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Reggie: The Life of Reginald Maudling
REGINALD MAUDLING, seen by The Observer in 1955 as 'a future Prime Minister', never fulfilled his early promise. In this, the first full biography of Maudling, Lewis Baston presents a picture of a popular and respected politician, with a major influence on post-war Britain, whose career ended in scandal and ignominy.
In the 1960s and 1970s Maudling occupied a succession of high offices and was twice a candidate for Conservative leadership. He was also a political thinker whose ideas influenced Tory politics for thirty years. He helped liquidate the British Empire, he was the unions' favourite Tory Chancellor, a permissive Home Secretary and an outspoken opponent of Margaret Thatcher. His position now seems well to the left of New Labour.
When Maudling failed to reach the top in 1965, the impact on him was devastating. His personal and business life started to go wrong and he lost his ethical moorings. He formed a business partnership with corrupt architect John Poulson and sought riches in the Middle East. When Poulson's corruption was revealed in 1972, Maudling resigned as Home Secretary. In the years that followed Maudling was investigated by the Fraud Squad (who wanted him prosecuted), bankruptcy investigators, the Department of Trade and Industry and inland revenue. The true scale of his involvement in the Poulson scandal is revealed here for the first time.
With access to previously secret government and police files, and interviews with family, friends, colleagues and investigators, Lewis Baston is in a unique position to tell the full, tragic story of Maudling's rise and fall. Reggie: The Life of Reginald Maudling restores an extraordinary man to his rightful place in the history of twentieth-century Britain.
In the 1960s and 1970s Maudling occupied a succession of high offices and was twice a candidate for Conservative leadership. He was also a political thinker whose ideas influenced Tory politics for thirty years. He helped liquidate the British Empire, he was the unions' favourite Tory Chancellor, a permissive Home Secretary and an outspoken opponent of Margaret Thatcher. His position now seems well to the left of New Labour.
When Maudling failed to reach the top in 1965, the impact on him was devastating. His personal and business life started to go wrong and he lost his ethical moorings. He formed a business partnership with corrupt architect John Poulson and sought riches in the Middle East. When Poulson's corruption was revealed in 1972, Maudling resigned as Home Secretary. In the years that followed Maudling was investigated by the Fraud Squad (who wanted him prosecuted), bankruptcy investigators, the Department of Trade and Industry and inland revenue. The true scale of his involvement in the Poulson scandal is revealed here for the first time.
With access to previously secret government and police files, and interviews with family, friends, colleagues and investigators, Lewis Baston is in a unique position to tell the full, tragic story of Maudling's rise and fall. Reggie: The Life of Reginald Maudling restores an extraordinary man to his rightful place in the history of twentieth-century Britain.
604 pages, Hardcover
First published October 27, 2004
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Lewis Baston
12 books9 followersLewis Baston is an English political analyst and writer.
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March 22, 2023
British history is replete with the names of men and women who, but for an election, an untimely circumstance, or their health, might have become prime minister. Among their number is Reggie Maudling. A rising star in the post-war Conservative Party, Maudling was narrowly defeated by Edward Heath in their party’s first-ever leadership election in 1965. Had Maudling won, it is likely that he rather than Heath would have become prime minister when the Conservatives next won a general election, with all that would have meant for subsequent events.
Instead, as Lewis Baston details in this excellent book, Maudling’s defeat proved a turning point in his personal life. In the years that followed Maudling increasingly turned to the bottle, and indiscriminately assumed numerous directorships in order to earn enough money support his profligate lifestyle. Scandals in two of the companies with which he was involved brought his political career to a premature end in the early 1970s, driving him further to drink and contributing to his early death in 1979. It was a dismal end for a career once so promising that there seemed no limit to what Maudling might accomplish.
Maudling’s gifts were evident from an early age. The only child of a leading actuary, he sailed through his education and obtained a first-class Greats degree at Oxford in just three years. Though he was called to the Bar at the age of 22, a career in the law was curtailed by the Second World War. After service in the Intelligence branch of the Royal Air Force, Maudling became one of the many Tories who were buried in the Labour Party’s landslide victory in the 1945 General Election, which proved an ignominious beginning to his long career as a Conservative politician. In the aftermath of his defeat, Maudling became the first staff member of the Conservative Party Secretariat, an organization created to provide support for the few Conservatives in the House of Commons who had survived at the polls. It was there that he became acquaintances with Iain Macleod and Enoch Powell, two other young Tories who seemed destined for long and successful careers in elected office.
Maudling got his off to a good start in 1950 by winning a safe Tory seat in northwestern London, and the Conservatives’ victory a year later brought him office as a junior minister. Over the next decade he enjoyed a political ascent that was marred by only the occasional hiccup, and climaxed in 1962 with Maudling’s selection by Harold Macmillan as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Baston sees his time as Chancellor as the happiest period in his subject’s life, as he enjoyed the role and his future seemed bright. Such were his prospects that as early as the Profumo affair the following year Maudling was being discussed as Macmillan’s successor, and though it was Alec Douglas-Home who took over when Macmillan resigned later, it seemed that Maudling was well positioned to succeed him after Douglas-Home served what was expected to be only a short term as party leader.
