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Giles Radice

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British politician and author (1936–2022)

The Right HonourableThe Lord RadicePC
Official portrait, 2018
Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee
In office
17 July 1997 – 7 June 2001
Prime MinisterTony Blair
Succeeded byJohn McFall
Shadow Secretary of State for
Education and Science
In office
2 October 1983 – 13 July 1987
LeaderNeil Kinnock
Preceded byNeil Kinnock
Succeeded byJack Straw
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Life peerage
16 July 2001 – 1 August 2022
Member of Parliament
for North DurhamChester-le-Street (1973–1983)
In office
1 March 1973 – 14 May 2001
Preceded byNorman Pentland
Succeeded byKevan Jones
Personal details
BornGiles Heneage Radice
(1936-10-04)4 October 1936
London, England
Died25 August 2022(2022-08-25) (aged 85)
Political partyLabour
Spouses
  • Penelope Angus ​ ​(m. 1959; div. 1969)​
  • Lisanne Koch ​(m. 1971)​
Children2
Alma materMagdalen College, Oxford
Radice's voice from the BBC programme Westminster Hour, 26 April 2009

Giles Heneage Radice, Baron Radice, PC (4 October 1936 – 25 August 2022) was a British Labour Party politician and author. He served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1973 to 2001, representing part of County Durham, and then as a life peer in the House of Lords from 2001 until shortly before his death in 2022.

Early life

Radice was born in London on 4 October 1936, the son of a civil servant in the Indian Government, Lawrence Radice. His mother, Patricia, was the daughter of Conservative politician Arthur Heneage. Radice was educated at Winchester College and Magdalen College, Oxford. His national service was with the Coldstream Guards. He then worked as a research officer for the General and Municipal Workers' Union and was chair of the Young Fabians from 1967 to 1968.

Parliamentary career

Radice first stood for Parliament at Chippenham in 1964 and 1966, but came third each time. He was elected Labour Member of Parliament for Chester-le-Street from a 1973 by-election to 1983 and then North Durham until his retirement in 2001.

Radice served as Education spokesman in the Labour Shadow Cabinet under Neil Kinnock in the 1980s. As chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, Radice helped make the monetary policy committee of the Bank of England accountable to both Parliament and the people for its decisions over interest rates. He was a member of the House of Lords European Union Sub-Committee on external affairs until March 2015.

A europhile, Radice was one of only five Labour MPs to vote for the third reading of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, defying his party Whip, which was to abstain.

He was made a life peer as Baron Radice, of Chester-le-Street in the County of Durham, on 16 July 2001. He retired from the House of Lords on 1 August 2022.

Writing and political ideas

As an advocate for Labour to ditch traditional dogmas, Radice has been described as a forerunner to Tony Blair. In his 1989 book Labour's Path to Power: The New Revisionism, Radice set out his vision for a modernised Labour Party, which included abandoning Clause IV of the party constitution. His 1992 pamphlet "Southern Discomfort" also made a case for reform, arguing that Labour did not appear supportive of economic aspiration, and this was costing them support from working class voters in Southern England, particularly London.

Philip Stephens later wrote in the Financial Times,

At that time, Giles Radice, then an MP, wrote a brilliant essay on what he called Labour's 'southern discomfort'. The party would not win, he argued, unless and until it managed to connect its ambitions for social justice with the individualistic aspirations of the voters in southern England. Here was the template for Mr Blair.

Radice returned to this theme following Labour's 2010 defeat: his "Southern Discomfort Again" pamphlet (with Patrick Diamond) found that voters perceived that Labour had run out of steam, were out of touch (particularly on immigration), unfair and poorly led. In this pamphlet and in "Southern Discomfort: One Year On" (2011), Radice warned that the 'southern problem' is more than geographical: social change means that Labour support collapsed in other areas, including the Midlands. A committed pro-European, Radice was a leading member both of the European Movement and Britain in Europe, and wrote a polemic called Offshore in 1992, in which he put the case for Britain in Europe.

After his retirement as an MP in 2001 Radice, wrote Friends and Rivals, an acclaimed triple biography of three modernisers from an earlier generation—Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey, and Anthony Crosland—arguing that their failure to work more closely together had harmed the modernising cause. This was followed by The Tortoise and the Hares, a comparative biography of Clement Attlee, Ernest Bevin, Stafford Cripps, Hugh Dalton and Herbert Morrison. Trio: Inside the Blair, Brown, Mandelson Project was published in 2010. In a review of Trio, Andrew Blick wrote that, "With his previous work Friends and Rivals (2002) and The Tortoise and the Hares (2008), Radice developed a distinctive approach to contemporary history, using group biography ....Radice adds to his historical approach not only a readable writing style, but the judgements of an experienced Labour politician."

