(b. Abergavenny, 13 Feb. 1922) British; Defence Secretary 1979 – 81, Foreign Secretary 1982 – 3; Baron (life peer) 1987 The son of a Conservative MP, Pym was educated at Eton and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He saw war service in Africa and Italy and was awarded the Military Cross. A traditional Tory landowner, he was elected as MP for Cambridgeshire in 1961. A year later he was appointed to the Whips' office and spent the next eleven years working his way up within that office: he was deputy chief in Opposition from 1967 to 1970 and became government chief whip following the Conservative election victory in 1970. An extremely patient and courteous man, his skills were put to the test by a stubborn Prime Minister, Edward Heath, and an increasingly rebellious parliamentary party, Pym on occasion having to tell Heath that the did not have a majority to carry some votes. Heath did not always heed his advice, but Pym's careful handling of relations with backbenchers prevented Conservative backbench rebelliousness from being even greater than it was and he ensured the passage of the momentous and contentious European Communities Bill in 1972. He was promoted to the Cabinet as Northern Ireland Secretary in 1973, serving briefly before the Conservative defeat in the 1974 general election. Although he was a "One-Nation" Tory, Margaret Thatcher kept him on the front bench after her party leadership victory, but his position as shadow Foreign Secretary was not translated into the foreign secretaryship in 1979. Instead he was made Defence Secretary and upset the Prime Minister with his opposition to defence cuts. In 1981 he was shifted to become leader of the House of Commons, but the following year the departure of Lord Carrington from the Foreign Office left the Prime Minister unable to resist pressure to appoint Pym as his successor. Largely out of step with the Prime Minister's thinking, his fate was sealed during the 1983 election campaign when he said that a massive Conservative majority might not be a good thing for the country. As soon as the election was over, Thatcher dismissed him from office. He left the House of Commons in 1987, taking a life peerage.
Pym was a gentleman of the old school, out of tune with the Thatcherite drift in the Conservative Party. After leaving office, he founded a body called Centre Forward to represent traditional Toryism, but it proved short-lived. He also expounded his beliefs in a short book, The Politics of Consent (1984).
Francis Pym, Baron Pym
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The British statesman Francis Pym (born 1922) was foreign secretary during the Falkland Islands War of 1982.
Francis Leslie Pym was born on February 13, 1922, in Abergavenny, Monmouth County, Wales, into a family that had provided political leaders to Britain for centuries. One of his ancestors was John Pym, a leader of the parliamentary cause in the 17th-century civil war. When he entered the House of Commons for the first time in 1961, representing a Cambridgeshire district where his family had long been prominent, he was the fifth Pym to serve his country there. His father, Leslie Ruthven Pym, was a member of Parliament who became Conservative Party whip as well as a wealthy real estate broker.
Brought up in a privileged background, Pym was educated at the traditional training grounds for the nation's ruling elite, Eton College, and at Magdalene College of Cambridge University. He entered the army in 1942 and served with distinction as an officer in the Royal Lancers in Italy and North Africa. After returning to civilian life in 1946, he entered the business world working for a department store chain in Birmingham and Liverpool. He married Valerie Fortune Daglish in 1949, and they had two sons and two daughters. In 1959 he entered politics, contesting Rhonda West as a Conservative, but he was defeated.
In 1961 he won his election from Cambridgeshire, beginning a parliamentary career that made him one of the most respected Conservatives of his era. He quickly gained office as assistant government whip from 1962 to 1964, and when the Labour Party ousted the Conservatives in 1964 Pym became an opposition whip (1964-1967) and then deputy chief whip for the opposition (1967-1970). An able parliamentarian with a talent for compromise, Pym was well placed to assume office when the Conservatives returned to power in 1970. Prime Minister Edward Heath chose him as parliamentary secretary to the treasury and government chief whip. He was in effect the floor manager for the government in the House of Commons, lining up the votes which the prime minister needed to get his programs enacted.
Pym found an assignment which not only tested his skills but also allowed him to work for something he strongly believed in - British entry into the European Economic Community (European Union). This was an issue which cut across party lines, and Pym managed to get the votes for passage. He had less success in his next assignment, as secretary of state for Northern Ireland from 1973 until the Heath government fell in 1974. In opposition again, Pym became his party's spokesman first on agriculture and then on Commons affairs and devolution (1976-1978) and foreign and commonwealth affairs (1978-1979).
Although Pym represented the more moderate and traditional wing of his party, he won the support of the right-winger who became Conservative leader in 1975, Margaret Thatcher. When she took office in 1979, Pym was passed over for foreign secretary, but he did win the position of secretary of state for defense. Thatcher's plans to cut back Britain's defense budget left Pym ill at ease and eventually led to his leaving the Defense Ministry in 1981 to become the leader of the House of Commons as well as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. In 1982, when the Falkland Islands War with Argentina began and Lord Carrington, the foreign secretary, was blamed for not heading off the trouble, Thatcher asked Pym to replace him.
As foreign secretary Pym not only had to deal with the Falklands and serve as a member of the prime minister's war cabinet, directing the conduct of the campaign, but he also had to handle a tense situation regarding Britain's contributions to the European Common Market. Thatcher gained immense public support for her role as a war leader, and as she headed towards a sweeping reelection victory in 1983 it became obvious that she intended to replace Pym with someone who represented her own kind of conservatism. During the elections Pym made a widely quoted comment that huge majorities were not good for governments. The prime minister publicly criticized him for this. When she won she dropped Pym from her government.
