Peter Shore

Peter David Shore, Baron Shore of Stepney, PC (20 May 1924 – 24 September 2001) was a British Labour politician and former Cabinet Minister, noted in part for his opposition to the United Kingdom's entry into the European Economic Community. His idiosyncratic left-wing nationalism led to comparison with the French politician Jean-Pierre Chevènement.[1] He was described in an obituary by the Conservative journalist Patrick Cosgrave as "Between Harold Wilson and Tony Blair, the only possible Labour Party leader of whom a Conservative leader had cause to walk in fear" and, along with Enoch Powell, "the most captivating rhetorician of the age".[2]

Not to be confused with the theoretical computer scientist Peter Shor.

The Right Honourable The Lord Shore of Stepney PC
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	Jim 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	Jim 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	Jim 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	Position abolished Anthony Crosland (Minister of State)
Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Stepney Stepney (1964–1974) Stepney and Poplar (1974–1983)
In office 15 October 1964 – 1 May 1997
Preceded by	Stoker Edwards
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Personal details
Born	(1924-05-20)20 May 1924 Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England
Died	24 September 2001(2001-09-24) (aged 77) London, England
Political party	Labour
Children	Piers Shore Crispin Nicholas Shore Tacy Susan Shore Thomasina Shore
Alma mater	King's College, Cambridge

Early life

Born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, Shore was the son of a Merchant Navy captain and was brought up in a middle-class environment. He attended Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool and, from there, went to King's College, Cambridge, to read History as an exhibitioner, where he was a member of the Cambridge Apostles, a secret society with an elite membership.[2] During the later stages of World War II he served in the Royal Air Force, spending most of his time in India.

Political career

He had specialised in political economy during part of his degree and joined the Labour Party in 1948. He spent the 1950s working for the party and, after two unsuccessful Parliamentary contests at St Ives in 1950 and Halifax 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 of Hugh Gaitskell; his adherence to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament from 1958 led to a breach in relations for several years.[3]

He became close to Harold Wilson after Wilson had been elected as party leader, and was the main author of the Labour Party manifesto for the 1964 general election. At the last minute, he was selected to fight the safe seat of Stepney in the election, which he easily won.[4]

After only a short spell on the backbenches, Wilson chose Shore to be Parliamentary Private Secretary, responsible for liaising between the Prime Minister and Labour MPs, though Denis Healey termed him "Harold's lapdog".[3] Shore was responsible for drafting the 1966[5] and 1970[6] 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 as Secretary of State for Economic Affairs.

In government

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. The Treasury 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 in cabinet who were opposed to Barbara Castle's White Paper, In Place of Strife. In a conversation with Richard Crossman at the time, Wilson was frustrated with Shore: "I over-promoted him. He's no good".[3]

Shore was retained in the Cabinet as a Minister without Portfolio and Deputy Leader 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 opposing Edward Heath application to join the European 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.

EEC

When Wilson returned to government in 1974, Shore was appointed as Secretary 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 national referendum 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 the 1975 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 an autarkic economy ruled him out of consideration as a new Chancellor of the Exchequer, but Shore was moved to Secretary of State for the Environment by new Prime Minister James Callaghan in 1976. 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 the inner cities of Britain.

Nuclear deterrent

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 book Entitled to Know, he was critical of the Nassau Agreement with the United States under which Britain's nuclear submarines were, except in a national emergency, permanently assigned to NATO. 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 like General 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.[7] ...after the cancellation of Blue 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.[8]

Shore had always been implacably opposed to any suggestion of British participation in the Vietnam war, both as PPS and in Cabinet he had encouraged Wilson to distance himself more explicitly from American foreign policy.[9] By the mid-1970s, while continuing to condemn American foreign policy in Vietnam and Chile, he had become more supportive of NATO and the United States.

Labour leadership candidate

When the Labour Party went into opposition in 1979, Shore was made Shadow Foreign Secretary, having recanted on his previous support for CND. He was persuaded to stand as a candidate in the election of a new party leader in November 1980 by Michael Foot who thought he was the best-placed soft-left candidate to defeat Denis Healey. However, Shore came bottom of the poll with 32 votes when Foot was himself persuaded to stand. Foot then made him Shadow 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 the Falkland Islands to Argentina, then supported Margaret Thatcher over the Falklands War of 1982.[10][11]

Shadow Cabinet

He fought for the leadership again after Foot resigned, but obtained a dismal vote of 3%,[3] being unsupported by any Constituency Labour Party. Shore served as Shadow Leader of the House of Commons for four years under Neil Kinnock but his influence with the leadership was negligible and he was not re-elected to the Shadow 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 his Guardian obituary of Shore that "he had now become a right-wing figure, cluckingly approved of by Conservatives".[3]

Tony Blair selected him as a senior Labour statesman as his nominee for the Committee on Standards in Public Life when it was set up in 1994.