Other positions

Lord Radice had been a member of the advisory board of the Centre for British Studies of Berlin's Humboldt University since 1998. He was also a member of the Fabian Society. Radice was a chair of the British Association for Central and Eastern Europe (BACEE), and chair of the European Movement, from 1995 to 2001. He was also a chairman of Policy Network, the international progressive thinktank based in London.

Personal life

Radice married Penelope Angus in 1959; they had two daughters and divorced in 1969. In 1971, he married historian Lisanne Koch. He was a longtime resident of Camden, living in Gloucester Crescent in the 1960s before relocating to Parliament Hill.

Radice died from cancer on 25 August 2022, at age 85.

Books

References

  1. "26/04/2009". Westminster Hour. 26 April 2009. BBC Radio 4. Archived from the original on 31 August 2022. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  2. "Mr Giles Radice". Hansard. Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved 13 May 2021.
  3. "Parliamentary career for Lord Radice – MPs and Lords". UK Parliament. Archived from the original on 13 May 2021. Retrieved 13 May 2021.
  4. ^ Langdon, Julia (30 August 2022). "Lord Radice obituary". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 31 August 2022. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  5. ^ "Lord Radice obituary". The Times. 27 August 2022. Archived from the original on 26 August 2022. Retrieved 27 August 2022.
  6. ^ "Contact information for Lord Radice – MPs and Lords – UK Parliament". members.parliament.uk. Archived from the original on 10 March 2018. Retrieved 29 May 2021.
  7. "'Wise and kind' Labour peer Giles Radice dies at 85". The Guardian. Press Association. 26 August 2022. Archived from the original on 26 August 2022. Retrieved 27 August 2022.
  8. House of Commons Treasury Select Committee Accountability of the Bank of England, 1st Report 1997 – 1998 and Confirmation Hearings 3rd Report 1997-1998
  9. "Tory MPs in record revolt: Lamont leaves door open for ERM re-entry". The Independent. 21 May 1993. Archived from the original on 5 February 2015. Retrieved 3 November 2017.
  10. "No. 56281". The London Gazette. 20 July 2001. p. 8601.
  11. "Retirement of One Member (Retirement List) Lord Radice (1 August)". UK Parliament. Archived from the original on 21 July 2022. Retrieved 21 July 2022.
  12. "Lord Radice, Labour moderate who helped prepare the intellectual ground for Tony Blair – obituary". The Daily Telegraph. 28 August 2022. Archived from the original on 28 August 2022. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  13. Stephens, Philip (5 June 2006). "Philip Stephens: North-south divide of UK politics". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 27 August 2022. Retrieved 27 August 2022.
  14. ^ "Leading Labour strategist says Labour must recapture the south". Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate. 24 September 2010. Archived from the original on 27 August 2022. Retrieved 27 August 2022.
  15. ^ "Publications – Southern Discomfort Again". Policy Network. 11 October 2010. Archived from the original on 23 February 2011.
  16. "Offshore: Britain and the European Idea". Waterstones. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  17. Political Quarterly, Vol 82, Issue 2, 2011, pp. 322–25.
  18. Humboldt University of Berlin Advisory Council website Archived 18 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine, gbz.hu-berlin.de; accessed 21 February 2016.
  19. Langlois, André (28 August 2022). "'Wise and kind': Tributes to Labour politician Giles Radice". Ham & High. Archant. Archived from the original on 28 August 2022. Retrieved 29 August 2022.
  20. ^ "Giles Radice bibliography". Encyclopedia.com. Archived from the original on 11 March 2022. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  21. ^ "Giles Radice bibliography". Blackwells. Archived from the original on 31 August 2022. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  22. "Diaries – Giles Radice". Blackwells. Archived from the original on 31 August 2022. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  23. "The Tortoise and the Hares". Waterstones. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  24. "Trio: Inside the Blair, Brown, Mandelson Project". Waterstones. Retrieved 30 August 2022.

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Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded byNorman Pentland Member of Parliament for Chester-le-Street
1973–1983 		Constituency abolished
New constituency Member of Parliament for North Durham
1983–2001 		Succeeded byKevan Jones
Party political offices
Preceded byAnthony Lester Treasurer of the Fabian Society
1974–1976 		Succeeded byJohn Roper
Preceded byColin Crouch Chair of the Fabian Society
1976–1977 		Succeeded byDick Leonard
Fabian Society
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