Tom Boardman, Baron Boardman

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Tom Boardman, Baron Boardman

Thomas "Tom" Gray Boardman, Baron Boardman MC TD DL (born January 12, 1919 in Daventry , Northamptonshire , † March 10, 2003 in Welford , Northamptonshire) was a British solicitor , manager , banker and politician of the Conservative Party , the seven years Long Member of the House of Commons and 1980 as Life Peer member of the House of Lords . Boardman was appointed Minister of State for Industry in the Department of Commerce and Industry by Prime Minister Edward Heath as part of a cabinet reshuffle following the introduction of controversial economic laws in April 1972 . This represented a U-turn in Edward Heath's industrial policy, in which the previous liberal economic approaches were abandoned in favor of a return to political interference, subsidies for troubled companies and price control . As Minister of Industry, he was also responsible for energy policy during the first oil crisis in 1973, and during this time he introduced energy-saving measures such as the three-day week.

Life

Training as a solicitor, World War II and business manager

Boardman, whose father John Clayton Boardman was a landowner in Northamptonshire and mayor of Daventry , was a trainee lawyer with a solicitor in Daventry after attending the traditional Bromsgrove School .

But after the beginning of the Second World War he began his military service with the 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry . After Operation Overlord in 1944, he was a captain with his unit at the head of a night raid across the Falaise pocket towards the village of St Aignan de Cramesnil. In the front tank, he was given the task of illuminating the path, making him a visible target for enemy attacks. After using all the torches, he ran back to the second tank to fetch a supply of torches. He almost fell into a trench of the German Wehrmacht and discovered this hostile position.

The following day, the 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry destroyed twenty enemy tanks and repulsed anticipated counterattacks by German infantry and tanks. He was then awarded the Military Cross (MC) for his work.

After the end of the war, he completed a law degree at the University of London and, after completing his training as a legal advisor, joined Phipps & Troup in Northampton , where he was eventually promoted to director. Due to his trust in the Phipps family, he later became chairman of the board of Chamberlain Phipps , a supplier to the shoe industry. In addition, he worked for several other companies. During this time, the Boardman v Phipps proceedings fell , in which the Lord Judges in 1967 gave a landmark judgment on the English trust law, which essentially concerned the duty of loyalty and the duty to avoid conflicts of interest.

In 1968 he first became finance director of the brewery group Allied Breweries and later became deputy chairman of the board of this company.

Member of the House of Commons

In a by-election ( by-election ) Boardman was a candidate of the Conservative Party in the constituency Leicester Southwest surprisingly first elected as an MP in the House of Commons after the former long-time constituency holders of the Labor Party , Herbert Bowden , as a life peer with the title Baron Aylestone of Aylestone in the City of Leicester became a member of the House of Lords.

In the elections of June 18, 1970 , he was re-elected with a slim majority of just 106 votes. Due to his economic activities, he renounced the government function offered to him as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Margaret Thatcher , who had been appointed Secretary of State for Education by Prime Minister Edward Heat after the election victory of the Conservative Party in the 1970 general election. He represented the constituency of Leicester South West until its dissolution in the general election on February 28, 1974 .

In these general elections, he was then re- elected MP in the newly created constituency of Leicester South , but only belonged to the House of Commons until the general election on October 10, 1974 , when he lost his mandate. In the February election he was able to prevail with 22,943 votes (41.8 percent) clearly against his opponent from the Labor Party, Jim Marshall , who received only 21,177 votes (38.6 percent). In the October election, however, Marshall beat him with 21,588 votes (43.2 percent) to 20,455 votes (40.9 percent) and thus with a difference of 1133 votes.

Industry Minister and Chief Secretary of the Treasury

Boardman, who originally worked as a solicitor, was promoted from Prime Minister Edward Heath to Minister of State for Industry in the Department of Trade on April 7, 1972 as part of a cabinet reshuffle following the introduction of controversial economic laws and Industry ) and was thus one of the closest collaborators to Peter Walker , who was appointed Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on November 5, 1972 . This represented a U-turn in Edward Heath's industrial policy, in which the previous liberal economic approaches were abandoned in favor of a return to political interference, subsidies for troubled companies and price control.

Miners strike in 1972 and negotiations with the National Miners Union

After the 1972 miners' strike, Boardman was responsible for passing the Coal Industry Act in Parliament to ensure the liquidity of the National Coal Board through substantial subsidies . After the miners were subsequently paid a record wage, they left out strike action until the summer of 1973 before demanding a further 35 percent wage increase.

Together with his assigned Undersecretary for Industry, Peter Emery , he represented the government in the subsequent negotiations, in which the National Coal Authority presented a formula for the highest possible wage payment and a productivity cut. This maximum offer did not allow the National Coal Board to negotiate any further. Hopes that Joe Gormley , the president of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), could convince his union to accept this offer, however, was not fulfilled, as Mick McGahey , the left-wing extremist vice president of the NUM, declined the offer and stated that he wanted the end of the Heath administration in the 1974 general election.

First oil crisis in 1973

In this role, he was also responsible for energy policy during the first oil crisis in 1973. In the meantime, the Yom Kippur War broke out in the Middle East in October 1973 , which led to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) reducing production and the price of oil dramatic increase. This also strengthened the miners, who imposed an overtime ban on themselves in November 1973. The Heath government declared a state of emergency due to the shortage of oil and coal. In this extremely tense situation, Boardman had primary responsibility for the state emergency measures, which included a ban on unnecessary electricity consumption and restrictions on the heating of shops and offices.

