Morgan Phillips
Morgan Walter Phillips ( born June 18, 1902 in Aberdare, Glamorgan, † January 15, 1963 in London) was a British Labour Party politician, who was 1944-1961 General Secretary of the Labour Party and from 1951 to 1957 as the first president of the Socialist International acted.
Life
Origin and party secretary
Originally from a working class family of Philip grew up with five siblings in Bargoed and started after finishing his schooling age of twelve in 1914 to work as laborers for a mine. In 1920, he joined as a member of the Labour Party at Caerphilly and was from 1923 to 1925 in Bargoed and party secretary from 1924 to 1926 is also the Chairman of the party organization in the steam coal hut ( Steam Coal Lodge) in Bargoed.
After Phillips had completed two years of a degree program of economic and social subjects at the Labour College in London, he became in 1928 secretary of the Labour Party in West Fulham and later 1934-1937 Party Secretary in Whitechapel. He was also a 1934-1937 member of the Council of the Metropolitan Borough of Fulham. In 1937 he transferred as a propaganda officer in the headquarters of the Labour Party in the House Transportation and took over in 1941 as secretary of the Research Department.
General Secretary of the Labour Party, general election and President of the Socialist International
1944 Phillips was the successor of James Middleton as General Secretary of the Labour Party and has held this function for seventeen years until 1961. In this capacity, he contributed greatly to the victory of the Labour Party at the general election on July 5, 1945. In these elections, the party was able to achieve 49.7 percent of the vote and increased their number of seats to 239 seats to 393 deputies mandates. On the other hand, the Conservative Party suffered under the previous Prime Minister Winston Churchill heavy losses of 11.6 percentage points and 190 mandates.
At the First Congress of the Socialist International from June 30 to July 3, 1951, Phillips was elected the first president of the Socialist International and held this position until his replacement by former defense and finance minister of Denmark Alsing Andersen after his election at the Fifth Congress from 2 to 6 July 1957.
As General Secretary of the Labour Party, he was also responsible for the election campaigns of his party in the lower house elections on October 25, 1951 and May 26, 1955, which, although brought in relatively consistent results in the vote, because of the electoral system but to mandate losses of 18 and 20 seats and ultimately led to the loss of the government majority.
In 1957 he joined a libel suit of Aneurin Bevan and Richard Crossman against the magazine The Spectator, which the men had shown to be highly intoxicated at a Socialist Congress in Italy. Since all three swore that this was untrue, the magazine was sentenced to pay damages. However, Crossman 's posthumously published diaries confirmed the press allegations.
Despite further losses of the Labour Party at the general election on 8 October 1959 by 2.4 percent, and 19 other House mandates its own reputation grew among the public, among other things connected with its newly introduced daily, held press conferences. He also contributed substantially to prevent the disintegration of the party appeared under the title by a Labour in the Sixties (1960 ) extensive choice analysis.
After suffering a stroke in August 1960, Phillips stepped back in 1961 as General Secretary of the Labour Party and was replaced in this role by Leonard Williams.
Family
Phillips was married since 1930 with Norah Mary Lusher, who after his death in 1964 as Life Peeress with the title Baroness Phillips, of Fulham in the County of Greater London due to the Life peerages Act 1958 a member of the House of Lords and there between 1965 and 1970 the first woman Director of the Parliamentary Government (Government Whip ) was. In addition, it was 1978-1986 Lord Lieutenant of Greater London.
From this marriage, among others, the daughter Gwyneth Patricia showed that a total of 38 years represented the Labour Party Member of Parliament in the House of Commons. This in turn was married to the Labour politician John Dunwoody, who was from 1966 to 1970 also a deputy in the House of Commons and served 1969-1970 as Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Ministry of Health. Their daughter Tamsin Dunwoody belonged from 2003 to 2007, representing the Labour Party for a term of the National Assembly for Wales as a member.
Publications
- About the Labour Party - the Party with a Future, 1945
- East Meets West, 1954
- Labour in the Sixties, 1960