Douglas Hurd

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Douglas Richard Hurd, Baron Hurd of Westwell, CH, CBE, PC (born 8 March 1930), is a senior British Conservative politician and novelist, who served in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major between 1979 and his retirement in 1995. He is a patron of the Tory Reform Group, and remains an active figure in public life.

Contents 1 Background and early political career 1930-79 2 In government, 1979-90 3 Candidacy in the 1990 leadership election 4 Late political career, 1990-95 5 Since 1995 6 Quotations 7 See also 8 Further reading 9 External links

[edit] Background and early political career 1930-79

Douglas Hurd was born in Marlborough, Wiltshire, in 1930. His father Anthony Hurd, Baron Hurd and grandfather Sir Percy Hurd had both been members of Parliament. Hurd attended Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge where he was President of the Cambridge Union Society. In 1952 he joined the Diplomatic Service, during which time he was posted to China, the United States and Italy, leaving the service in 1966 to enter politics as a member of the Conservative Party. He became secretary to the then Conservative leader Edward Heath, and was first elected to Parliament in 1974 to represent the constituency of Mid-Oxfordshire. At the 1983 general election the seat was replaced by Witney, and he remained MP for the seat until he retired from the House of Commons in 1997 after 23 years in Parliament.

[edit] In government, 1979-90

Hurd was appointed Minister of State at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office upon the Conservative victory in the 1979 general election, and remained in that post for the duration of the parliament. After the 1983 election Thatcher moved Hurd to the Home Office, but after six months he was promoted to Cabinet rank, succeeding James Prior as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. In this position, his diplomatic skills paved the way for the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement on the future of Northern Ireland, which marked a turning point in British-Irish co-operation on the political situation in the troubled region. A month before the agreement was signed, however, Hurd returned to the Home Office, this time as Secretary of State, following the demotion of Leon Brittan to the Department of Trade and Industry. Widely seen as a 'safe pair of hands' and a solid, loyal member of the Cabinet, Hurd's tenure as Home Secretary was largely uncontroversial, although he was notably of the view that the British prison system did not work effectively and argued for more rehabilitation of offenders and alternative sentencing.

[edit] Candidacy in the 1990 leadership election

After a sound performance as Home Secretary, Hurd's Cabinet career developed further during the turbulent final months of Margaret Thatcher's premiership. On 26 October 1989, Hurd moved to the Foreign Office, succeeding John Major whose rapid rise through the Cabinet had seen him become Chancellor of the Exchequer in the wake of Nigel Lawson's resignation. This was the post in which Hurd made the greatest political impression. In November 1990, he supported Margaret Thatcher's candidacy as Conservative Party leader against challenger Michael Heseltine, but on her withdrawal from the second round of the contest, Hurd decided to enter the race as a moderate centre-right candidate, drawing on his reputation as a successful 'law-and-order' Home Secretary. He was seen as an outsider, lagging behind the more charismatic Heseltine and the eventual winner, John Major, who shared the moderate centre-right political ground with Hurd but had the added advantages of youth and political momentum. Hurd came third, winning 56 of the 372 votes cast and, together with Heseltine, conceded defeat to allow Major, who had fallen just three votes short of an outright majority, to return unopposed. Hurd was gracious in defeat and, on the formation of Major's first Cabinet, was returned to his position as Foreign Secretary.

[edit] Late political career, 1990-95

Hurd was seen as a statesmanlike Foreign Secretary and his tenure was particularly eventful. He oversaw Britain's diplomatic responses to the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, as well as the first Gulf War to drive Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. Hurd cultivated good relations with the United States under President George Bush Sr., and sought a more conciliatory approach to other members of the European Economic Community, repairing relationships damaged during the increasingly Eurosceptic tone of Margaret Thatcher's final years. Hurd welcomed a reunified Germany into the European political community in 1990.

One of the defining features of Hurd's tenure as Foreign Secretary was the British reaction to the increasingly vicious Yugoslav Wars. During the war in Bosnia, Hurd was seen as a leading voice among European politicians arguing against sending military aid to the Bosniaks, in defiance of the line taken by US President Bill Clinton, and arguing that such a move would only create a 'level killing field' and prolong the conflict unduly. During this period the fractious relations between European and US leaders threatened the stability of the trans-Atlantic alliance and delayed any co-ordinated response to the bloodshed taking place in the collapsing Yugoslavia.

Shortly after his retirement from politics, Hurd travelled to Serbia to meet Slobodan Milošević on behalf of the British bank NatWest (see below), fuelling some speculation that Hurd had deliberately taken a pro-Serbian line. There has been criticism of the policies promoted by Hurd with regard to the war. The Bosnian government even threatened to charge Hurd as an accomplice to genocide before the war tribunal in The Hague, though this came to nothing.

