Peter Lovell-Davis, Baron Lovell-Davis

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Peter Lovell Lovell-Davis, Baron Lovell-Davis (birth name: Peter Lovell Davis * 8. July 1924 , † 6. January 2001 ) was a British politician of the Labor Party in 1974 as a Life Peer due to the Life Peerages Act 1958 a member of the House of Lords was. Lovell-Davis was instrumental in the successful election campaigns of the Labor Party in the general election on October 15, 1964 , March 31, 1966 and February 28, 1974 , each of which led to the formation of a Labor government under Prime Minister Harold Wilson . After the general election on February 28, 1974, he took over a junior ministerial post in the Wilson cabinet.

Life

Studies and World War II

Davis, son of an accountant , graduated after visiting King Edward VI. - Grammar School in Stratford-upon-Avon trained at Coventry Technical College, where he joined the Air Training Corps . In 1943 he began officer training at the Royal Air Force (RAF), also a one-year study at Jesus College of the University of Oxford included. In the following years he received training as a pilot in the fighter aircraft Supermarine Spitfire and flew to his promotion to Captain ( Flight Lieutenant ) operations in the Middle East . Any subsequent use in the Far East was revoked after the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945.

After the end of the war, he resumed his studies at Jesus College in 1947 and completed a course in English with a Master of Arts (MA). During his studies he wrote articles for the student magazine Isis and was also its editor for film reviews. He then worked as a journalist for the news and press agency Central Press on Fleet Street and became its managing director after the troubled agency was taken over by The Bristol Evening Post .

In addition to this, he worked as a member of the Press Gallery between 1951 and 1971 as a parliamentary correspondent, reporting from the House of Commons with Ian Waller, a young trainee at The Acton Gazette who later became the political correspondent for the weekly newspaper The Sunday Telegraph . In the following years he directed several provincial newspapers such as The Glasgow Evening News and The Bolton Evening News, and Waller's weekly political commentary was distributed worldwide. Davis remained CEO of Central Press until 1970, when he became chairman of Features Syndicate and Davis and Harrison Visual Productions .

Labor Party campaign manager

His long association with Harold Wilson began shortly after the October 8, 1959 general election . He tried in vain to convince Wilson, then a leading member of the National Executive Committee of the Labor Party, of the importance of using modern advertising and market research, and of the power of television in the election campaign. Wilson's campaign stance, however, was still rooted in the age of public meetings and door-to-door campaigns. Davis, however, insisted on the modern methods and ultimately convinced the public staff of the National Executive Committee of the Labor Party to give his group a chance.

Davis headed a working group of media specialists between 1962 and 1974 that advised the Labor Party on public relations issues. Other work group members included advertising manager David Kingsley and David Lyons, a public relations consultant. The working group, which only appeared under the code name "The Three Wise Men" to protect their identities in public, selected the then unknown marketing researcher Bob Worcester , who later founded a leading marketing research institute with Ipsos MORI , to conduct regular polls on public opinion perform.

Wilson ultimately backed Davis's proposals, making the Labor Party's election campaigns in the 1964 and 1966 general election the most demanding and effective of all parties. An important key to this success was that Davis eschewed clear political arguments and instead relied on the role of personable professionalism, advice and knowledge in the implementation of policy. During this time he had close ties not only to Wilson, but also to his longtime private secretary Marcia Williams , although he did not belong to the so-called kitchen cabinet of Wilson's closest advisers.

The working group chose the campaign slogan Let's Go With Labor for the 1964 general election and You Know Labor Government Works in the 1966 general election. Both slogans caught them national sentiment: the disappointment with the Conservative Party governments of Prime Ministers Harold Macmillan and Alec Douglas-Home, and the excitement Harold Wilson created with his call to use the “white heat of technology” for the Government provoked.

In the general election of June 18, 1970 , Wilson's Labor government suffered a defeat because the Prime Minister ignored the advice of the working group not to hold the elections until the autumn, as the critical mood of the population against the Labor government in early summer 1970 continued could possibly change for autumn. Wilson set the election date on June 18, 1970, with the result that the conservative Tories won with their slogan Make Britain Great Again with a majority of 31 seats in the House of Commons and with Edward Heath the Prime Minister.

House of Lords and Junior Minister

In the general election on February 28, 1974, the Labor Party was able to decide with 301 seats in front of the Conservative Party, which had 297 seats. Harold Wilson then became Prime Minister again.

Shortly thereafter, Davis was raised to the nobility on the proposal of Prime Minister Wilson by a letters patent dated June 26, 1974 as a life peer with the title Baron Lovell-Davis, of Highgate in the County of Greater London and belonged to the House of Lords from then on his death as a member. At the same time he took on the function of Lord-in-Waiting at the beginning of his membership in the House of Lords.

In June 1975 he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Energy in the Wilson administration and held this position until he was dismissed in April 1976 with several other supporters of Wilson after the inauguration of the new Prime Minister James Callaghan . During this time he promoted as one of the closest associates of Energy Minister ( Secretary of State for Energy ) Tony Benn one under the slogan "Save It - Turn Off" (, Save It - Switch Off ') standing energy saving campaign.

Subsequently, Baron Lovell-Davis was a board member of the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) between 1976 and 1984 and also served as chair of the child care steering group on the National Health Service (NHS) committee for the protection of minors .

In addition, he also took on functions in business and was, among other things, chairman of licensing services at the clothing company Lee Cooper from 1983 to 1990 and, simultaneously between 1986 and 1999, of Pettifor, Morrow and Associates . He also served as Trustee of the Academic Center at Whittingham Hospital near Preston from 1980 and Trustee of the Museum for the Port of London and Docklands between 1985 and 1998 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Entry in The London Gazette from June 28, 1974
personal data
SURNAME Lovell-Davis, Peter, Baron Lovell-Davis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lovell-Davis, Peter Lovell, Baron Lovell-Davis (full name); Davis, Peter Lovell (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British politician and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH July 8, 1924
DATE OF DEATH January 6, 2001