Donald Bruce, Baron Bruce of Donington

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Donald William Trevor Bruce, Baron Bruce of Donington FCA (born October 3, 1912 in Norbury , Surrey , † April 18, 2005 in London ) was a British accountant and Labor Party politician who was a member of the House of Commons for five years and between Member of the European Parliament in 1975 and 1979 , and in 1975 when Life Peer became a member of the House of Lords under the Life Peerages Act 1958 .

Life

Professional career and World War II

Bruce grew up after his family moved from Nurbury to Donington and trained as an accountant after attending grammar school there . In 1930 he took up work as a certified accountant in London and was initially involved in the junior Imperial League , the youth association of the Conservative Party , due to his professional relationships in Paddington . In the general election on October 27, 1931 he was one of the active supporters of Brendan Bracken , who represented the constituency of Paddington North in the lower house as a representative of the conservative Tories .

After a long controversy with his own political orientation, Bruce first joined the Independent Labor Party (ILP), which had become independent a year earlier, in 1933 , before he became a member of the North Paddington local branch of the Labor Party in 1935 . In this he was one of the founding members of the Paddington Left Book Club and became an enthusiastic supporter of the Frente Popular during the Spanish Civil War . As such, he reacted violently against the Labor Party's decision to officially support non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War. His political mentor during this time was the then National Agent (negotiator) of the Labor Party George Shepherd , father of Malcolm Shepherd , between 1964 and 1967 First Parliamentary Secretary ( Chief Whip ) of the Labor Group in the House of Lords and from 1974 to 1976 as Lord Seal Keeper ( Lord Privy Seal ) was Leader of the House of Lords .

During World War II , Bruce joined the Royal Corps of Signals in November 1939 and was promoted to major there in 1942 . For his services in Operation Overlord , the landing of Allied troops in Normandy in the summer of 1944, he was mentioned in the war report ( Mentioned in Despatches ).

Member of the House of Commons

In the general election on July 5, 1945 Bruce was elected to the House of Commons in the constituency of Portsmouth North , previously represented by the Conservative politician and former Admiral William Milbourne James . In his maiden speech ( Maiden Speech ) on November 7, 1945, he spoke the following words about the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki :

“Since the atomic bomb was dropped, we have all been living to a greater or lesser degree under its shadow. The circumstances surrounding the dropping of the first atomic bomb were accompanied by consequences so devastating that I cannot help feeling that those responsible for deciding how it should be dropped are now the Check the righteousness of their decision. I think I am speaking on behalf of numerous other members when I say that the peace we have all worked or fought so hard for has not brought the promised salvation that we have all so ardently hoped for. The Honorable Members present here have attended a number of ceremonies and celebrations in the vicinity of this house. As many of us have gone to our constituencies for Victory over Japan Day celebrations and other such events, one could not help but grasp a far greater reluctance to celebrate the end of the war than could possibly have been anticipated six months before it would actually end. The war ended and a new peace came, probably under the shadow of the manner in which it was concluded. "
'Since the dropping of the atomic bomb, we have all been living in a greater or less degree under its shadow. The very circumstances of the dropping of the first atomic bomb were attended by consequences so disastrous that I cannot help feeling that those who were responsible for the decision, as to the manner in which it should be dropped, may yet have to review the rectitude of their decision. I think I speak in common with many other members here when I say that the peace for which we have all worked or fought so hard has not brought the promised relief for which we had so devoutly hoped. Honorable Members here participated in a series of ceremonials and celebrations in the vicinity of this house. Many of us went down to our constituencies to VJ parties and various other functions of that kind, but one could not help detecting a far greater restraint in celebrating the end of the war, than would possibly have been anticipated six months before its actual end. The war ended, and a new peace arrived, well under the shadow of the manner of its ending. '

Aneurin "Nye" Bevan , Minister of Health in the Labor government of the time under Prime Minister Clement Attlee, was so enthusiastic about the speech by the young MP that he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary shortly afterwards . Bruce held this position until he left the House of Commons in February 1950.

After his lower house constituency was dissolved in the general election on February 23, 1950 and absorbed into the newly created constituency of Portsmouth West , Bruce, who became a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (FCA) in 1947 , left the House of Commons and took resumed his work as an accountant, initially in his own law firm, which ultimately merged with Halpern & Woolf in 1977 .

House of Lords

By a letters patent dated January 20, 1975, Bruce was raised to the nobility as a life peer with the title Baron Bruce of Donington , of Rickmansworth in the County of Hertfordshire, and was a member of the House of Lords until his death.

In his maiden speech in the House of Lords on February 18, 1975, he spoke about poverty:

“These people, no matter how many millions there may be, are people who for the majority of the time live in poor housing; they are people who live without hope in a great number of cases; they are people who in a number of cases - especially those who are very old - live without the level of personal serenity that everyone hopes for at the end of their natural life; they are people, the people I refer to, with no hope and no purpose. They are people for whom the mere provision of money does not bring happiness. They are the people for whom, as with so many others, money merely makes unhappiness more comfortable. "
'These people, however many millions they may be, are people who in the majority of instances are living in bad housing; they are people, in quite a large number of instances, who are living without hope; they are people who, in quite a number of instances - particularly the people who are very old - are living without that degree of personal serenity which one would hope for everyone towards the end of their natural life; they are people, the people to whom I am referring, without hope and without purpose. They are people for whom the mere provision of money does not bring happiness. They are the people for whom, like so many others, money merely makes unhappiness more comfortable. '

Member of the European Parliament

In 1975 Baron Bruce also became a member of the European Parliament as representative of Great Britain and was a member of this until the 1979 European elections .

At the end of the 1970s he was also rapporteur for the Socialist Group in the European Parliament for the budget of the European Community . In this function, the Eurosceptic Bruce dealt intensively with the expenditure of the EC and in 1977 received an invitation from Federal Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher and his State Minister Klaus von Dohnanyi to discuss the EC budget, since the Federal Republic of Germany was the EC Presidency took over. The two German representatives could not dissuade him from defusing his massive criticism in his budget report.

However, for the first time in the history of the European Parliament there was a special situation in the budget deliberations in 1977, when the then President of the Parliament Georges Spénale decided not to have Bruce as budget reporter, but to let the individual member states present the resolution on the budget. Bruce was so angry and upset, according to other MPs such as his fellow party member Tam Dalyell , that he did not miss an opportunity to speak out against the European Community and the corruption he believed to be prevalent there until he left parliament.

Publications

  • Accounting Under the Moneylenders Act, 1927 , London, 1939
  • Our Pay Packets. Should they be real or fictitious? , 1948
  • Who are the Patriots? , Co-author Michael Foot , London, 1949
  • The State of the Nation , co-author, 1997

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ London Gazette . No. 46473, HMSO, London, January 23, 1975, p. 977 ( PDF , accessed November 5, 2013, English).
personal data
SURNAME Bruce, Donald, Baron Bruce of Donington
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bruce, Donald William Trevor, Baron Bruce of Donington, of Rickmansworth in the County of Hertfordshire (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British politician, member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH October 3, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Norbury , Surrey
DATE OF DEATH April 18, 2005
Place of death London