Louise Burfitt-Dons
Born
Louise Olivian Byres

(1953-10-22) 22 October 1953
Magwa, Great Burgan, Kuwait
NationalityBritish
Occupation(s)Public speaker; author
Known forKindness Day UK, Act Against Bullying
Spouse
Donald Burfitt-Dons
​
(m. 1982)​
ChildrenBrooke, Arabella
Websitewww.louiseburfittdons.com

Louise Burfitt-Dons, FRSA (née Byres; born 22 October 1953) is a British novelist, humanitarian, and former Conservative candidate.

Burfitt-Dons is also known for her anti-bullying work as the founder of the charity Act Against Bullying and co-founder of Kindness Day UK.

Early years and family

Louise Olivian Byres was born to Olive and Ian Byres in a small desert hospital at Magwa, in the Burgan district just south of Kuwait City. Her father worked for Kuwait Oil Company and her mother ran a kindergarten. She had an elder brother, Laurence. She attended the Anglo-American School in Kuwait, and later The Hertfordshire and Essex High School and the Ashford School for Girls in Kent. Burfitt-Dons' father died of cancer when she was 26. During his illness she obtained a liquor licence and took over the running of The White Horse in East Bergholt so she could care for him.

Burfitt-Dons has two daughters, Brooke Burfitt[1][2][3] and Arabella (b. 1992),[4] by her pilot husband Donald Burfitt-Dons, a New Zealander whom she met and married in London in 1982 while he was on an overseas basing with Qantas. The couple lived in Australia between 1982 and 1993 where Louise worked as an actress and wrote plays for the Sydney stage. She co-starred in a dinner theatre show with Andrew Harwood in 1988. She lives in Chiswick, London.[5][6]

Social commentary

Louise has appeared on Sky News, Good Morning America, Channel Four News, ITV News London, ITN, BBC Breakfast and Talk Radio Europe, BBC Surrey and BBC Sussex, BBC Oxford, LBC, PM, Talkradio The World Tonight. She has written on social affairs and political issues for a range of blogs including Conservative Home and Conservative Way Forward.[7] She is a regular news reviewer on the Ian Collins show Roundtable on LBC.

Boosting Britain

In 2012, after visiting a range of different businesses,[8] she set up an online initiative named 'Boosting Britain' to encourage and promote new ideas and companies which were helping Britain. It covered infrastructure, defence industry, education, as well as motivational factors.[9][10] She has suggested more honorary titles for engineers would help to bolster their image and help with the skills shortage[10] As of 2017, the website was unregistered and not connecting.

Campaigning

Since setting up Act Against Bullying, Burfitt-Dons has been outspoken on the ill-effects of tribalism in society as a speaker and writer. She has advocated that tribalism is on the increase and has been taking effect in all forms of modern society leading to social unrest. Feeling the need to express what the public was confiding in her she designed a range of campaigns to promote human dignity and individuality in modern society.

She designed the "Cool to Be Kind" Campaign in 2000; two years later she founded the National Decency Campaign in 2002.[11] and, in 2006, the "Grade Not Degrade" campaign. The Scotsman quoted her as suggesting Celebrity Big Brother was legitimising the growing trend of bullying behaviour in classrooms around the country.[12] She spoke at the Conservative Women's Organisation Forum [13] at the House of Commons on cyber bullying claiming that today "children have to be as savvy as celebrities but without the pr support". In response to the growing trend of internet abuse she designed the CyberKind Campaign, which was launched on Remembrance Day (11 November) 2009.

Burfitt-Dons founded the UK Kindness Movement and co-founder of Kindness Day UK.[14][15] She appeared on BBC Breakfast on the first Kindness Day UK on 13 November 2010 alongside Kathy Lette who claimed that English people were condescending and unfriendly.[16] In 2007 she began campaigning on global warming and has said that "climate change may be the ultimate issue that unites us all".

Awards

In 2006 she was nominated as an Angel Hero for The My Hero Project. In May 2009 she was invited to become a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in recognition of her work with children as well as to acknowledge her efforts as a campaigner and speaker on humanitarian and environmental issues.

