Morgan Phillips

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Morgan Walter Phillips (born June 18, 1902 in Aberdare , Glamorgan , † January 15, 1963 in London ) was a British Labor Party politician who was Secretary General of the Labor Party between 1944 and 1961 and the first President of the Socialist Party from 1951 to 1957 International acted.

Life

Origin and party secretary

Philipps, who came from a working-class family, grew up with five siblings in Bargoed and began to work as a mine worker in 1914 at the age of twelve after completing his schooling . In 1920 he joined the Labor Party in Caerphilly and was party secretary in Bargoed from 1923 to 1925 and also chairman of the party organization in the Steam Coal Lodge in Bargoed from 1924 to 1926 .

After studying economics and social affairs for two years at Labor College in London , Phillips became secretary of the Labor Party in West Fulham in 1928 and was later party secretary in Whitechapel between 1934 and 1937. At the same time he was from 1934 to 1937 a member of the council of the Metropolitan Borough of Fulham . In 1937 he moved to the headquarters of the Labor Party in the Transport House as a propaganda officer, and in 1941 he took over the role of secretary of the research department.

General Secretary of the Labor Party, General Elections and President of the Socialist International

In 1944, Phillips succeeded James Middleton as Secretary General of the Labor Party and held that position for seventeen years until 1961. In this position he was instrumental in the Labor Party's victory in the general election on July 5, 1945 . In these elections, the party was able to achieve 49.7 percent of the vote and improved its number of seats by 239 seats to 393 seats. On the other hand, the Conservative Party under the previous Prime Minister Winston Churchill suffered substantial losses of 11.6 percentage points and 190 seats.

At the First Congress of the Socialist International from June 30 to July 3, 1951, Phillips was elected the first President of the Socialist International and held this position until he was replaced by the former Minister of Defense and Finance of Denmark, Alsing Andersen, after his election on the fifth Congress from July 2-6, 1957.

As General Secretary of the Labor Party, he was also responsible for his party's election campaigns in the general elections on October 25, 1951 and May 26, 1955 , which produced relatively constant results, but lost 18 and 20 seats due to majority voting and thus ultimately led to the loss of the government majority.

In 1957 he joined an insult by Aneurin Bevan and Richard Crossman against the magazine The Spectator , which had portrayed the men as very drunk at a socialist congress in Italy. Since all three swore that this was untrue, the magazine was sentenced to pay damages. However, Crossman's posthumously published diaries confirmed the press allegations.

Despite the further losses of the Labor Party in the general election on October 8, 1959 of 2.4 percent and a further 19 lower house mandates, his own public reputation grew, which was due, among other things, to his newly introduced daily press conferences . In addition, he made a significant contribution to preventing the party from collapsing through a comprehensive election analysis published under the title Labor in the Sixties (1960).

After suffering a stroke in August 1960 , Phillips resigned as General Secretary of the Labor Party in 1961 and was replaced in this capacity by Leonard Williams .

family

Phillips had been married to Norah Mary Lusher since 1930 , who after his death in 1964 as a Life Peeress with the title Baroness Phillips, of Fulham in the County of Greater London, became a member of the House of Lords under the Life Peerages Act 1958 and there between 1965 and 1970 the first woman parliamentary secretary to the government ( government Whip was). She was also Lord Lieutenant of Greater London between 1978 and 1986 .

From this marriage the daughter Gwyneth Patricia emerged, who represented the Labor Party for a total of 38 years as a member of the House of Commons . This in turn was married to the Labor politician John Dunwoody , who was also a member of the House of Commons from 1966 to 1970 and served as Parliamentary Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Health between 1969 and 1970. Her daughter Tamsin Dunwoody was a member of the National Assembly for Wales as a representative of the Labor Party for one legislative period from 2003 to 2007 .

Publications

  • About the Labor Party - the Party with a Future , 1945
  • East Meets West , 1954
  • Labor in the Sixties , 1960

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Phillips, Morgan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Phillips, Morgan Walter (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Labor Party politician
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Aberdare , glamorgan
DATE OF DEATH January 15, 1963
Place of death London