Though not a member of the “One Nation” group of Tories formed after the Second World War, Maudling was situated on the left of his party’s ideological spectrum. As Macleod’s successor as Colonial Secretary in 1961-2 he continued his predecessor’s pursuit of decolonization, while his budgets as Chancellor adopted a Keynesian approach of using fiscal policy to manage the economy. This combination hurt him when he ran for the Conservative Party leadership after Douglas-Home’s resignation in the wake of their party’s defeat in the 1964 General Election. Though regarded as the frontrunner to succeed him, Maudling’s liberal policies in both offices alienated the right-wingers in the party. A well-run campaign may have addressed this, but Heath’s team proved the better-organized and more disciplined one. Perhaps most fatally in Baston’s judgment, however, was Maudling’s unwillingness to win on any terms other than his own. This reinforced perceptions of Maudling’s laziness (ones that Baston argues at this point in his career were false), and suggested that he would not be as aggressive in opposing Labour as many Tories thought was necessary.
Shattered by his rejection, Maudling became increasingly dependent on alcohol for comfort. This, Baston argues, corrupted his judgment, blurring boundaries that he had maintained up until that point. As an early example of the professional politician who had gone into politics before “earning his pile,” he needed to earn money to support his and his wife Beryl’s appetite for the high life. This led to Maudling’s association with John Poulson, an architectural designer and businessman whose loose practices and use of bribery to win contracts were to haunt Maudling for the last years of his life. Baston spends a considerable amount of space detailing the scandals that developed around Poulson, as well as those of Maudling’s involvement with the Real Estate Fund of America and the Peachey Property Corporation. While the details of these investigations often blur together in these pages, they show how Maudling’s desire for money triumphed over discretion, and anticipated the corruption that became an increasing feature of British politics with the more overt embrace of capitalist values from the 1980s onward.
Despite Maudling’s decline, his stature in the party remained such that he was guaranteed a high office after the Conservatives won the 1970 General Election. Though he hoped to return to the Chancellorship, Maudling instead was named to the Home Office in the government formed by Heath. As Home Secretary he inherited the management of the burgeoning Troubles in Northern Ireland, which had emerged just the year before. Baston is sharply critical of Maudling’s handling of the crisis, detailing the numerous missteps that turned the unrest there into a low-scale insurgency that would plague the United Kingdom for the next 27 years. He notes that unlike his predecessor, James Callaghan, Maudling did not familiarize himself with the situation on the ground, and was content to accept the judgments of local officials and the army officers involved. This contributed to the increasing use of military force, the partisan employment of which alienated the Catholic community and strengthened the cause of the Irish Republican Army. Maudling’s off-the-cuff statements further exacerbated tensions, and fueled the growing sense of a politician in decline, contributing to Heath’s decision in 1972 to bring in direct rule of the region under a separate official.
Maudling resigned as Home Secretary shortly thereafter due to the untenability of his role supervising the Metropolitan Police during their recently-launched investigation of Poulson. While he later served as Shadow Foreign Secretary under Margaret Thatcher, he was dismissed in 1976 over his growing dissention from her economic policies. It was a sign of his general popularity, though, that when the House of Commons the following year considered a report on Maudling’s business activities, votes to impose punishment for his conduct were defeated by healthy margins. It also reinforces the sense in Baston’s book that with Maudling’s loss came the greater loss of a kinder and more consensual approach in British politics, one that was replaced by a coarser and more adversarial tone. While such a judgment reflects Baston’s obvious sympathy for his subject, it is nonetheless one that is easily shared by the end of his sagacious and fair-minded book. As a biography of Maudling it is unlikely to be surpassed, and should be read by anyone interested not just in the career of a prominent postwar Conservative politician, but also in the broader era of consensus politics which his career so fittingly embodied.
Instead, as Lewis Baston details in this excellent book, Maudling’s defeat proved a turning point in his personal life. In the years that followed Maudling increasingly turned to the bottle, and indiscriminately assumed numerous directorships in order to earn enough money support his profligate lifestyle. Scandals in two of the companies with which he was involved brought his political career to a premature end in the early 1970s, driving him further to drink and contributing to his early death in 1979. It was a dismal end for a career once so promising that there seemed no limit to what Maudling might accomplish.
Maudling’s gifts were evident from an early age. The only child of a leading actuary, he sailed through his education and obtained a first-class Greats degree at Oxford in just three years. Though he was called to the Bar at the age of 22, a career in the law was curtailed by the Second World War. After service in the Intelligence branch of the Royal Air Force, Maudling became one of the many Tories who were buried in the Labour Party’s landslide victory in the 1945 General Election, which proved an ignominious beginning to his long career as a Conservative politician. In the aftermath of his defeat, Maudling became the first staff member of the Conservative Party Secretariat, an organization created to provide support for the few Conservatives in the House of Commons who had survived at the polls. It was there that he became acquaintances with Iain Macleod and Enoch Powell, two other young Tories who seemed destined for long and successful careers in elected office.