Global warming

Burfitt-Dons co-founded the Global Warming Alliance which was set up in January 2006 to find solutions to the crisis. On 2 December 2008, she launched the Global Warming Hotspot [17] channel on YouTube. She spearheaded the international Hot Women Campaign,[18] which encouraged women to become more active in climate change issues and reduce carbon emissions and significantly raised awareness of the differences between male and female thinking on the issues.[19] The Scotsman quoted Burfitt-Dons' claims that "the relentless rise in CO2 emissions is incrementally raising planetary temperatures, increasing water vapour in the atmosphere with a commensurate rise in rainfall, and ever stronger wind patterns randomly occurring across the globe."[20]

Feminism

Burfitt-Dons got involved with women's issues because of her charity work as a motivational speaker and mentor. In October 2009 she was part of the freshers feminist debate at Cambridge University[21][22] with Cosmopolitan Magazine editor Louise Court and Edwina Currie. Burfitt-Dons set up the Royal Society of Arts' Women's Speakers' Network whose mission is to "raise women's profile in society by greater involvement in public speaking". She chaired the launch event at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on 9 November 2010 in a public debate entitled "The Great Female Debate: Do Women Speak Too much or too little?"[23] She believes that some feminist groups have hijacked and radicalised the equality movement and has catalysed a debate around feminism calling on more gender realism via her blog The Common Sense Feminist.[24][25] Her work on feminism includes the book Moderating Feminism:The Past the Now and What Comes Next (2016).

Politics

In September 2014, she was selected to fight the 2015 General Election for the Conservative Party in Nottingham North.[26][27][28][29] She clashed with the incumbent MP Graham Allen over his criticism of small businesses in Nottingham North.[30] She has challenged Nottingham City Council over its Workplace Parking Levy policy as "short-term thinking" at its worst, and suggested that it was a political decision rather than an economic one.[31] Nottingham was the first City Council to introduce a Workplace Parking Levy in the UK.[32]

Novelist and screenwriter

Her book Our Man in Kuwait which features Ian Fleming is based on her early life experiences in Kuwait in 1960 leading up to Operation Vantage.[33]

Burfitt-Dons has written TV movies for Lifetime, including Maternal Secrets,[34] Kidnapped to the Island, The Ex Next Door, and Christmas at the Castle.

Publications, novels, and plays

  • Our Man in Kuwait[35]
  • The Secret War (July 2021)[36]
  • The Killing of the Cherrywood MP (February 2020)[37]
  • The Missing Activist (August 2018)[38]
  • Moderating Feminism (August 2016)[39]
  • Act Against Bullying (August 2002)[40]
  • Painkillers (June 2001)[41]
  • Valentine Card (June 2001)[42]
  • The Counsellor (October 2000)[43]
  • A Christmas Riddle (June 2000)[44]
  • How to Catch a Man (September 1991)[45]

