Bob Mellish, Baron Mellish

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Robert Joseph Mellish, Baron Mellish (born March 3, 1913 in Deptford , † May 9, 1998 in Sompting ) was a British politician. From 1946 to 1982 he served as a member of the Labor Party , for which he held the office of Chief Whip from 1969 to 1976 . He later fell out with members of the Labor Party in his constituency, which had drifted politically to the left, and eventually resigned from his party.

Early life

Bob Mellish was born in Deptford in 1913, the thirteenth of fourteen children of port worker John Mellish and his wife Mary Elizabeth Carroll. His father had taken part in the shipyard workers' strikes of 1899 and 1912. After finishing school, Bob Mellish worked for the Transport Workers Union . After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he was drafted and eventually fought in the British Army in the position of major in the Royal Engineers against Japanese troops in Southeast Asia.

Political career

When Ben Smith left the British Parliament , the representation of the London constituency of Rotherhithe was vacant. Most local politicians favored John Gillison , who represented this constituency in London County Council , but Mellish was ultimately elected after the delegates from the transport workers' union voted unanimously for him. In 1946 he easily won a supplementary election to fill the constituency. In 1950 the constituency was enlarged and renamed Bermondsey.

In 1950 Mellish was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Supply , George Strauss , and in 1951 to that of the Minister for Pensions , George Isaacs , d. that is, he acted as a contact person between the aforementioned ministers and the other MEPs. He was also from 1956 to 1977 chairman of Labor's London regional party.

When the Harold Wilson- led Labor Party won the 1964 general election, Mellish was made Parliamentary Secretary of State for Housing and Local Government, which he held until 1967. He was then Minister of Public Building and Works from 1967 to 1970 . In 1970 he became Minister for Housing and Local Authorities, but was now subordinate to the Minister for Local Government and Regional Planning, Anthony Crosland . During Harold Wilson's tenure as Prime Minister of Great Britain, Mellish also served as Parliamentary Secretary of State in the Treasury from 1969 to 1970 and 1974 to 1976; H. held the function of Chief Whip (first parliamentary executive director) and was known as such for his tough administration.

Mellish was in favor of Britain's entry into the common European market , but in 1971, in line with Labor Party policy at the time, he opposed the efforts of the conservative British Prime Minister Edward Heath to join . As a loyal supporter of Wilson, he apparently wept when he learned of his resignation as Prime Minister in 1976. In vain he then supported Michael Foot 's attempt to become Wilson's successor; instead, James Callaghan won the election for the party leadership and became the new prime minister. Despite major ideological differences, Mellish got along well with Foot on an interpersonal level, but felt such dislike for Callaghan that he left the Labor government just months after Wilson's resignation.

At a panel discussion, Mellish said he was not anti-racist , and in 1976 he advocated that British passport Asians displaced by Hastings Kamuzu Banda from Malawi should not be allowed to move to England.

London Docklands Development Corporation

Margaret Thatcher's government in 1980 wanted a Labor Party representative to become vice chairman of the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC), but the Labor Party completely rejected the creation of the LDDC and therefore refused to nominate a representative to the post of vice chairman . However, Mellish was ready to accept the post. Mellish's decision to join the LDDC boardroom exacerbated his divide with the local Labor Party in Bermondsey, which he represented in Parliament and which had drawn up a list of many left-wing candidates at its annual meeting that year.

Bermondsey by-election

Mellish was against the Labor Party's shift to the left and decided not to run for election again. Tam Dalyell later said that Mellish's final years in the House of Commons were overshadowed by constant controversy with newcomers to the local Bermondsey Labor Party, radical left yuppies and representatives of the Trotskyist group, the Militant Tendency , people who were completely different from those dockworkers who had chosen him four decades earlier. He wanted his colleague John O'Grady, head of the Southwark parish council , to be elected in his place, but the Labor Party in Bermondsey elected its party secretary, Peter Tatchell . Mellish publicly showed his displeasure and threatened his immediate resignation and a related by-election if Tatchell was also supported by the Labor Party at the national level. Unexpectedly, Labor leader Michael Foot announced that as far as he was concerned, Tatchell would never get any assistance.

But when it became apparent in August 1982 that Tatchell would be allowed to run if the Labor Party of the Bermondsey constituency set him up again, Mellish announced that he was leaving the Labor Party and remaining in the House of Commons as an independent MP. In November 1982, he resigned his seat in Parliament by becoming Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds , forcing a by-election held in Bermondsey in February 1983 in which Mellish promoted O'Grady. While O'Grady did poorly in this by-election, Mellish at least had the satisfaction that Tatchell suffered a heavy defeat to Liberal candidate Simon Henry Ward Hughes . Five years after Mellish's death, in 2003, Tatchell claimed that Mellish was secretly bisexual and constantly sought to seduce him, but warned him after each rebuff to publicize it as he would not be believed anyway.

Next life

Mellish later joined the Social Democratic Party . In 1985 he resigned from his post of Vice Chairman of the London Docklands Development Corporation and on July 12, 1985 he agreed to be admitted to the Life Peers as Baron Mellish, of Bermondsey in Greater London , after which he sat as a non-party in the House of Lords . He was a fan of Millwall Football Club and President of the Millwall Supporters Club . In 1995, during the debate commemorating the 50th anniversary of Japan's surrender to World War II, Hugh Jenkins expressed "regret and regret" about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . Mellish replied that he was on board a ship when he heard about the end of the war and then thanked God for the atomic bomb.

Mellish, who had been married to Anne Warner since 1938 and had five sons, died on May 9, 1998 at the age of 85 in Sompting, West Sussex. The tallest building in Milton Keynes , Mellish Court , is named after him.

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Mark Steel: Reasons to Be Cheerful. Scribner, London 2002, pp. 129-130.
  2. ↑ Immigration and Emigration. In: Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Volume 912, No. 112, London May 24, 1976, Col. 33-104 ( hansard.millbanksystems.com ).
  3. ↑ a b Tam Dalyell: Mellish, Robert Joseph, Baron Mellish (1913-1998). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed October 9, 2010 (subscription required).
  4. ↑ engagements. In: Hansard. Volume 14, December 3, 1981, Col. 387-390 ( hansard.millbanksystems.com ).
  5. ↑ BBC's The Westminster Hour with an interview with Peter Tatchell about the Bermondsey by-election
  6. ↑ London Gazette . No. 50199, HMSO, London, July 17, 1985, p. 9833 ( PDF , English).
  7. ↑ publications.parliament.uk
  8. ^ VJ Day Communications. In: Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Vol. 565, June 19, 1995, Col. 4-7 ( hansard.millbanksystems.com ).
personal data
SURNAME Mellish, Bob, Baron Mellish
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mellish, Robert Joseph, Baron Mellish (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British politician
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Deptford
DATE OF DEATH May 9, 1998
Place of death Sompting (West Sussex)