The Lord Shore of Stepney | |
|---|---|
 Shore in 1973 | |
| Shadow Leader of the House of Commons | |
| In office 31 October 1983 – 13 July 1987 | |
| Leader | Neil Kinnock |
| Preceded by | John Silkin |
| Succeeded by | Frank Dobson |
| Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry | |
| In office 31 October 1983 – 26 October 1984 | |
| Leader | Neil Kinnock |
| Preceded by | Peter Archer(Trade) Stanley Orme(Industry) |
| Succeeded by | John Smith |
| Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer | |
| In office 8 December 1980 – 31 October 1983 | |
| Leader | Michael Foot |
| Preceded by | Denis Healey |
| Succeeded by | Roy Hattersley |
| Shadow Foreign Secretary | |
| In office 14 July 1979 – 8 December 1980 | |
| Leader | James Callaghan |
| Preceded by | Francis Pym |
| Succeeded by | Denis Healey |
| Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment | |
| In office 4 May 1979 – 14 July 1979 | |
| Leader | James Callaghan |
| Preceded by | Michael Heseltine |
| Succeeded by | Roy Hattersley |
| Secretary of State for the Environment | |
| In office 8 April 1976 – 4 May 1979 | |
| Prime Minister | James Callaghan |
| Preceded by | Tony Crosland |
| Succeeded by | Michael Heseltine |
| Secretary of State for Trade | |
| In office 4 March 1974 – 8 April 1976 | |
| Prime Minister | Harold Wilson |
| Preceded by | Peter Walker (Trade and Industry) |
| Succeeded by | Edmund Dell |
| Shadow Minister for Europe | |
| In office 19 October 1971 – 19 April 1972 | |
| Leader | Harold Wilson |
| Preceded by | Harold Lever |
| Succeeded by | Michael Foot |
| Minister without Portfolio | |
| In office 6 October 1969 – 19 June 1970 | |
| Prime Minister | Harold Wilson |
| Preceded by | George Thomson |
| Succeeded by | The Lord Drumalbyn |
| Secretary of State for Economic Affairs | |
| In office 29 August 1967 – 6 October 1969 | |
| Prime Minister | Harold Wilson |
| Preceded by | Michael Stewart |
| Succeeded by | Anthony Crosland (Minister of State) |
| Member of Parliament forBethnal Green and Stepney Stepney (1964–1974) Stepney and Poplar (1974–1983) | |
| In office 15 October 1964 – 8 April 1997 | |
| Preceded by | Stoker Edwards |
| Succeeded by | Oona King |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Peter David Shore (1924-05-20)20 May 1924 Great Yarmouth, England |
| Died | 24 September 2001(2001-09-24) (aged 77) London, England |
| Political party | Labour |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 4 |
| Alma mater | King's College, Cambridge |
Peter David Shore, Baron Shore of Stepney,PC (20 May 1924 – 24 September 2001) was aBritish Labour Party politician andCabinet minister, noted in part for his opposition to the United Kingdom's entry into theEuropean Economic Community. He served as aMember of Parliament (MP) for over 30 years, from 1964 to 1997.
His idiosyncraticleft-wing nationalism led to comparison with the French politicianJean-Pierre Chevènement.[1] He was described in an obituary by the Conservative journalistPatrick Cosgrave as "BetweenHarold Wilson andTony Blair, the only possible Labour Party leader of whom a Conservative leader had cause to walk in fear" and, along withEnoch Powell, "the most captivating rhetorician of the age".[2]
Born inGreat Yarmouth, Norfolk, Shore was the son of aMerchant Navy captain and was brought up in a middle-class environment.[3] He attendedQuarry Bank High School in Liverpool and, from there, went toKing's College, Cambridge, to read History as anexhibitioner, where he was a member of theCambridge Apostles, a secret society with an elite membership.[2] During the later stages ofWorld War II he served in theRoyal Air Force, spending most of his time in India.[3]
He had specialised in political economy during part of his degree and joined theLabour Party in 1948. He spent the 1950s working for the party and, after two unsuccessful Parliamentary contests atSt Ives in 1950 andHalifax in 1959, he was appointed as Head of the Labour Party's Research Department and took charge of the renewal of party policy following its third successive defeat in 1959. Shore was only briefly a follower ofHugh Gaitskell; his adherence to theCampaign for Nuclear Disarmament from 1958 led to a breach in relations for several years.[4]
He became close toHarold Wilson after Wilson had been elected as party leader, and was the main author of the Labour Party manifesto for the1964 general election. At the last minute, he was selected to fight for the safe seat ofStepney in the election, which he easily won.[5]
After only a short spell on the backbenches, Wilson chose Shore to beParliamentary Private Secretary, responsible for liaising between the Prime Minister and Labour MPs, thoughDenis Healey termed him "Harold's lapdog".[4] Shore was responsible for drafting the1966[6] and1970[7] election manifestos.[2] Shore's job as Wilson's PPS kept them in close contact and in August 1967, Shore became a member of the Cabinet asSecretary of State for Economic Affairs.