The original plan to cut the heating of schools as well, however, was not implemented after the uninformed Education Minister Thatcher massively demanded the withdrawal of this intention. In the period that followed, however, energy-saving measures such as the three-day week were introduced. This provided that from January 1 to March 7, 1974, electricity consumption by commercial electricity consumers was limited to three consecutive days and it was forbidden to work on these for longer periods. Necessary service companies such as hospitals, supermarkets and newspaper publishers were excluded from this. Television companies were asked to stop broadcasting their programs at 10:30 p.m. during the crisis to save electricity.

Boardman came under increasing pressure because of these measures and his composure, but assured that the supplies of the coal-fired power plants would be sufficient for the winter. When a dispute broke out over the possible rationing of oil, he downplayed the preparations of his ministry with the words "purely administrative action ... employees would only check whether the mice had eaten the rationing books" ('purely administrative action ... officials are looking to see whether the mice have eaten the ration books').

Chief Secretary of the Treasury

After the general election of February 28, 1974, Prime Minister Heath appointed him Chief Secretary to the Treasury , where he had to decide on also painful cuts in public spending. After he not only lost his own lower house mandate in the early general election on October 10, 1974, but also lost a majority to the Conservative Tories , the term of office of Prime Minister Heath and his government ended.

In 1977 he became Deputy Lieutenant and in 1979 High Sheriff of Northamptonshire.

Functions in the private sector and member of the House of Lords

In 1977 he took on a new role as President of the Association of the British Chamber of Commerce ( Association of British Chambers of Commerce ) and was also Executive Board Member, founded in 1968 National Westminster Bank (NatWest) in 1979, he became CEO of the Eastern Region.

By a letters patent dated July 10, 1980, Boardman was raised to Life Peer under the Life Peerages Act 1958 as Baron Boardman , of Welford in the County of Northamptonshire, and was a member of the House of Lords until his death. It was officially launched on July 30, 1980 with the assistance of Niall Macpherson, 1st Baron Drumalbyn and Robert Carr, Baron Carr of Hadley .

A little later he also acted as treasurer of the Conservative Party between 1981 and 1982.

Chairman of the National Westminster Bank and the Blue Arrow scandal

After Robert Leigh-Pemberton became Governor of the Bank of England in 1983 , Baron Boardman succeeded him as Chairman of the Board of the National Westminster Bank. During the subsequent period, the bank took over the financial institution Barclays to become the market leader. NatWest also intended to expand as an investment bank and enter the North American market . Boardman said in 1988: “Our philosophy is, and was, and remains that we are going to be a major player in the global market”, “Our philosophy is and was and will remain that we want to become a major player in the global market”. .

However, these ambitions stalled because of the difficult situation in the late 1980s and the so-called Blue Arrow scandal . NatWest's investment banking arm, County NatWest, was the administrator of a £ 837 million rights issue in 1987 for the rapidly growing employment agency Blue Arrow . Since the administrating managers were unable to place shares with actual investors, the latter hushed up the unsuccessful success by falsifying their books before the scandal with the market collapse in October 1987 became obvious.

This was followed by an investigation by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry as well as criminal investigations against those directly involved, in the course of which numerous senior managers of NatWest resigned. There were no suspicions against Boardman as CEO that he knew about the wrongdoing. However, it became clear that the board of directors of NatWest had made mistakes in the supervision of the investment banking branch Country NatWest, with the result that Boardman ultimately resigned as chairman of the board in 1989.

Most recently he was between 1987 and 1989 also Chairman of the Clearing House -Banker for London and Scotland ( Committee of London & Scottish Clearing Bankers ) and chairman of the building materials group Steetley and board member of property company MEPC plc . In 1993 he became CEO of the ailing property development company Heron International, founded by Gerald Ronson .

Between 1989 and 2003 he was also a lieutenant in the City of London .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Konrad Rusch: Profit Liability for breach of fiduciary duty. 2003, ISBN 3-16-148134-8 , pp. 73 ff.
  2. ↑ London Gazette . No. 47229, HMSO, London, June 2, 1977, p. 7145 ( PDF , accessed December 29, 2013, English).
  3. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 47383, HMSO, London, November 18, 1977, p. 14511 ( PDF , accessed December 29, 2013, English).
  4. ↑ London Gazette . No. 47701, HMSO, London, November 30, 1978, p. 14345 ( PDF , accessed December 29, 2013, English).
  5. ↑ London Gazette . No. 47795, HMSO, London, March 16, 1979, p. 3548 ( PDF , accessed December 29, 2013, English).
  6. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 48212, HMSO, London, June 13, 1980, p. 1 ( PDF , accessed December 29, 2013, English).
  7. ↑ London Gazette . No. 48252, HMSO, London, July 15, 1980, p. 10055 ( PDF , accessed December 29, 2013, English).
  8. ↑ Entry in Hansard (July 30, 1980)
  9. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 47383, HMSO, London, November 18, 1977, p. 14511 ( PDF , accessed December 28, 2013, English).
personal data
SURNAME Boardman, Tom, Baron Boardman
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Boardman, Thomas Gray, Baron Boardman (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British politician, member of the House of Commons, banker and manager
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Daventry
DATE OF DEATH March 10, 2003
Place of death Welford , Northamptonshire