William Whitelaw, 1st Viscount Whitelaw

William "Willie" Stephen Ian Whitelaw, 1st Viscount Whitelaw , KT , CH , MC , PC (born June 28, 1918 in Edinburgh , † July 1, 1999 in Penrith , Cumbria ) was a Scottish politician of the Conservative Party .

biography

After schooling in Winchester and studying at the University of Cambridge , he served as an officer in the Scots Guards during and after World War II .

Whitelaw began his political career in 1955 when he was elected as a candidate for the Conservative Party to the House of Commons . After the election victory of the Conservatives, he became a member of the government for the first time in 1970 as Lord President of the Council under Prime Minister Edward Heath . He was also the leader of the majority faction in the House of Commons ( Leader of the House of Commons ). Between 1972 and 1973 he was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland . In this capacity, in July 1972, as head of a British delegation, he met for secret talks in London with an IRA delegation consisting of Seán Mac Stíofáin, Dáithí Ó Conaill, Ivor Bell, Seamus Twomey, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness . The IRA leaders refused to agree to a peaceful solution that did not include an obligation to withdraw from Britain (first to the barracks, then out of Ireland) and the release of Republican prisoners. The British rejected these demands and cut off the talks. Whitelaw was Secretary of State for Labor from 1973 until the end of Heath's tenure in the 1974 election defeat. In 1974 he was awarded the Order of the Companions of Honor for his political services . Between 1974 and 1975 he was also Chairman ( Chairman ) of the Conservatives.

Whitelaw's grave

When it came to the election of the chairman of the Conservative Party in February 1975, Whitelaw declined to run in the first ballot out of loyalty to Heath, the previous party chairman. Heath was then defeated in the first ballot on February 4, 1975 with 119 to 130 votes against Margaret Thatcher . Although Heath subsequently withdrew from the vote, it was too late for supporters of the Heath wing to overtake Thatcher. William Whitelaw, as Heath's favorite, lost 79 to 146 votes in the vote against Thatcher the following week. Whitelaw, who then became deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, was as loyal to the new party leader Thatcher as he was to Heath, and in the following years became one of their closest, albeit at times most critical, allies within the party leadership.

After the election victory of the Conservative Party in 1979, Prime Minister Thatcher first appointed him Home Secretary ; he remained in this office for four years. In this role and not least because of his position as deputy party chairman, he was one of her closest advisors during the Falklands War between April and June 1982. In addition, he advised the Prime Minister during the election campaign for the general election in 1983 , which became the greatest electoral success of a British party since 1945.

In 1983 he was raised to the hereditary nobility as Viscount Whitelaw and thus belonged to the House of Lords , the House of Lords . Between 1983 and 1988 he was not only again Lord President of the Council, but also Leader of the House of Lords and thus practically group leader of the ruling party in the upper house. In 1988 Viscount Whitelaw withdrew from government policy.

When he died in 1999, he left behind his wife and four daughters. In the absence of male descendants, his hereditary Viscount title expired upon his death.

Publications

• The Whitelaw Memoirs ( autobiography ). Headline, London 1989, ISBN 0-747-23348-9 .

literature

• Una McGovern: Chambers Biographical Dictionary. Chambers, Edinburgh 2002, ISBN 0-550-10051-2 , p. 1595.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Peter Taylor: Provos The IRA & Sinn Féin. P. 139.

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Viscount Whitelaw 1983-1999	Title expired