The Lord Radice | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2018 | |
| Chairman of theTreasury Select Committee | |
| In office 17 July 1997 – 7 June 2001 | |
| Prime Minister | Tony Blair |
| Succeeded by | John McFall |
| Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Science | |
| In office 2 October 1983 – 13 July 1987 | |
| Leader | Neil Kinnock |
| Preceded by | Neil Kinnock |
| Succeeded by | Jack Straw |
| Member of theHouse of Lords Lord Temporal | |
| Life peerage 16 July 2001 – 1 August 2022 | |
| Member of Parliament forNorth Durham Chester-le-Street (1973–1983) | |
| In office 1 March 1973 – 14 May 2001 | |
| Preceded by | Norman Pentland |
| Succeeded by | Kevan Jones |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Giles Heneage Radice (1936-10-04)4 October 1936 London, England |
| Died | 25 August 2022(2022-08-25) (aged 85) |
| Political party | Labour |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 2 |
| Alma mater | Magdalen College, Oxford |
Giles Heneage Radice, Baron Radice,PC (4 October 1936 – 25 August 2022) was a BritishLabour Party politician and author. He served as aMember of Parliament (MP) from 1973 to 2001, representing part ofCounty Durham, and then as a life peer in theHouse of Lords from 2001 until shortly before his death in 2022.[2][3]
Radice was born in London on 4 October 1936, the son of a civil servant in the Indian Government, Lawrence Radice.[4] His mother, Patricia, was the daughter of Conservative politicianArthur Heneage.[4] Radice was educated atWinchester College andMagdalen College, Oxford.[5] His national service was with theColdstream Guards.[5] He then worked as a research officer for theGeneral and Municipal Workers' Union and was chair of theYoung Fabians from 1967 to 1968.[5]
Radice first stood for Parliament atChippenham in1964 and1966, but came third each time. He was elected LabourMember of Parliament forChester-le-Street froma 1973 by-election to1983 and thenNorth Durham until his retirement in2001.[6]
Radice served as Education spokesman in the Labour Shadow Cabinet underNeil Kinnock in the 1980s.[7] As chairman of theTreasury Select Committee, Radice helped make the monetary policy committee of theBank of England accountable to both Parliament and the people for its decisions over interest rates.[8] He was a member of the House of Lords European Union Sub-Committee on external affairs until March 2015.[6]
Aeurophile, Radice was one of only five Labour MPs to vote for thethird reading of theMaastricht Treaty in 1993, defying hisparty Whip, which was to abstain.[9]
He was made alife peer asBaron Radice, ofChester-le-Street in theCounty of Durham, on 16 July 2001.[10] He retired from the House of Lords on 1 August 2022.[11]
As an advocate for Labour to ditch traditional dogmas, Radice has been described as a forerunner toTony Blair.[5] In his 1989 bookLabour's Path to Power: The New Revisionism, Radice set out his vision for a modernised Labour Party, which included abandoningClause IV of the party constitution.[12] His 1992 pamphlet "Southern Discomfort" also made a case for reform, arguing that Labour did not appear supportive of economic aspiration, and this was costing them support from working class voters inSouthern England, particularly London.[5]
Philip Stephens later wrote in theFinancial Times,
At that time, Giles Radice, then an MP, wrote a brilliant essay on what he called Labour's 'southern discomfort'. The party would not win, he argued, unless and until it managed to connect its ambitions for social justice with the individualistic aspirations of the voters in southern England. Here was the template for Mr Blair.[13]
Radice returned to this theme following Labour's 2010 defeat: his "Southern Discomfort Again" pamphlet (withPatrick Diamond) found that voters perceived that Labour had run out of steam, were out of touch (particularly on immigration), unfair and poorly led. In this pamphlet and in "Southern Discomfort: One Year On" (2011), Radice warned that the 'southern problem' is more than geographical: social change means that Labour support collapsed in other areas, including the Midlands.[14][15] A committed pro-European, Radice was a leading member both of the European Movement and Britain in Europe, and wrote a polemic calledOffshore in 1992, in which he put the case for Britain in Europe.[16]
After his retirement as an MP in 2001 Radice, wroteFriends and Rivals, an acclaimed triple biography of three modernisers from an earlier generation—Roy Jenkins,Denis Healey, andAnthony Crosland—arguing that their failure to work more closely together had harmed the modernising cause. This was followed byThe Tortoise and the Hares, a comparative biography ofClement Attlee,Ernest Bevin,Stafford Cripps,Hugh Dalton andHerbert Morrison.Trio: Inside the Blair, Brown, Mandelson Project was published in 2010. In a review ofTrio, Andrew Blick wrote that, "With his previous workFriends and Rivals (2002) andThe Tortoise and the Hares (2008), Radice developed a distinctive approach to contemporary history, using group biography ....Radice adds to his historical approach not only a readable writing style, but the judgements of an experienced Labour politician."[17]
Lord Radice had been a member of the advisory board of theCentre for British Studies of Berlin'sHumboldt University since 1998.[18] He was also a member of theFabian Society.[5] Radice was a chair of the British Association for Central and Eastern Europe (BACEE), and chair of theEuropean Movement, from 1995 to 2001. He was also a chairman of Policy Network, the international progressive thinktank based in London.[5]
Radice married Penelope Angus in 1959; they had two daughters and divorced in 1969. In 1971, he married historian Lisanne Koch.[5] He was a longtime resident ofCamden, living inGloucester Crescent in the 1960s before relocating toParliament Hill.[19]
Radice died from cancer on 25 August 2022, at age 85.[4][5]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forChester-le-Street 1973–1983 | Constituency abolished |
| New constituency | Member of Parliament forNorth Durham 1983–2001 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Treasurer of theFabian Society 1974–1976 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chair of theFabian Society 1976–1977 | Succeeded by |
