George Thomson, Baron Thomson of Monifieth

George Morgan Thomson, Baron Thomson of Monifieth (born January 16, 1921 in Monifieth near Dundee , † October 3, 2008 in London ) was a British journalist and politician . He was a member of the Labor Party .

Life

Thomson attended Grove Academy in Dundee and served in the Royal Air Force from 1940 to 1945 during World War II . In 1946 he became associate editor of Forward, a Scottish socialist weekly. Thomson became editor of the paper in 1948 and remained associated with it after it was later published in London. In July 1952, Thomson was elected to the British House of Commons as a Labor Party MP for Dundee East on the basis of a by-election. There he was particularly involved in Commonwealth and international affairs. From 1959 to 1963 he was in the Labor Party's shadow cabinet as Minister for Commonwealth and Colonial Affairs. From 1954 to 1956 he represented his country in the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe and from 1955 to 1956 at the Assembly of the Western European Union (WEU). In 1957 he was the British delegate to the Parliamentarians' Conference of the Commonwealth of Nations in New Delhi. He has also served on the executive boards of the United Nations and the Fabian Society .

politics

After the Labor Party victory in October 1964, Thomson became one of the three state ministers in the State Department alongside Hugh Foot and Walter Padley . In the course of a cabinet reshuffle in April 1966, he moved to the post of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster . Prime Minister Harold Wilson entrusted him with the leadership of European policy, especially the relationship between England and the European Community . During a minor reshuffle of the Wilson cabinet in January 1967 Thomson gave up his responsibility for European integration and NATO in order to devote himself to the rest of the world in the future. In August 1967 he was appointed Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations, when he was initially concerned with the problems of the accelerated withdrawal of the armed forces "east of Suez". In the autumn of the following year, he was confronted with criticism of British arms deliveries to Nigeria after the country had been supplied with arms by Great Britain during the Biafra War . In October 1969 Thomson was reappointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster during another government reshuffle. As such, he was Deputy Foreign and Commonwealth Minister Michael Stewart and responsible for British affairs in Europe. For example, he was involved in the negotiations on British membership of the EC. After the Conservatives' election victory on July 18, 1970, he took over the role of Defense Minister in the Labor Party's shadow cabinet. Together with Roy Jenkins he got into disagreements with Wilson. When these were too big, Jenkins and Thomson resigned from the shadow cabinet in April 1972.

In October 1972 Thomson and Christopher Soames were appointed British member of the EC Commission in Brussels. The Labor Party's barely disguised anger over Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath 's posting to Brussels was all the greater when Thomson took his party's Deputy Secretary General, Gwyn Morgan, with him to Brussels. Thomson was responsible for regional policy in Brussels from January 1, 1973 and worked out the plans for the creation of the EC regional fund. Thomson remained on this commission until January 1, 1977, when he was First Commissioner (Chairman) of the Crown Estate .

Web links

• Former minister Lord Thomson dies , reported by BBC News on October 4, 2008