Peter Shore, Baron Shore of Stepney

Peter David Shore, Baron Shore of Stepney (born May 20, 1924 in Great Yarmouth , Norfolk , † September 24, 2001 in London ) was a British politician and life peer .

life and career

Early years

Shore's mother was the heiress of a hotel run by his father, a merchant marine captain. However, he showed little management skills and lost a large part of the family property in the course of the economic crisis in 1929 , which led the family to move to Liverpool . There Shore attended Quarry Bank Grammar School before studying history at King's College , Cambridge , and then turning to economics.

In Cambridge he was a member of the Cambridge Apostles' secret society and also joined the Labor Party college group . From 1943 to 1946 he served as a first lieutenant in the Royal Air Force before joining the Transport and General Workers' Union , then one of Britain's largest unions . In 1948 he finally joined the Fabian Society and then the Labor Party.

Getting started in politics

In 1950 Shore left his job at the union and moved to the Labor Party Research Department , of which he was to become chairman from 1959 to 1964. Also in 1950 he ran for the first time in the general election . In the constituency of St. Ives , however, he was defeated by 15 percentage points against Greville Howard .

His relationship with party leader Hugh Gaitskell was initially very good, but was permanently clouded when Shore openly displayed his support for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1958 . In return, the ties to Gaitskell's designated successor, Harold Wilson, became even closer. In the 1959 elections Shore ran in Halifax and received 4.5 percent fewer votes than Maurice Macmillan , the candidate of the Conservative Party .

In the run-up to the 1964 elections, Shore played a key role in creating his party's manifesto. He himself also ran again and now, on the third attempt, managed to move into the House of Commons for the Stepney constituency . After only a year Harold Wilson , meanwhile Chairman of the Labor Party, made him his Parliamentary Private Secretary and in 1966 he appointed him Parliamentary Undersecretary in Tony Benn's Ministry of Technology , from which he soon moved to the Economic Department. In 1967, after only three years in parliament, Wilson finally appointed him to his cabinet as Minister of Economics . At the age of 43, Shore was the youngest member of the government staff at the time. He also designed the election manifestos for the 1966 and 1970 elections .

In the cabinet

However, Shore's rapid political rise, favored by Wilson, also created many envious people. In addition, his room for maneuver in the Department of Commerce was very limited, as he was largely under the direct control of Wilson. In the press he was denigrated as Homo Wilsonicus , Denis Healey called him Wilson's lap dog . In fact, Wilson abolished the Department of Commerce in 1969 and transferred its responsibilities to the Treasury. He had not planned a new role for Shore, but decided not to abandon his former protégé completely and appointed him minister with no portfolio .

During the opposition period from 1970 to 1974 Shore initially took a place in the back of the parliament without any special tasks. In 1971, however, he was appointed to the Labor Party's shadow cabinet , responsible for European issues. After Wilson came back to power in 1974, he appointed Shore Secretary of Commerce . In this position he tried above all to counter the entry of Great Britain into the European Economic Community . He also drew attention to himself when he refused Freddie Lakers Skytrain , the first European low-cost airline , the landing permit for the United Kingdom; a decision that was later overturned by the House of Lords as the Supreme Court .

When James Callaghan took over the government in 1976, Shore changed portfolios again and became Minister of the Environment . In this role, however, according to general opinion, he did not have a great impact.

Political decline

After the election defeat in 1979 and the associated resignation of Callaghan as party chairman, Shore was next to Denis Healey as one of the most promising candidates for the successor. This changed, however, when the previous party vice Michael Foot decided to run himself. Shore dropped out of the race for the highest party office after the first ballot. When he ran again in 1983 for the party chairmanship, he was able to unite just three percent of the votes.

Until 1987 Shore belonged to the shadow cabinets, first under Foot and later under Neil Kinnock . His area of ​​responsibility initially included foreign policy, then he became shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer and finally chairman of the cabinet. In his party, however, he became increasingly unpopular, for example due to his open support for Margaret Thatcher's actions in the Falklands War .

As rapidly as Shore's career began in the House of Commons, it dragged on. Stripped of all his offices, he sat in the House of Commons for another ten years, with his political influence waning more and more. After he did not run for the 1997 general election, he was raised to the status of a Life Peer and took a place in the House of Lords . His official title was from that time Baron Shore of Stepney, of Stepney in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets .

Although Shore was not in good health in his final years, he continued to take part in the debates in the House of Lords. In July 2001 he collapsed in his seat after delivering a monetary policy speech in the House of Lords. Although he was initially able to recover from this weakness, he died in September of the same year.

Shore had been married since 1948, leaving behind his wife and three children. A son had died before him.

Criticism of Europe

One issue that Shore has had throughout his career has been European politics. Shore was one of the sharpest critics of Europe within his party. In his opinion, the United Kingdom should orientate itself more towards the United States and the Commonwealth in foreign policy , as there is a common language base here. In the run-up to the referendum on British accession to the European Economic Community , he was one of the pioneers of the No campaign, having already tried to prevent the opening of the common European market.

Even in his later years, Shore remained true to his criticism of Europe. He also gave speeches in the House of Lords in which he railed against the European Economic and Monetary Union , the common European defense policy and the euro . He also devoted himself to Euroscepticism in his book, Separate Ways: The Heart of Britain , which appeared a year before his death .

Fonts

• Entitled to know. Macgibbon & Kee, London 1966.
• Europe: the way back. (10 volumes), Fabian Soc., 1973 ISBN 0-71630-425-2 .
• Leading the left. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1993, ISBN 0-29781-096-0 .
• Separate ways: the heart of Europe. Duckworth, London 2000, ISBN 0-71562-972-7 .

Web links

• Peter Shore at Hansard (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Obituaries: Lord Shore of Stepney . The Independent , September 26, 2001, accessed June 20, 2016.
2. ^ ^{A b} Peter Shore: Principled man of politics . BBC , September 24, 2001, accessed June 20, 2016.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Obituaries: Lord Shore of Stepney . The Telegraph, September 25, 2001, accessed June 20, 2016.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Edward Pearce: Obituary: Lord Shore of Stepney . The Guardian , September 26, 2001, accessed June 20, 2016.
5. ↑ UK General Election results February 1950 . Political Science Resources, October 22, 2012, accessed June 20, 2016.
6. ↑ UK General Election results October 1959 . Political Science Resources, October 22, 2012, accessed June 20, 2016.
7. ↑ Peter David Shore, Baron Shore of Stepney on thepeerage.com , accessed September 13, 2016.
8. ↑ Lord Shore 'stable' after collapse . BBC , July 13, 2001, accessed June 20, 2016.
9. ↑ Helen Szamuely: Lord Shore, Labor eurosceptic peer, dies . EUobserver , September 25, 2001, accessed June 20, 2016.