Timothy Raison

Sir Timothy Hugh Francis Raison PC ( November 3, 1929 - November 3, 2011 ) was a British journalist and Conservative Party politician who was a long-time member of the House of Commons for the constituency of Aylesbury . In addition, he was the author of numerous specialist books that dealt with various political topics such as disarmament , the education system and conservatism .

Life

Origin and journalistic activity

Raison was the son of publisher and editor Maxwell Raison and, after attending the Dragon School, received a scholarship to Eton College , where he was editor of the Eton Chronicle . He then studied history at Christ Church College of Oxford University and was after graduation employees in the publishing of his father. He first worked for the photojournalistic magazine Picture Post , of which his father was the managing director, and for the trade magazine New Scientist, which his father owned . For his journalistic work and his socio-political commitment, he was awarded the Nansen refugee award in 1960 .

After his father founded New Society magazine in 1962 , he became its first editor and held this position until 1968. When the magazine was bought by the publishing group IPC Media , he became a manager of the company. Raison, who wrote Why Conservative? author and editor of Crossbow magazine published by the center-right think tank Bow Group , was also a member of numerous important institutions during this time, such as the Development Council for Youth Welfare, the Central Advisory Board on Education, the Advisory Committee on Drug Addiction, and the Advisory Committee of the Ministry of the Interior on the prison system .

MP, Junior Minister and Tensions with Margaret Thatcher

In 1967 he began his political career in local politics when he was elected as a candidate of the Conservative Party to the council of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and was co-opted to a member of the Education Board of London.

In the general election of June 18, 1970 , Raison was first elected a member of the House of Commons and represented the constituency of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire until 1992 . Already at that time he was a well-known figure in the libertarian wing of the Tories . 1972 he was in the government of Prime Minister Edward Heath Parliamentary Private Secretary to the first Northern Ireland Minister William Whitelaw and 1973 from 1974 Parliamentary Undersecretary in the Ministry of Education headed by Margaret Thatcher . At the time, she disrespectfully described him as someone “who did not carry great political weight” and counted her “junior minister” to the left wing of the conservative party.

Although he naturally supported Whitelaw against Thatcher in the election to succeed Heath as party chairman in 1975, Thatcher appointed him to their first shadow cabinet as responsible for the environment after their election as chairman of the Conservative Party . Although Thatcher now viewed him as "tough, knowledgeable and thoughtful" ('tough-minded, knowledgeable and thoughtful'), he was replaced in 1976 by Michael Heseltine .

Despite the animosity between Thatcher and himself, this gave him another chance after the Conservatives won the May 3, 1979 general election and Thatcher became Prime Minister. After the formation of the cabinet, she appointed Raison as Minister of State in the Interior Ministry, which was headed by Whitelaw. In this office he earned great merits and recognition from the Ministry staff for dealing with the difficult issue of immigration . During his tenure, the future Prime Minister John Major became his Parliamentary Private Secretary in 1981.

Nonetheless, Thatcher saw him there as dispensable and in 1983 appointed him Minister of State for Overseas Development in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Privy Councilor . In 1986 Prime Minister Thatcher finally dismissed him from this junior ministerial office. In 1991 he became chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority and retained this position until 1994, after he renounced a renewed candidacy for the House of Commons in 1992. In 1991 he was raised to the personal nobility status as a Knight Bachelor and from then on carried the suffix “Sir ".

Publications

• The missile years: thoughts on the evolution of British defense policy , 1959
• Strategy for disarmament , 1962
• Why conservative? , 1964
• Conflict and conservatism , 1965
• Youth in “New society” , 1966
• The founding fathers of social science , 1969
• Prospects for employment , 1972
• The act and the partnership , 1976
• Inner cities , 1977
• Power and Parliament , 1979
• The voluntary sector , 1980
• Africa , 1984
• Tories and the welfare state , 1990
• The stranger within thy gates , 1994
• Report of the Committee on Local Monitoring of Prison Establishments , 1995

Web links

• Timothy Raison at Hansard (English)
• Sir Timothy Raison obituary: Tough-minded Tory MP and minister under Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher . In: The Guardian of November 10, 2011
• Entry in Open Library