Caerwyn Roderick

Caerwyn Eifion Roderick (* 15. July 1927 in Ystradgynlais , Brecknockshire ; † 16th October 2011 ) was a British politician of the Labor Party , of the Welsh constituency Brecon and Radnorshire 1970-1974 and Brecon and Radnor 1974-1979 in the House ( House of Commons ) .

Life

After schooling studied Roderick at the University College of North Wales , and was after graduating from 1949 to 1952 as a teacher at Caterham School in Surrey active and after a stint at the National carbon Authority ( National Coal Board ) from 1954 to 1957 as a mathematics teacher at the Brecon Boys' Grammar School . After returning to the National Coal Board, he was a math teacher at Hartridge High School in Newport from 1960 to 1969 .

In 1969 he was nominated to succeed Tudor Watkins , who since 1945 represented the constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire in the House of Commons as a member of the Labor Party . In the general election on June 18, 1970 , Roderick won with a majority of 4,844 votes - little more than half the majority that Watkins had obtained in his last re-election in 1966. He demonstrated his parliamentary talent in his maiden speech, in which he spoke with wit and foresight about necessary parliamentary reforms that were not implemented until several years later. In the general election of February 28, 1974, after which the Labor Party was able to provide Prime Minister again with Harold Wilson , he received a majority of just 2277 votes in the new constituency of Brecon and Radnor . In the general election of October 10, 1974, which brought the Labor Party a better result nationwide, he only won a majority of 3,012 votes.

In 1974 Roderick, who was a strong supporter of a National Assembly for Wales and opponent of the Vietnam War, was Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State Eric Heffer , then Secretary of State for Industry Tony Benn, and finally Secretary of Labor Michael Foot from 1975 to 1979 .

Although he was active in the House of Commons, he could not stop the steady affection of his agricultural constituency for the Conservative Party , especially since Margaret Thatcher, after her election as chairman of the Conservatives in 1975, called for lower taxes and less regulation. In the years that followed, he fought for his constituency to prevent the deliberate flooding of the Senni Valley or to get free local public transport , especially for remote agricultural towns. He was also against the closure of rail links and called for cheaper gasoline for rural areas. He also rejected South Africa's apartheid policy and the European common market, and in 1977 was one of the signatories of a letter published in the magazine Tribune , which described the common European internal market as a complete disaster.

In the general election of May 3, 1979 , he suffered a defeat to Tom Hooson , his challenger from the Conservative Tories , and was eliminated from the House of Commons.

He then became involved in Welsh local politics and was a member of the County Council of South Glamorgan from 1980 to 1986 . Between 1980 and 1991 he was also district chairman of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), the British teachers' union , which he already advised during his time as a member of the House of Commons.

Web links

• Caerwyn Roderick at Hansard (English)
• Caerwyn Roderick obituary: Tenacious Labor MP for Brecon and Radnor during the 1970s . In: The Guardian, December 7, 2011