Backbenches, retirement and death

After several attempts in his constituency party to deselect him, he finally stood down from the House of Commons at the 1997 general election, and in the dissolution honours he was made a life peer, being created Baron Shore of Stepney, of Stepney in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets on 5 June 1997.[12] His book Separate Ways (2000) advocated a multi-speed Europe, with some countries as merely associate members, so as to allow the centre to forge a political union at its own pace. He died in 2001, aged 77.

Personal life

On 27 September 1948, Shore married Elizabeth Catherine Wrong, daughter of the historian Edward Murray Wrong. They had two sons and two daughters.

References

1. "The Financial Statement and Budget Report 1998-99". Hansard. Column 1342. 23 April 1998.
2. Cosgrave, Patrick; Dalyell, Tam (26 September 2001). "Lord Shore of Stepney". The Independent. Retrieved 10 February 2017.
3. Pearce, Edward (26 September 2001). "Lord Shore of Stepney". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 February 2017.
4. "Shore, Peter David, 1924-2001, Baron Shore of Stepney, politician", Archives in London and the M25 area
5. "Time for Decision" Archived 13 July 2017 at the Wayback Machine, - Text of the 1966 Labour Party manifesto, Political Science Resources website.
6. "Now Britain's Strong - Let's Make It Great to Live In" Archived 9 May 2017 at the Wayback Machine, - Text of the 1970 Labour Party manifesto, Political Science Resources website.
7. Peter Shore (1966). Entitled to Know. London: MacGibbon & Kee. p. 70.
8. Peter Shore (1966). Entitled to Know. London: MacGibbon & Kee. p. 71.
9. Peter Shore (1993). Leading the Left. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. pp. 94–95.
10. https://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2010/03/british-argentina-islands. Retrieved 5 April 2019.
11. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/sep/26/guardianobituaries.obituaries. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
12. "No. 54789". The London Gazette. 10 June 1997. p. 6745.

13. His famous Oxford Union speech was used by the Leave Campaign in the EU Referendum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXHwTT-ewLM

Bibliography

• Entitled to Know, MacGibbon & Kee (1966) ISBN 978-0-2616-3132-8
• Europe : the way back, Fabian Society (1973)
• Leading the Left, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1993) ISBN 978-0-2978-1096-4
• Separate Ways, Duckworth (2000) ISBN 978-0-7156-2972-7

Archives

• Catalogue of the Shore papers at the Archives Division of the London School of Economics.

External links

• Quotations related to Peter Shore at Wikiquote
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Peter Shore

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Stoker Edwards	Member of Parliament for Stepney 1964–1974	Constituency abolished
New constituency	Member of Parliament for Stepney and Poplar 1974–1983
	Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Stepney 1983–1997
Political offices
Preceded by Michael Stewart	Secretary of State for Economic Affairs 1967–1969	Position abolished
Preceded by George Thomson	Minister without Portfolio 1969–1970	Succeeded by The Lord Drumalbyn
Preceded by Harold Lever	Shadow Minister for Europe 1971–1972	Succeeded by Michael Foot
Preceded by Peter Walker as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry	Secretary of State for Trade 1974–1976	Succeeded by Edmund Dell
Preceded by Tony Crosland	Secretary of State for the Environment 1976–1979	Succeeded by Michael Heseltine
Preceded by Michael Heseltine	Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment 1979	Succeeded by Roy Hattersley
Preceded by Francis Pym	Shadow Foreign Secretary 1979–1980	Succeeded by Denis Healey
Preceded by Denis Healey	Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer 1980–1983	Succeeded by Roy Hattersley
Preceded by Peter Archer as Shadow Secretary of State for Trade	Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry 1983–1984	Succeeded by John Smith
Preceded by Stanley Orme as Shadow Secretary of State for Industry
Preceded by John Silkin	Shadow Leader of the House of Commons 1983–1987	Succeeded by Frank Dobson
Party political offices
Preceded by Arthur Blenkinsop	Chair of the Fabian Society 1968–1969	Succeeded by Thomas Balogh