References

  1. ↑ "Impact of extra tropic cyclones in Europe on Insurance Industry - Transcript of keynote speech by Donald Burfitt-Dons". The Global Warming Alliance. Archived from the original on 11 July 2011. Retrieved 1 June 2010.
  2. ↑ "Brooke appeals for residents' votes to help get her to semi final". ChiswickW4.com. 14 October 2009. Retrieved 1 June 2010.
  3. ↑ "About Brooke Burfitt-Dons". brookeburfitt.com. Retrieved 19 April 2011.
  4. ↑ "Arabella Burfitt-Dons - University of Nottingham - Civil Engineering". Autodesk. Retrieved 19 April 2011.
  5. ↑ "RAF Air Squadron Trophy Competition". News. The Lady Eleanor Holles School. Archived from the original on 19 January 2015. Retrieved 1 June 2010.
  6. ↑ "About Brooke Burfitt-Dons" (PDF). Bio. Brooke Burfitt-Dons. Retrieved 1 June 2010.
  7. ↑ "Louise Burfitt-Dons: Why it's time for a moderate form of feminism to assert itself". conwayfor.org. Archived from the original on 11 April 2019. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  8. ↑ "Campaigner visits Dunmow business". hertsandessexobserver.co.uk. 30 August 2012. Archived from the original on 27 February 2014. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  9. ↑ "Boosting Britain - new ideas and proposals for a resurgent Britain". Archived from the original on 25 February 2014. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  10. 1 2 "Louise Burfitt-Dons: To boost Britain's quota of engineers, why not take a page from Germany's book? - Conservative Home". conservativehome.com. 10 February 2014. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  11. ↑ "Anti-Bullying Charity urges support for National Decency Campaign". Archived from the original on 10 October 2006. Retrieved 13 October 2007.
  12. ↑ Hello (23 January 2007). "Violent soap operas and bullying behaviour on television shows harm children - The Scotsman". News.scotsman.com. Archived from the original on 9 February 2007. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  13. ↑ "CWO News :: CWO Forum - Cyber Bullying". Conservativewomen.org.uk. 28 June 2007. Archived from the original on 8 April 2016. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  14. ↑ "Kindness Day UK Launches 13 November". huffingtonpost.co.uk. 12 November 2010. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  15. ↑ "Tens of Thousands take up Kindness Across the UK". responsesource.com. Archived from the original on 2 January 2011. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  16. ↑ "Kindness in the UK - YouTube". YouTube. Archived from the original on 1 November 2013. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  17. ↑ "Globalwarminghotspot : List of videos". YouTube. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  18. ↑ "EcoEarth.Info Environment Links: Air/Climate/Policy Actors/Non-Governmental Organizations". 21 April 2012. Archived from the original on 21 April 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  19. ↑ "How the genders think about climate change: Women more likely than men to accept global warming - World leading higher education information and services". World.edu. 26 September 2010. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  20. ↑ Craig Brown (12 November 2011). "Darling buds of May? April more like". The Scotsman. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  21. ↑ Archived 5 November 2013 at archive.today
  22. ↑ "Standing Up For Sisterhood | THE TAB - www.cambridgetab.co.uk - All the latest Cambridge University news online". Archived from the original on 1 November 2009. Retrieved 20 October 2009.
  23. ↑ "Do Women Speak Too Much Or Too Little?". Belsizeconservatives.yourcllr.com. 26 October 2010. Archived from the original on 5 November 2013. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  24. ↑ "The Common Sense Feminist". wordpress.com. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  25. ↑ "Louise Burfitt-Dons: The successes and failures of feminism - Conservative Home". conservativehome.com. 4 January 2014. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  26. ↑ "Louise Burfitt-Dons". Archived from the original on 19 January 2015. Retrieved 1 January 2015.
  27. ↑ "Louise Burfitt-Dons: It's time for the Tories to target a new type of female voter". Conservativehome.blogs.com. 30 May 2013. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  28. ↑ "MP slams Govt fail on employment". hucknalldispatch.co.uk. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  29. ↑ Robinson, Dan. "Nottingham MP calls for 'unfair' tax on sixth form colleges to be scrapped to help Bilborough youngsters". Nottingham Post. Archived from the original on 21 February 2015.
  30. ↑ Cunningham, Tim. "Politicians Clash over Minimum Pay". Hucknall Today. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  31. ↑ Burfitt-Dons, Louise. "Louise Burfitt-Dons: Is the WPL an economic or a political issue?". Nottingham Post. Nottingham Post Online. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
  32. ↑ Burfitt-Dons, Louise. "Online Voting Is Not Secure Enough". Nottingham Post. Archived from the original on 28 April 2015. Retrieved 15 April 2015.
  33. ↑ "Historic spy novel highlights chilling parallels with Vladimir Putin's power grab". London Loves Business. Retrieved 28 November 2022.
  34. ↑ Hardy, Jessie (7 May 2020). "Familiar Faces in Lifetime Screening". RoyalGazette.com.
  35. ↑ Our Man In Kuwait. New Century. November 2022. ISBN 9781916449183.
  36. ↑ The Secret War. New Century. 12 July 2021. p. 380. ISBN 9781916449176.
  37. ↑ Burfitt-Dons, Louise (23 February 2020). The Killing of the Cherrywood MP. New Century Digibooks. ISBN 9781916449121.
  38. ↑ Burfitt-Dons, Louise (7 August 2018). The Missing Activist. New Century Digibooks. ISBN 9780953852291.
  39. ↑ Burfitt-Dons, Louise (29 July 2016). Moderating Feminism. New Century Digibooks. ISBN 9780953852277.
  40. ↑ Burfitt-Dons, Louise (2002). Act Against Bullying. New Century. ISBN 978-0953852253.
  41. ↑ Byres, Louise (June 2001). Painkillers. New Century. ISBN 978-0953852239.
  42. ↑ Byres, Louise (2001). The Valentine Card. New Century. ISBN 978-0953852222.
  43. ↑ Byres, Louise (2000). The Counsellor. New Century. ISBN 9780953852215.
  44. ↑ Byres, Louise (2000). A Christmas Riddle. New Century. ISBN 978-0953852208.
  45. ↑ Byres, Louise (1991). How to Catch A Man. Ashley Books. ISBN 978-0879493479.
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