Emanuel Shinwell

Emanuel "Manny" Shinwell

Emanuel "Manny" Shinwell, Baron Shinwell (born October 18, 1884 in London , † May 8, 1986 ibid) was a British politician .

Life

Manny Shinwell began to be politically active at an early age and in 1901 became a member of a union for which he later organized a strike by seafarers on the River Clyde . After a demonstration , he was arrested in 1919 for inciting a riot.

In 1922 he was elected as a candidate for the Labor Party for the first time as a member of the lower house and represented the constituency of Linlithgow there until 1924 and then again from 1928 to 1931 .

During the tenure of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald he was from January to November 1924 Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Mining (Department of Mines). In MacDonald's second government, he was Finance Secretary to War Secretary Thomas Shaw from 1929 to 1930. Subsequently he was again Parliamentary Secretary in the Mining Ministry until 1931.

In 1931 he suffered a defeat in the general election. In the general election in 1935, however, he was re-elected to the House of Commons for the constituency of Durham-Seaham and won a victory over former Prime Minister MacDonald, who in 1931 because of the formation of a coalition with the Conservative Party (National Government) from the Labor Party had been excluded. Although Shinwell was a staunch patriot , he refused to participate in the coalition government of Prime Minister Winston Churchill during World War II .

Manny Shinwell around 1945

After the end of the Second World War and the victory of the Labor Party in the general election in 1945 , Prime Minister Clement Attlee appointed him Minister of Fuel and Power and was responsible for the nationalization of the mines to form British Coal . Because of the criticism of his drastic rationing of coal during the harsh winter of 1946/47 he was dismissed by Prime Minister Attlee in 1947 as Minister for gasoline and other fuels and instead on October 7, 1947 Minister of War ( Secretary of State of War ) appointed. He held this office until February 28, 1950 and was then Secretary of Defense until the end of Attlee's tenure on October 26, 1951 .

In the 1950 elections he was re-elected as a member of the House of Commons and represented the Durham-Easington constituency until 1970 . After the Labor Party lost to the Conservative Party in the general election in 1951 , he resigned from the National Executive Board of the Labor Party and, after Hugh Gaitskell was elected chairman of the Labor Party in 1955, he also resigned from Attlee's shadow cabinet .

After the victory of the Labor Party in the elections in 1964 and the inauguration of Harold Wilson as prime minister, he was Group Chairman (Chairman of the Parliamentary Labor Party) in the House of Commons. However, he had to resign from this office in 1967 because of fierce opposition to his support for the United Kingdom to join the European Communities (EC) .

After retiring from the House, he was in 1970 as Baron Shinwell for Life Peer knighted and given a seat in the upper house ( House of Lords ). There he was a "cheerleader" ( Whip active) his faction, but resigned because of the increasing influence of left groups in the Labor Party by that Office 1982 back.

His hundredth birthday on October 18, 1984 was celebrated across all parties .

Web links

• Newspaper article about Emanuel Shinwell in the press kit of the 20th century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• rulers.org