This Department had been created by Wilson to undertake long-term planning of the economy. Shore declared immediately his belief in state-controlled economic planning, together with the regulation of prices and wages. Early in 1968, the responsibility for prices and incomes was transferred to another department. TheTreasury had never approved of the creation of the Department for Economic Affairs and began reasserting its influence, depriving it of any significant power. The department was wound up in October 1969. At the same time, Shore sided with those incabinet who were opposed toBarbara Castle'sWhite Paper,In Place of Strife. In a conversation withRichard Crossman at the time, Wilson was frustrated with Shore: "I over-promoted him. He's no good".[4]
Shore was retained in the Cabinet as aMinister without Portfolio and DeputyLeader of the House of Commons. He played a key part, behind the scenes, in planning the Labour Party's unsuccessful 1970 general election campaign. In opposition, Shore was appointed as spokesman on Europe, taking the lead in opposingEdward Heath's application to join theEuropean Economic Community. Shore had already become convinced that membership of the EEC would be a disaster because it would stop the British government from taking necessary economic action. However, due to organisation by pro-EEC Labour backbenchers, Heath was able to steer his policy successfully through Parliament.
When Wilson returned to government in 1974, Shore was appointed asSecretary of State for Trade. His term in office was dominated by the renegotiation of the terms of British membership of the EEC, a pledge contained in the Labour manifesto as a preparation for a nationalreferendum on membership; this compromise had reunited the Labour Party on the issue. Shore participated in the discussions without believing that any new terms would be acceptable, and during the referendum, he joined with other anti-EEC politicians in opposing membership.
The results of the1975 Referendum, giving a two-to-one majority in favour of remaining a member of the EEC, damaged Shore along with the other 'dissenting ministers'. His inclination to support anautarkic economy ruled him out of consideration as a newChancellor of the Exchequer, but Shore was moved toSecretary of State for the Environment by new Prime MinisterJames Callaghan in 1976.[3] This move was a promotion but involved him in considerable political controversy. He called on local authorities to cut spending and waste, and criticised the trade unions representing local authority staff for failure to support modernisation. Shore also launched a campaign to revitalise theinner cities of Britain.