Hurd was involved in a public scandal concerning the UK funding of a Hydroelectric dam on the Pergau River in Malaysia, near the Thai border. Building work began in 1991 with money from the UK foreign aid budget. Concurrently, the Malaysian government bought around £1 billion worth of arms from the UK. The suggested linkage of arms deals to aid became the subject of a UK government inquiry from March 1994. In November 1994, after an application for Judicial Review brought by the World Development Movement, the High Court [1] held that the British Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd had acted ultra vires (outside of his power and therefore illegally) by allocating £234 million towards the funding of the dam, on the grounds that it was not of economic or humanitarian benefit to the Malaysian people. [2] In 2002 the administration of the UK's aid budget was removed from the Foreign Secretary's remit (previously the Overseas Development Administration had been under the supervision of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office). The new department, The Department for International Development (DfID), has its own Secretary of State who is a member of the Cabinet.

In 1995, during the Cabinet reshuffle widely seen as setting up the Conservative team which would contest the next election, Hurd retired from frontline politics after eleven years in the Cabinet and was replaced by Malcolm Rifkind.

[edit] Since 1995

Hurd was generally a well-respected politician and parliamentarian, seen as an intellectual and old-school party grandee. After his retirement as Foreign Secretary, he remained a key supporter of John Major, and kept a range of active political involvements as well as taking on some business appointments, most notably as a deputy chairman of NatWest Markets and a board Director of the NatWest group, posts he held from October 1995 until 1999.

He left the House of Commons at the 1997 general election, and was created Baron Hurd of Westwell, of Westwell in the County of Oxfordshire, entitling him to remain in Parliament as a member of the House of Lords.

In December 1997 he was appointed Chairman of British Invisibles, and was Chairman of the judging panel for the 1998 Booker Prize for Fiction. He became a member of the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords in February 1999, and in September 1999 he was appointed High Steward of Westminster Abbey, reflecting his long active membership of the Church of England. He later went on to chair the Hurd Commission which produced a review of the roles and functions of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

During the 2005 Conservative Party leadership contest, Hurd supported David Cameron, the eventual winner, who is the incumbent MP for Hurd's former seat of Witney.

Douglas Hurd is also well known as a writer of political thrillers including The Arrow War (1967), Truth Game (1972), Vote To Kill (1975), An End To Promises (1979), Image in the Water, and Palace of Enchantments (1985, with Stephen Lamport).

Lord Hurd is currently writing a biography of the 19th Century Conservative Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel.

Hurd's son, Nick Hurd, is also a Conservative politician and was elected Member of Parliament for Ruislip-Northwood at the May 2005 general election.

Another of Hurd's sons, Thomas, joined the Diplomatic Service. His name appeared on a list of suspected MI6 operatives which was published on the Internet, supposedly the work of disgruntled former SIS (MI6) or Security Service (MI5) employees. The authenticity of several entries on the list is questionable, leading to speculation that it was in fact compiled by a poorly informed amateur. The format of the list is taken from The Diplomatic Service List - an annual official publication (known within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as 'The Green Book') listing all members of the Diplomatic Service.

[edit] Quotations

• "We should be wary of politicians who profess to follow history while only noticing those signposts of history that point in the direction which they themselves already favour."
• "People are very interested in politics, they just don't like it labelled 'politics'."
• "Prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse."

[edit] See also

• Thatcher Ministry (1979-90) and Major Ministry (1990-97), governments in which Hurd served
• Order of the Companions of Honour
• List of political families in the United Kingdom
• Tory Reform Group
• America All Party Parliamentary Group

[edit] Further reading

• Memoirs by Douglas Hurd (Little, Brown, 2003)
• The Search for Peace by Douglas Hurd (Little, Brown, 1997)

[edit] External links

• The text of 'To Lead and to Serve', the Hurd Report into the operation of the Archbishopric of Canterbury
• Hurd's memories of his assignment Beijing in the 1950s
• Hurd intervenes in the 2001 General Election campaign on European policy
• BBC reports on the findings of Hurd's commission into the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury
• An article by Douglas Hurd on peace in the Middle East
• Speech by Hurd on Britain and Europe

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by (constituency created)	Member of Parliament for Mid Oxfordshire 1974–1983	Succeeded by (constituency abolished)
Preceded by (constituency created)	Member of Parliament for Witney 1983–1997	Succeeded by Shaun Woodward
Political offices
Preceded by James Prior	Secretary of State for Northern Ireland 1984–1985	Succeeded by Tom King
Preceded by Leon Brittan	Home Secretary 1985–1989	Succeeded by David Waddington
Preceded by John Major	Foreign Secretary 1989–1995	Succeeded by Malcolm Rifkind