Pym was then free to speak his mind as an independent, and he began to elaborate on his criticisms of Thatcherism in 1984. He had always felt uneasy about the prime minister's monetarist economic policies which led to unemployment and what he felt caused unneeded suffering among the poor. In his speeches and in his book The Politics of Consent Pym explained why Thatcher's combative policies were at odds with the true Conservative approach. Pym's book gained support with some, while others claimed that it merely glossed over important topics - long on rhetoric and providing little substance. In May 1985, Pym launched an anti-Thatcher movement within the Conservative Party, the "Conservative Centre Forward, " but this failed to attract the support of leading members of the party and was given little chance of success. In fact, Thatcher swept to an easy reelection victory in 1987, taking 43 percent of the vote in a three-party race. While his attempts to revamp the Conservative Party eventually fizzled, Pym accepted a peerage in 1987 for his lifetime service to his country, and was given the title Baron Francis Leslie Pym of Sandy.
Further Reading
Pym's book The Politics of Consent (1984) provides the best insights into his thinking. He is discussed in Alan Sked and Chris Cook, Post-War Britain, A Political History (1984), and in Peter Riddell, The Thatcher Government (1983).
| Wikipedia: Francis Pym, Baron Pym |
| The Right Honourable The Lord Pym MC PC |
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| In office 6 April 1982 – 11 June 1983 |
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| Prime Minister | Margaret Thatcher |
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| Preceded by | The Lord Carrington |
| Succeeded by | Sir Geoffrey Howe |
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| In office 14 September 1981 – 6 April 1982 |
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| Prime Minister | Margaret Thatcher |
| Preceded by | The Lord Soames |
| Succeeded by | John Biffen |
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| In office 5 January 1981 – 6 April 1982 |
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| Prime Minister | Margaret Thatcher |
| Preceded by | Norman St. John-Stevas |
| Succeeded by | John Biffen |
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| In office 5 January – 14 September 1981 |
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| Prime Minister | Margaret Thatcher |
| Preceded by | Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster: Norman St. John-Stevas Paymaster-General: Angus Maude |
| Succeeded by | Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster: The Lady Young Paymaster-General: Cecil Parkinson |
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| In office 4 May 1979 – 5 January 1981 |
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| Prime Minister | Margaret Thatcher |
| Preceded by | Frederick Mulley |
| Succeeded by | John Nott |
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| In office 2 December 1973 – 4 March 1974 |
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| Prime Minister | Edward Heath |
| Preceded by | William Whitelaw |
| Succeeded by | Merlyn Rees |
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| In office 20 June 1970 – 2 December 1973 |
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| Prime Minister | Edward Heath |
| Deputy | Humphrey Atkins Treasurer of the Household |
| Preceded by | Bob Mellish |
| Succeeded by | Humphrey Atkins |
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| Born | 13 February 1922 Penpergwm, Monmouthshire |
| Died | 7 March 2008 (aged 86) |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Alma mater | Eton College Magdalene College, Cambridge |
Francis Leslie Pym, Baron Pym MC, PC (13 February 1922 – 7 March 2008) was a British Conservative Party politician who, during his political career, held several Cabinet positions.
He was born at Penpergwm Lodge, near Abergavenny in Monmouthshire, and was educated at Eton and Magdalene College, Cambridge. For much of World War II he served in North Africa and Italy as a Captain and regimental adjutant in the 9th Lancers and he was awarded the Military Cross; he ended his military service as a Major.
He was a managing director and landowner, and became a Councillor on Herefordshire County Council.
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Political career
Pym contested Rhondda West without success in 1959 and entered Parliament in 1961 at a by-election as Member of Parliament for Cambridgeshire. He held the seat until 1983, and was MP for Cambridgeshire South East 1983–1987.
Pym was an Opposition whip from 1964 and served under Edward Heath as Government Chief Whip (1970–1973) and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1973–1974), and Margaret Thatcher as Defence Secretary (1979–1981), Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council (1981–1982). He took up the role of Tory foreign secretary during the Falklands War in 1982 following Lord Carrington's resignation, but was removed from this role by Margaret Thatcher in 1983 after her second election victory (see also Conservative Government 1979-1997).
He was regarded as a leading member of the Wets during the Thatcher administration. During the 1983 general election campaign he stated on the BBC's Question Time programme that he thought that "Landslides don't on the whole produce successful governments".[1] This was publicly repudiated by his party leader Margaret Thatcher.
Shortly afterwards, he launched a new pressure group called Conservative Centre Forward specifically to argue for more centrist, One Nation policies. But with Mrs Thatcher now at the height of her powers, it was unsuccessful.
He stood down at the 1987 election and was created a life peer as Baron Pym, of Sandy in the County of Bedfordshire. Pym was not a descendant of the 17th century Parliamentarian John Pym as has been commonly held. See Pym's own published family history. His father, Leslie Pym, was also a Member of Parliament; his grandfather, Rt. Rev. Walter Ruthven Pym, was Bishop of Bombay.
He died on 7 March 2008 after a prolonged illness, aged 86. [2]
In popular culture
Pym was the touchstone for the role of Chief Whip played by Peter Cartwright in the 1987-88 BBC TV sit-com Yes, Prime Minister.
Pym was portrayed by Jeremy Child in the 2002 BBC production of Ian Curteis's controversial The Falklands Play.
References
Bibliography
- Obituary, The Guardian, 7 March 2008
- Obituary, The Times, 8 March 2008
- Obituary, The Independent, 8 March 2008
- Obituary, The Daily Telegraph, 8 March 2008
External links
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Francis Pym
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