George Strauss, Baron Strauss

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George Russell Strauss, Baron Strauss PC ( July 18, 1901 - June 5, 1993 ) was a British Labor Party politician who , with interruptions, was a member of the House of Commons for 46 years , minister for utilities for a few years and between 1974 and 1979 was Father of the House as the longest-serving member of the House of Commons and was a Life Peer member of the House of Lords in 1979 under the Life Peerages Act 1958 . At the time of his death, he was a member of the United Kingdom Parliament for sixty years.

Life

Family, unsuccessful lower house candidacy and local politician

George Strauss came from a wealthy Jewish family of metal traders and was the son of Arthur Strauss , who, as a representative of the Conservative Party, was also a member of the House of Commons and later joined the Labor Party . After attending the renowned rugby school , after the death of his father on November 30, 1920, he joined the family business and remained as a manager in it until 1945.

In the general election of October 29, 1924 , Strauss ran for a seat in the lower house for the first time in the constituency of Lambeth North , but was defeated by the constituency owner of the Liberal Party , Frank Briant : While Briant got 7,943 votes (37.2 percent), but compared to the election On December 6, 1923 , when Strauss lost 11.3 percentage points, he received 7,914 votes (37.1 percent). Despite an improvement in the pre-election result of the Labor candidate F. Hughes by 15.2 percentage points, Strauss lost by only 29 votes. He then began a political career in local politics and was in 1925 as a representative of North Lambeth member of the London County Council (LCC), of which he was a member until 1931.

Member of the House of Commons

In the general election of May 30, 1929 he was then able to prevail in the constituency of Lambeth North against the previous constituency owner Frank Briant and achieved 11,264 votes (43.8 percent), while Briant with 10,722 votes (41.8 percent) this time 542 votes less than Strauss received and lost the constituency. During this time he served between 1929 and 1931 as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Herbert Morrison , who was Minister of Transport in the cabinet of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald from May 1929 to October 1931 .

In the general election of October 27, 1931 , however, he suffered a dramatic defeat against Frank Briant, who ran again for the Liberal Party in the constituency of Lambeth North : Briant won 16,368 votes and thus an absolute after an improvement of his last result of 23.3 percentage points Majority of 65.1 percent. Strauss lost 8.9 percentage points and only got 8,766 votes (34.9 percent) and thus left the House of Commons. In 1932 he was again a member of the London County Council and represented in this now South-East Southwark .

After the death Briants on September 1, 1934 Strauss was at then held election ( by-election voted on 23 October 1934 as his successor with 11,281 votes (57.9 percent) back to MPs) and in the subsequent general election of 14 November 1935 and July 5, 1945 were re-elected with an absolute majority of 55.4 and 66.6 percent respectively and thus represented the constituency of Lambeth North until its dissolution on February 3, 1950.

In September 1939, Strauss was temporarily excluded from the Labor Party along with Aneurin Bevan and Richard Stafford Cripps because of his advocacy for the Popular Front against Nazism and Fascism founded by Cripps . As early as November 1939, they were re-accepted into the party after they agreed not to re-engage themselves as leaders or participants in campaigns that were contrary to the declared policies of the Labor Party.

During the Second World War he was in February 1942 Parliamentary Private Secretary to Stafford Cripps, the first Lord Privy Seal ( Lord Privy Seal ), and then, between November 1942 and 1945 Minister of Aircraft Production ( Minister of Aircraft Production ) in the war cabinet of Prime Minister Winston Churchill was.

Minister of Supply

After the Labor Party won the general election on July 5, 1945, Strauss took on the role of Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Transport and, as such, was one of Transport Minister Alfred Barnes' closest collaborators until 1947 .

As part of a government reshuffle, Strauss was appointed Minister of Supply by Prime Minister Clement Attlee on October 7, 1947, succeeding John Wilmot , and held this position until the Labor Party was defeated in the general election on October 25, 1951 . Although this ministerial office had no cabinet status, the function represented a key position in the post-war government of the Labor Party. At the same time he was appointed a member of the Privy Council in 1947 and, as minister, was entrusted with one of the most controversial laws of that government, the nationalization of the iron and steel Steel industry through the Iron & Steel Act 1949 , which led to the creation of the state-owned Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain .

Re-election to the House of Commons

After the dissolution of the constituency of Lambeth North , Strauss was elected to the House of Commons in the general election on February 23, 1950 in the newly created constituency of Vauxhall with 23,988 votes (62.5 percent) and represented this constituency until he was renounced in the general election on May 3 1979 . In the eight general elections that followed, he was re-elected with a broad absolute majority.

In 1957, Strauss was part of a controversy that sparked important questions about parliamentary privileges. In a letter to Reginald Maudling , the then Paymaster General of the Conservative Government, Strauss informed him that he had received information that the London Electricity Board was disposing of scrap cables below the realizable price, and requested one immediate investigation. After Maudling had contacted the company, Strauss received a letter from the electricity company in which they threatened him with a charge for defamation. Strauss subsequently brought this up in the House of Commons, claiming that a letter from a member of parliament to a minister referring to a public authority should enjoy the protection of parliamentary privilege. This ultimately led to a fundamental discussion about parliamentary privileges.

After the London Electricity Board affair, Strauss was also part of another parliamentary controversy. The question was whether the British decision to manufacture an atomic bomb had already been made during Prime Minister Attlee's tenure. Strauss wrote a letter to the Times newspaper because of his role as Minister of Supply at the time , in which he vehemently denied that there had been such an appointment and emphasized that direct questions and the right questions were never asked in Parliament.

In 1974 Strauss, who in 1968 played a key role in the passing of a draft law banning theater censorship, succeeded Robin Tranmire as Father of the House in 1974 as the longest-serving member of the House of Commons and held this position until he left the House of Commons. Successor as Father of the House was following John Parker .

House of Lords

By a letters patent dated July 9, 1979, Leonard was raised to the nobility under the Life Peerages Act 1958 as a life peer with the title Baron Strauss , of Vauxhall in the London Borough of Lambeth, and belonged to the House of Lords as a until his death Member at.

Its official launch ( House of Lords ) took place on 11 July 1979 with the support of Edward Shackleton, Shackleton Baron and Fred Peart, Baron Peart .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 47868, HMSO, London, June 14, 1979, p. 7599 ( PDF , accessed February 7, 2014, English).
  2. ↑ London Gazette . No. 47901, HMSO, London, July 12, 1979, p. 8777 ( PDF , accessed February 7, 2014, English).
  3. ↑ Entry in Hansard (July 11, 1979)
personal data
SURNAME Strauss, George, Baron Strauss
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Strauss, George Russell, Baron Strauss (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British politician (Labor), Member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH July 18, 1901
DATE OF DEATH 5th June 1993