Derek Murray Wyatt (born 4 December 1949) is a British politician, and Labour Member of Parliament for Sittingbourne and Sheppey in Kent, first elected in 1997, having previously been a councillor in the London Borough of Haringey.
Wyatt is chairman of the House of Commons all party internet group. He advocates forcing internet service providers (ISPs) through licensing to take steps to block spam before it arrives in inboxes. The MP wants Ofcom, the communications regulator, to take responsibility for licensing internet service providers - and fine those who fail to meet agreed standards.
He was on the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee from 1997-2005; he currently chairs six all party committees in the House of Commons. In the critical votes on Iraq voted against intervention.
He won an ISPA Hero's Award (2006) for his work on seeing the Computer Misuse Act onto the statute book and the New Statesman Award (2006) for the best web site of an Elected Representative. Politicsonline nominated him as one of the top ten visionaries in the internet space also in 2006. Back in 2004 he was voted, in an online poll, as one of the top 100 Internet Visionaries. He founded the Oxford Internet Institute in 2000.
In the 2005 general election, he won the 3rd smallest majority of any MP, at just 79 votes, after 2 recounts. This was somewhat fortuitous, as the initial count of votes put his Conservative opponent ahead by 118 votes but two piles of votes for Wyatt had mistakenly be awarded to his opponent.
His web site (www.derekwyatt.co.uk) is currently updated 4-5 times a day and receives upwards of 120,000 hits a week with about 17,000 unique visitors.
Wyatt was educated at Westcliff County High School, Colchester Royal Grammar School, St Luke's College, Exeter (Certificate of Education 1971), the Open University (BA in Art and Architecture 1978), and St Catherine's College, Oxford, where he was a research student 1981-82.
He played rugby for Oxford University RFC, England, and Barbarians. He has authored five books on rugby and one on film. He is a trustee of Major Stanley's, TimeBank and Citizen's Online. He is both a shareholder and a season ticket holder for Charlton Athletic