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Desmond Donnelly | |
|---|---|
| Member of Parliament forPembrokeshire | |
| In office 1950–1970 | |
| Preceded by | Gwilym Lloyd-George |
| Succeeded by | Nicholas Edwards |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Desmond Louis Donnelly (1920-10-16)16 October 1920 Sibsagar,Assam, India |
| Died | 3 April 1974(1974-04-03) (aged 53) West Drayton, England |
| Cause of death | Drug-relatedsuicide |
| Political party |
|
| Other political affiliations | NILP(1946) |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom |
| Branch/service | Royal Air Force |
| Rank | Flight Lieutenant |
Desmond Louis Donnelly (16 October 1920 – 3 April 1974) was a Britishpolitician, author andjournalist who was a member of four political parties during the course of his career, and moved between parties on five occasions.
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Donnelly, whose ancestry wasIrish, was born inSibsagar,Assam,India, where his father was atea planter; his mother was English and descended from a member of the Indian Civil Service. In 1928 he was the first of his family to return to Britain for his schooling in a century (accompanied by his mother; they lost contact with his father); he went to Brightlands School, Newnham-on-Severn,Gloucestershire. Later he attendedBembridge School (apublic school) on theIsle of Wight. He first joined theLabour Party in 1936 after becoming interested in the ideas ofWilliam Morris.
He did not go to university. As a keen sportsman, Donnelly became secretary of the London Grasshoppers Rugby Club on leaving school and while working as an office boy. At the age of 17 he set up theBritish Empire Cricket XI,[1] which continued through the war years, supportingcricket, and raising funds for the Duke of Gloucester's Red Cross and the St John fund. He enlisted in theRoyal Air Force in 1939 and served as aFlying Officer withBomber Command. Later he joined the 'Desert Air Force' in theNorth African Campaign andItaly where he rose to the rank ofFlight Lieutenant.
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In the1945 general election, Donnelly fought the constituency ofEvesham inWorcestershire forCommon Wealth, an idealisticsocialist party generally regarded as to the left of Labour. Although there was no Labour Party candidate, Donnelly was narrowly pushed into third place by theLiberal Party candidate.
Common Wealth did not long survive the election and Donnelly rejoined Labour in September 1945. From 1945 to 1946 he lectured at the RAF Staff College. On leaving the RAF, Donnelly became assistant editor and later editor ofTown and Country Planning, the journal of theTown and Country Planning Association. From 1948 was that Association's Director. He contested the1946 Down by-election as aNorthern Ireland Labour Party candidate.
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Donnelly was chosen to fightPembrokeshire for the Labour Party in the1950 general election, which a good Labour candidate had narrowly failed to win in 1945 and where the sitting Member,Gwilym Lloyd George, was very popular, not merely because he was the son ofDavid Lloyd George. Despite the general trend away from the Labour Party, Donnelly beat Lloyd George by playing on the fact that he was supporting the Conservatives, and won the seat by 129 votes.
In Parliament, he defined himself as "an Englishman with an Irish name sitting for a Welsh seat"[2] and initially allied withAneurin Bevan. He also made sure to build extensive contacts within his constituency, where he became very popular. Although his seat never became entirely safe, he was never taken to the wire. While serving as an MP, Donnelly upped his income by acting as a consultant to the engineering firms David Brown and Philips Industries and to the merchant bankers Hill Samuel.
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In 1954, Donnelly fell out with Bevan over the issue ofGerman rearmament which he considered necessary. He was also outspokenly anti-Soviet Union, a position which intensified after he made trips to theSoviet bloc. After 1955, he became known as a vociferous opponent of theCampaign for Nuclear Disarmament and ageneral supporter ofHugh Gaitskell as Labour leader.
This ensured his appointment as political correspondent for theDaily Herald from 1959, but Gaitskell's death in 1963 brought inHarold Wilson with whom Donnelly was not pleased; although his skills would have merited appointment to Wilson's government after the1964 election, Wilson offered Donnelly nothing.
In the mid-1960s, Donnelly decided to call for an alliance between the Labour Party and the Liberal Party. He also joined with another Labour MP,Woodrow Wyatt, to publicly oppose the Labour Party policy ofnationalising theSteel industry; given the narrow majority which Wilson's government had in its first term, their opposition would have been enough to vote down the plan, and any moves had to be postponed until after the1966 election gave a landslide majority.
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Donnelly began causing increasing trouble to the Labour Party whips after the election. He became chief political correspondent for theNews of the World in 1967 which ensured his views were widely known. He heaped scorn on the government's handling of the economy and called for a fundamental change to the relation of the party to thetrade unions "in which the unions do not look on the Labour Party as their petpoodle".
The final breach in relations came after spending cuts caused bydevaluation of thePound sterling in November 1967 forced the government to withdraw from defence commitments 'east of Suez'. Donnelly resigned the Labour Party whip in the House of Commons on 18 January 1968. The Labour Party responded on 27 March by expelling him from membership of the party entirely.
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At a meeting of theMonday Club in 1968, Donnelly received a two-minute standing ovation, and then told members "Mr Wilson should resign and leave public life". However he was not willing to join theConservative Party and instead set up his own party, initially known as 'Our Party' but later theDemocratic Party. In some respects the party's policy was to the right of the Conservatives, advocating the abolition of thewelfare state, sweeping changes to the taxation system, and the return ofnational service. The party fought five seats at the1970 general election but polled poorly. Donnelly himself lost Pembrokeshire to the Conservatives.
Abruptly, in April 1971, Donnelly announced that he had joined theConservative Party, without warning the members of the Democratic Party. He explained that the Conservative Party closely reflected his views on reform of the law relating to trades unions andEEC entry, and attended the Conservative Party conference that October as a delegate fromCities of London and Westminster. He applied for, but did not get, the Conservative nomination for theHove by-election in 1973, and was also rejected forMelton for the next general election.
In addition to prolific journalism (he specialised in book reviews), Donnelly had gone into business after his defeat in 1970 and became chairman of ICPS Ltd and Managing Director of Practical Europe Ltd.[3] In the recession of 1973 and 1974, his companies struggled financially, and this, combined with his failure to get back into theHouse of Commons as a Conservative, was to cause serious depression.
Donnelly committedsuicide in a hotel room atWest Drayton nearHeathrow Airport on 3 April 1974, by drinking a large amount ofvodka and taking a massiveoverdose ofbarbiturates.[4]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forPembrokeshire 1950–1970 | Succeeded by |
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| National | |
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