the subject as 12320648. The Library of Congress control number is n82019277. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1948, 2002, 2005 and 1994.
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This entry incorporates text from “Denis MacShane” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.