Douglas Jay, Baron Jay

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Douglas Patrick Thomas Jay, Baron Jay , PC (born March 23, 1907 in Woolwich , † March 6, 1996 in Minster Lovell , Oxfordshire ) was a British politician and life peer .

Life

Early years

Jay was the second of four children to be born. His father represented Woolwich in London County Council . Jay attended Winchester College , where he was a schoolmate of Richard Crossman , and from 1926 New College , Oxford . This year's British general strike piqued Jay's interest in politics and turned to the Labor Party . At Oxford, where he studied classical philology , he was an undergraduate in the circle of Herbert Fisher and occasionally had dinner with former Prime Minister David Lloyd George . He graduated with First Honors in 1929 .

In 1930 he was elected a Fellow of All Souls College , where he completed an economics degree until 1937. As early as 1929 he began working as a proofreader for The Times newspaper , and in 1933 he switched to The Economist . During these years he met Hugh Gaitskell and Hugh Dalton , who made a decisive contribution to his political career in the Labor Party. In 1937 he moved from The Economist to the Daily Herald , the mouthpiece of the Labor movement at the time. Jay wrote reviews of the works of John Maynard Keynes and wrote his first book, The Socialist Case . In this he made, among other things, the statement that the professional politicians in questions of nutrition, health and education policy know better what serves the common good than the people themselves. This statement was always made by his political opponents in his later career accused again and often mistakenly called "The man in Whitehall knows best." reproduced.

Political career

During the Second World War, Jay initially stayed with the Daily Herald , but was appointed to the Department of Supply in December 1940, where he was entrusted with the recruitment of workers for the industry. In 1943 he became the personal assistant of Hugh Dalton and planned with him the regional economic development for the post-war period. After the Labor Party's clear victory in the general election in 1945 , which came as a surprise to Jay, he became the personal advisor on economic policy to the new Prime Minister Clement Attlee .

In July 1946 he ran at the urging of Attlees in the by-elections for the Battersea North district and moved into the House of Commons as the successor to Francis Douglas . After a brief stint as Dalton's Private Parliamentary Secretary , Jay was given the newly created post of Secretary of Commerce in the Treasury in 1947 . After the 1950 elections , he became finance secretary in the Treasury and, after the 1951 election defeat, one of the front opposition spokesmen. Also in 1951 he was appointed to the Privy Council .

During his time in the opposition, Jay's ties to party chairman Gaitskell strengthened, but the relationship with later Prime Minister Harold Wilson became increasingly tense. For example, after the lost elections in 1959 , his call for the Labor Party to rethink its nationalization policy and consider changing its name to the Democratic Social Party met with little approval. Nevertheless, Wilson put him after taking over the government in 1964 as chairman of the Board of Trade .

Jay's policy on the Board of Trade was shaped by the struggle for regional development, his aversion to monetary devaluation and his determined opposition to the UK joining the European Economic Community . In 1967 he was finally deposed by Prime Minister Wilson, officially because he had reached the retirement age of sixty, in fact the broken relationship between the two was probably the decisive factor.

Jay remained in Parliament until 1983 and appeared primarily as a leading figure in the No campaign leading up to the referendum on Britain's entry into the EEC. In 1980 his autobiography Change and Fortune was published and in 1987 he was made a life peer . He has since officially held the title of Baron Jay, of Battersea in Greater London and took a place in the House of Lords .

family

Douglas Jay was an uncle of former diplomat Michael Jay, Baron Jay of Ewelme .

From 1933 to 1972 Jay was married to Margaret "Peggy" Jay (née Garnett). The marriage had four children:

  • Peter Jay (* 1937),
  • Martin Jay (* 1939),
  • Helen Jay (* 1945),
  • Catherine Jay (* 1945).

His son Peter Jay was married to Margaret Jay, Baroness Jay of Paddington from 1961 to 1986 and was British Ambassador to the United States from 1977 to 1979 .

After divorcing Peggy in 1972, Jay married Mary Lavinia Thomas that same year , with whom he was married until his death in 1996.

Fonts

  • The Socialist Case. Faber and Faber Limited, London 1938.
  • The nation's wealth at the nation's service. [SI] Labor Party, 1938.
  • Paying for the war. [SI] Labor Party, 1940.
  • Who is to Pay for the War and the Peace. Paul Kegan & Co., London 1941.
  • Socialism in the New Society. Longmans, London 1962.
  • After the common market. A better alternative for Britain. Penguin Books, Hamondsworth 1968,
  • Change and fortune: a political record. Hutchinson, London 1980, ISBN 0-09139-530-5 .
  • Sterling: its use and misuse: a plea for moderation. Sidgwick & Jackson, London 1985, ISBN 0-28399-078-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Obituary on independent.co.uk, accessed on February 19, 2015
  2. ↑ a b c d e discussion paper on humanities.manchester.ac.uk accessed on February 20, 2015
  3. ↑ a b c Douglas Patrick Thomas Jay, Baron Jay on thepeerage.com , accessed August 18, 2015.
  4. ↑ Obituary on sun-sentinel.com, accessed on February 20, 2015
  5. ↑ Interview with Michael Jay on chu.cam.ac.uk accessed on February 20, 2015
  6. ↑ Hon. Peter Jay on thepeerage.com , accessed August 18, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Jay, Douglas, Baron Jay
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jay, Douglas Patrick Thomas, Baron Jay (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British politician, Member of the House of Commons, Life Peer
DATE OF BIRTH March 23, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Woolwich
DATE OF DEATH March 6, 1996
Place of death Minster Lovell