Shore became a fervent advocate of the British nuclear deterrent for the last three decades of his life, but in 1958 he had been an active member of CND. In his 1966 bookEntitled to Know, he was critical of theNassau Agreement with the United States under which Britain's nuclear submarines were, except in a national emergency, permanently assigned toNATO. Regarding dependence on NATO as limiting Britain's freedom of action, Shore negatively compared Britain's nuclear strategy to that of France:
For if such a policy is likeGeneral de Gaulle's, based upon a deliberate and far-reaching politico-military strategy of national independence, past disengagement from NATO and détente in Europe, it merits the most careful examination. But, of these broader aims, there was not a whisper or suggestion from Tory Ministers.[8]...after the cancellation ofBlue Streak...that, failing the development of a major new British weapons system, we hadn't, and could not in future possess, a genuine independent nuclear capacity.[9]
Shore had always been implacably opposed to any suggestion of British participation in theVietnam War, both as PPS and in Cabinet he had encouraged Wilson to distance himself more explicitly from American foreign policy.[10] By the mid-1970s, while continuing to condemn American foreign policy in Vietnam andChile, he had become more supportive of NATO and the United States.[3]
When the Labour Party went into opposition in 1979, Shore was madeShadow Foreign Secretary, having recanted on his previous support forCND. He was persuaded to stand as a candidate in the election of a new party leader in November 1980 byMichael Foot, who thought he was the best-placed soft-left candidate to defeatDenis Healey.The Times branded him the initial favourite.[3] However, Shore came bottom of the poll with 32 votes when Foot was himself persuaded to stand. Foot then made himShadow Chancellor where his support for interventionist measures met with Foot's approval; party policy also became opposed to EEC membership, which suited Shore well. In the early 1980s, Shore's patriotic tendencies were again evident when he first of all strongly opposed the Conservative Government's attempts to hand over theFalkland Islands to Argentina, then supportedMargaret Thatcher over theFalklands War of 1982.[11][12]
He fought for the leadership again after Foot resigned, but obtained a dismal vote of 3%,[4] being unsupported by any Constituency Labour Party. Shore served asShadow Leader of the House of Commons for four years underNeil Kinnock but his influence with the leadership was negligible and he was not re-elected to theShadow cabinet in 1985. He stood down from the front bench in 1987 and thereafter served on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, devoting himself to European Union questions.Edward Pearce wrote in hisGuardian obituary of Shore that "he had now become a right-wing figure, cluckingly approved of by Conservatives".[4]
Tony Blair selected him as a senior Labour statesman as his nominee for theCommittee on Standards in Public Life when it was set up in 1994.[3]
After several attempts in his constituency party to deselect him, he finally stood down from the House of Commons at the1997 general election, and in the dissolution honours he was made alife peer, being createdBaron Shore of Stepney, ofStepney in theLondon Borough of Tower Hamlets on 5 June 1997.[13]
In contrast to Pearce's assertion that Shore had become a "right-wing figure",Chris Mullin quoted Shore in 1997 as saying: "I still believe in state intervention, a good measure of equality, full employment."[14] Mullin described Shore as alienated fromNew Labour and quoted his criticism: "I like Tony Blair. I think he is probably right about wanting to put a certain distance between the party and the unions, but I'm offended by New Labour's constant repudiation of our past."[14]
His bookSeparate Ways (2000) advocated amulti-speed Europe, with some countries as merely associate members, so as to allow the centre to forge a political union at its own pace.
On 27 September 1948, Shore married DrElizabeth Catherine Wrong, daughter of the Canadian historianEdward Murray Wrong. Known as Liz, she was theDeputy Chief Medical Officer of England from 1977 to 1985, and in this role and later positions she championed women's career progression in medicine.[15] They had two daughters, Thomasina and Tacy, both retired teachers, and two sons, Crispin, who is Professor of Social Anthropology atGoldsmiths, University of London, and Piers, who died in 1977.[15]
On 12 July 2001, Lord Shore collapsed in the House of Lords shortly after speaking in a debate on monetary policy.[16] He received resuscitation and was taken toSt Thomas' Hospital. He died there fromchronic obstructive pulmonary disease and heart disease on 24 September 2001, aged 77.[3][17]
Quotations related toPeter Shore at Wikiquote| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forStepney 1964–1974 | Constituency abolished |
| New constituency | Member of Parliament forStepney and Poplar 1974–1983 | |
| Member of Parliament forBethnal Green and Stepney 1983–1997 | ||
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Secretary of State for Economic Affairs 1967–1969 | Position abolished |
| Preceded by | Minister without Portfolio 1969–1970 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Shadow Minister for Europe 1971–1972 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded byas Secretary of State for Trade and Industry | Secretary of State for Trade 1974–1976 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Secretary of State for the Environment 1976–1979 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment 1979 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Shadow Foreign Secretary 1979–1980 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer 1980–1983 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded byas Shadow Secretary of State for Trade | Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry 1983–1984 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded byas Shadow Secretary of State for Industry | ||
| Preceded by | Shadow Leader of the House of Commons 1983–1987 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Secretary of the Research Department of theLabour Party 1959–1964 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chair of theFabian Society 1968–1969 | Succeeded by |
.svg)
_(St_Edwards_Crown).svg)