Maudling got his off to a good start in 1950 by winning a safe Tory seat in northwestern London, and the Conservatives’ victory a year later brought him office as a junior minister. Over the next decade he enjoyed a political ascent that was marred by only the occasional hiccup, and climaxed in 1962 with Maudling’s selection by Harold Macmillan as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Baston sees his time as Chancellor as the happiest period in his subject’s life, as he enjoyed the role and his future seemed bright. Such were his prospects that as early as the Profumo affair the following year Maudling was being discussed as Macmillan’s successor, and though it was Alec Douglas-Home who took over when Macmillan resigned later, it seemed that Maudling was well positioned to succeed him after Douglas-Home served what was expected to be only a short term as party leader.
Though not a member of the “One Nation” group of Tories formed after the Second World War, Maudling was situated on the left of his party’s ideological spectrum. As Macleod’s successor as Colonial Secretary in 1961-2 he continued his predecessor’s pursuit of decolonization, while his budgets as Chancellor adopted a Keynesian approach of using fiscal policy to manage the economy. This combination hurt him when he ran for the Conservative Party leadership after Douglas-Home’s resignation in the wake of their party’s defeat in the 1964 General Election. Though regarded as the frontrunner to succeed him, Maudling’s liberal policies in both offices alienated the right-wingers in the party. A well-run campaign may have addressed this, but Heath’s team proved the better-organized and more disciplined one. Perhaps most fatally in Baston’s judgment, however, was Maudling’s unwillingness to win on any terms other than his own. This reinforced perceptions of Maudling’s laziness (ones that Baston argues at this point in his career were false), and suggested that he would not be as aggressive in opposing Labour as many Tories thought was necessary.
Shattered by his rejection, Maudling became increasingly dependent on alcohol for comfort. This, Baston argues, corrupted his judgment, blurring boundaries that he had maintained up until that point. As an early example of the professional politician who had gone into politics before “earning his pile,” he needed to earn money to support his and his wife Beryl’s appetite for the high life. This led to Maudling’s association with John Poulson, an architectural designer and businessman whose loose practices and use of bribery to win contracts were to haunt Maudling for the last years of his life. Baston spends a considerable amount of space detailing the scandals that developed around Poulson, as well as those of Maudling’s involvement with the Real Estate Fund of America and the Peachey Property Corporation. While the details of these investigations often blur together in these pages, they show how Maudling’s desire for money triumphed over discretion, and anticipated the corruption that became an increasing feature of British politics with the more overt embrace of capitalist values from the 1980s onward.
Despite Maudling’s decline, his stature in the party remained such that he was guaranteed a high office after the Conservatives won the 1970 General Election. Though he hoped to return to the Chancellorship, Maudling instead was named to the Home Office in the government formed by Heath. As Home Secretary he inherited the management of the burgeoning Troubles in Northern Ireland, which had emerged just the year before. Baston is sharply critical of Maudling’s handling of the crisis, detailing the numerous missteps that turned the unrest there into a low-scale insurgency that would plague the United Kingdom for the next 27 years. He notes that unlike his predecessor, James Callaghan, Maudling did not familiarize himself with the situation on the ground, and was content to accept the judgments of local officials and the army officers involved. This contributed to the increasing use of military force, the partisan employment of which alienated the Catholic community and strengthened the cause of the Irish Republican Army. Maudling’s off-the-cuff statements further exacerbated tensions, and fueled the growing sense of a politician in decline, contributing to Heath’s decision in 1972 to bring in direct rule of the region under a separate official.
Maudling resigned as Home Secretary shortly thereafter due to the untenability of his role supervising the Metropolitan Police during their recently-launched investigation of Poulson. While he later served as Shadow Foreign Secretary under Margaret Thatcher, he was dismissed in 1976 over his growing dissention from her economic policies. It was a sign of his general popularity, though, that when the House of Commons the following year considered a report on Maudling’s business activities, votes to impose punishment for his conduct were defeated by healthy margins. It also reinforces the sense in Baston’s book that with Maudling’s loss came the greater loss of a kinder and more consensual approach in British politics, one that was replaced by a coarser and more adversarial tone. While such a judgment reflects Baston’s obvious sympathy for his subject, it is nonetheless one that is easily shared by the end of his sagacious and fair-minded book. As a biography of Maudling it is unlikely to be surpassed, and should be read by anyone interested not just in the career of a prominent postwar Conservative politician, but also in the broader era of consensus politics which his career so fittingly embodied.
February 14, 2013
Excellent biography of the man who could have been Prime Minister instead of Edward Heath in 1970. After that leadership defeat in 1965 Reggie lost his moral compass and got involved with people like John Poulson which ultimately led to his career going down hill. Only 4 out of 5 as I felt the author was too nice at the end of the book in his conclusion!!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews