Frederick Marquis, 1st Earl of Woolton
Frederick James Marquis, 1st Earl of Woolton, was an English businessman and statesman. A successful department store director and wartime Minister of Food, Lord Woolton became Conservative Party Chairman from 1946 to 1955, he rebuilt the local organisations with an emphasis on membership, money and a unified national propaganda appeal on critical issues. To broaden the base of potential candidates, the national party provided financial aid to candidates, assisted the local organisations in raising local money. Woolton proposed changing the name of the party to the Union Party, but when that suggestion fell on deaf ears he instead emphasised a rhetoric that characterised opponents as "Socialist" rather than "Labour", he is given significant credit for the Conservative victory in 1951, their first since 1935. Lord Woolton was born at 163 West Park Street in Ordsall, Lancashire, in 1883 to Thomas Robert Marquis and his wife, Margaret Marquis née Ormerod. Educated at Manchester Grammar School and the University of Manchester, Woolton was an active member of the Unitarian Church.
He was active in social work in Liverpool He was an executive of Lewis's department store in Liverpool, becoming Managing Director. He was awarded a peerage in 1939 for his contribution to British industry. Despite his wishes, he was informed that it was not possible to be Baron Marquis and so he took the title Baron Woolton after the Liverpool suburb of that name in which he had lived, he subsequently served on a number of government committees. He refused to affiliate himself with any political party. In April 1940 he was appointed as Minister of Food by Neville Chamberlain, one of a number of ministerial appointments from outside politics. Woolton retained this position until 1943, he supervised 50,000 employees and over a thousand local offices where people could obtain ration cards. His ministry had a virtual monopoly of all food sold in Britain, whether local, his mission was to guarantee adequate nutrition for everyone. With food supplies cut because of enemy action and the needs of the services, rationing was essential.
Woolton and his advisors had one scheme in mind but economists convinced them to instead try point rationing. Everyone would have a certain number of points a month; the experimental approach to food rationing has been considered successful. In late June 1940, with a German invasion threatened, Woolton reassured the public that emergency food stocks were in place that would last "for weeks and weeks" if the shipping could not get through, he said. Other rations were stored in the outskirts of cities liable to German bombing; when the Blitz began in late summer 1940 he was ready with more than 200 feeding stations in London and other cities under attack. Woolton was faced with the task of overseeing rationing due to wartime shortages, he took the view that it was insufficient to impose restrictions but that a programme of advertising to support it was required. He warned that meat and cheese, as well as bacon and eggs, were in short supply and would remain that way. Calling for a simpler diet, he noted that there was plenty of bread, vegetable oils and milk.
By January 1941 the usual overseas food supply had fallen in half. However, by 1942 ample food supplies were arriving through Lend Lease from the U. S. and a similar Canadian programme. Lend Lease was a gift and there was no charge. Most food was now rationed. Worried about children, he made sure that by 1942 Britain was providing 650,000 children with free meals at schools; the bad news was that his "national loaf" of wholemeal brown bread replaced the ordinary white variety, to the distaste of most housewives. Children learned. Woolton kept food prices down by subsidizing other items, he promoted recipes that worked well with the rationing system, most famously the "Woolton pie", which consisted of carrots, parsnips and turnips in oatmeal, with a pastry or potato crust and served with brown gravy. Woolton's business skills made the Ministry of Food's difficult job a success and he earned a strong personal popularity despite the shortages, he joined the Privy Council in 1940 and became a Companion of Honour in 1942.
In 1943 Woolton entered the War Cabinet as Minister of Reconstruction, taking charge of the difficult task of planning for post-war Britain and in this role he appeared on the cover of Time on the issue of 26 March 1945. In May 1945 he was included in Churchill's "Caretaker" government as Lord President of the Council, but in July the government fell when Churchill lost the 1945 general election; the next day Woolton joined the Conservative Party and was soon appointed Party Chairman, with the job of improving the party's organisation in the country and revitalising it for future elections. Under Woolton many sweeping reforms were carried out and when the Conservatives returned to government in 1951, Woolton served in the Cabinet for the next four years. In May 1950, with Churchill's approval, called for a kind of coalition with the Liberal Party based on nine principles he said they agreed upon: opposition to “the over-encroaching power of the State over the lives of individuals and of the processes which this commercial nation lives” opposition to the nationalisat
Paul Scully
Paul Stuart Scully is a British Conservative Party politician who serves as Conservative Party's Vice Chairman for the London region, having replaced Stephen Hammond in December 2017 for rebelling against the government over the EU withdrawal bill. He was elected as the Member of Parliament for Sutton and Cheam in 2015, held the seat in the 2017 general election. Scully was born in Rugby, Warwickshire on 29 April 1968, he was educated at Bedford School in Bedfordshire and the University of Reading. He ran a number of small businesses. Scully joined the Conservative Party after the 1997 general election, he had voted for the Referendum Party - a Eurosceptic, single-issue political party, active in the United Kingdom from 1994 to 1997. Scully unsuccessfully stood as the Conservative candidate in the Wallington South ward of the London Borough of Sutton in 2002, but was subsequently elected in the Carshalton Central ward in 2006, he was the Leader of the Opposition on Sutton Council for three of his four years as a councillor.
However, he lost his seat to the Liberal Democrat candidate at the following local election in 2010. In addition to his work as a local councillor, Scully worked as a parliamentary aide for Conservative MPs Andrew Pelling, Shailesh Vara and Alok Sharma, set up a public relations company called Nudge Factory Ltd in 2011, he was selected as the Conservative Party candidate and subsequently elected as the Member of Parliament for Sutton and Cheam in 2015, was re-elected in the 2017 general election. In September 2017, he was appointed as the Prime Minister's Trade Envoy to Brunei and Burma and was the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Baroness Evans, the Leader of the House of Lords between November 2017 and January 2018, he is "very proud" of his Burmese heritage. In a parliamentary debate on 22 October 2015, he stated, "I am, I believe, the first Member of the British Parliament to be of Burmese heritage." He visited Myanmar for the first time in February 2016. He has been active in human rights issues in Burma the Rohingya refugee situation and is the Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Burma.
He has written about his experience of being one of the first British MPs to visit the Kutupalong refugee camp during the 2017 mass movement. He campaigned for a Leave vote in the 2016 EU referendum, was a supporter of the campaign group Leave Means Leave. In Parliament, he is a member of the International Development Committee and the chair of its sub-committee overseeing the work of Independent Commission for Aid Impact, he is a member of the Petitions Committee on whose behalf he has led a number of debates. In May 2016, it was reported that Scully was one of a number of Conservative MPs being investigated by police in the United Kingdom general election, 2015 party spending investigation, for spending more than the legal limit on constituency election campaign expenses. In May 2017, the Crown Prosecution Service said that while there was evidence of inaccurate spending returns, it did not "meet the test" for further action. In June 2017, comments made by Scully at an election hustings event and on a regional BBC politics programme relating to building a new hospital in Sutton were criticised by health campaigners as representing an acceptance of closing some existing local medic facilities, such as the St Helier Hospital.
Scully argued that he still remained committed to retaining facilities at the St Helier Hospital, where he had volunteered. In October 2017, Scully was featured in national media coverage relating to four serving MPs who had business interest in lobbying companies, despite recent attempts to limit on the industry's access to Parliament. Afer being elected as an MP, Scully remained a director of the company Nudge Factory Ltd and owned a 40% stake in it; the article alleged that the company's clients included property firms developing land in and around his South London constituency. The article referred to a Parliamentary Question that Scully had tabled about the time it takes to bring derelict land back into use, with his supplementary question covering the matter of land owned by the NHS and targeted by Sutton council on which to build a biotech campus. Scully's business partner, Ahzaz Chowdhury, denied the allegations, responding that Scully stopped taking a salary from the company before being elected and that he had never asked any parliamentary questions prompted by the company or its clients.
Scully's wife Emma is employed by Nudge Factory Ltd as an Office Manager and replaced her husband as'a person with significant control' on 1 April 2018. On 15 December 2017, Scully was confirmed as the Conservative Party's new Vice Chairman for London, following the sacking of Stephen Hammond two days earlier for his failure to vote with the Government on a key vote relating to the United Kingdom departing the European Union, he helped manage the Conservative Party's campaign in the 2018 London local elections, where the party registered their lowest number of seats in the capital, but made a number of gains on the London Borough of Sutton Council. Scully has two grown-up children, he lives in London. Official website Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 2010–present Voting record at Public Whip Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou Paul Scully on Twitter Paul Scully's channel on YouTube
Chorley (UK Parliament constituency)
Chorley is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 1997 by Sir Lindsay Hoyle of the Labour Party. 1885–1918: The Sessional Division of Leyland Hundred, part of the Sessional Division of Leyland. 1918–1950: The Municipal Borough of Chorley, the Urban Districts of Adlington, Croston and Withnell, the Rural District of Chorley, in the Rural District of Wigan the civil parishes of Haigh, Parbold and Wrightington. 1950–1983: The Municipal Borough of Chorley, the Urban Districts of Adlington and Leyland, the Rural District of Chorley. 1983–1997: The Borough of Chorley, the District of West Lancashire wards of Parbold and Wrightington. 1997–2010: The Borough of Chorley. 2010–present: The Borough of Chorley wards of Adlington and Anderton and Buckshaw, Brindle and Hoghton, Chorley East, Chorley North East, Chorley North West, Chorley South East, Chorley South West, Clayton-le-Woods and Whittle-le-Woods, Clayton-le-Woods North, Clayton-le-Woods West and Cuerden, Euxton North, Euxton South, Heath Charnock and Rivington and Wheelton and Withnell.
Chorley constituency consists of the majority of the borough of Chorley. As well as the central market town of Chorley itself, the seat extends into southern Lancashire rural hinterland with three major villages and minor villages. Chorley's expansion is assured with the building of Buckshaw Village, an urban development sprawling over the former Royal Ordnance Site east of Leyland in the seat. Following their review of parliamentary representation in Lancashire leading up to the United Kingdom general election, 2010 the Boundary Commission for England created a new seat of Wyre and Preston North in the central part of the county, which caused "knock-on" effects elsewhere. Chorley constituency was one of the largest in electorate at the start of the review, a factor in the alterations to both its own composition and the changes to surrounding constituencies; these changes took away from the seat all the areas to the west of the M6 motorway, namely Croston, Eccleston and Mawdesley. These move to South Ribble.
Since the 1945 general election Chorley has proved to be a bellwether, changing hands between Labour and the Conservatives. Chorley itself is Labour's strongest area in the seat, with the rural hinterland and smaller towns and villages more inclined to vote Conservative; the Member of Parliament for the seat since 1997, Lindsay Hoyle of the Labour Party, is a Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons. General Election 1914/15: Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1915; the political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place and by July 1914, the following candidates had been selected.
Stanley Jackson
Sir Francis Stanley Jackson, known as the Honourable Stanley Jackson during his playing career, was an English cricketer and Conservative Party politician. He played in 20 Test matches for the England cricket team between 1893 and 1905. Jackson was born in Leeds, his father was 1st Baron Allerton. During Stanley's time at Harrow School his fag was fellow parliamentarian and future Prime Minister Winston Churchill, he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1889. Jackson played for Cambridge University and England, he spotted the talent of Ranjitsinhji when the latter, owing to his unorthodox batting and his race, was struggling to find a place for himself in the university side, as captain was responsible for Ranji's inclusion in the Cambridge First XI and the awarding of his Blue. According to Alan Gibson this was "a much more controversial thing to do than would seem possible to us now", he was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1894. He captained England in five Test matches in 1905, winning two and drawing three to retain The Ashes.
Captaining England for the first time, he won all five tosses and topped the batting and bowling averages for both sides, with 492 runs at 70.28 and 13 wickets at 15.46. These were the last of his 20 Test matches, all played at home as he could not spare the time to tour. Jackson still holds. An orthodox batsman with a penchant for forcing strokes in front of square on both sides of the wicket he was regarded as a sound player of fast bowling, his own bowling was a brisk fast medium, with a good off cutter his main weapon. While his commitments outside of cricket limited the number of games he played he was a key member of the strong Yorkshire sides who won 6 county championships during his career, his performances in 1896 and 1898 in particular showed what his statistics could have been if he had been able to dedicate more time, scoring over 1,000 championship runs at better than 40.00 in each season and taking over 100 wickets across the two seasons at an average of under 20. He was the first batsman to be dismissed for nervous 90's on test debut.
Gibson wrote of him as a cricketer that he had "a toughness of character, a certain ruthlessness behind the genial exterior... He does not seem to have been a popular man, though he was always a respected one."He was President of the Marylebone Cricket Club in 1921. Jackson succeeded Lord Hawke as President of Yorkshire County Cricket Club in 1938 after Hawke's death and held the post until his own death in 1947. Jackson was a lieutenant in the Harrow Volunteers when he was on 16 January 1900 appointed captain in 3rd Battalion of the King's Own, he left with his battalion in February 1900 to serve in the Second Boer War, arrived in South Africa the following month. He transferred to the West Yorkshire Regiment as a Lieutenant-Colonel in 1914, he was elected as a Member of Parliament at a by-election in February 1915, representing Howdenshire until resigning his seat on 3 November 1926. He served as Financial Secretary to the War Office 1922–23. In 1927 he was appointed Governor of Bengal and in that year was knighted with the GCIE and was made a member of the Privy Council.
In 1928 while he was Governor of Bengal, he inaugurated The Malda District Central Co-operative Bank Ltd in Malda District of Bengal to promote co-operative movements. He was awarded the KStJ in 1932. In 1932, he sidestepped and ducked five pistol shots fired at close range by a girl student named Bina Das in the Convocation Hall of the University of Calcutta. Escaping unharmed and smiling, "ven before the smoke had blown away, the Governor resumed his speech amid cheers." The attacker was tackled and disarmed by Lieutenant-Colonel Hassan Suhrawardy, knighted by the King for his heroism. That year, Jackson was appointed GCSI. Jackson died in London of complications following a road accident. Recalling his funeral, the Bishop of Knaresborough remarked "As I gazed down on the rapt faces of that vast congregation, I could see how they revered him as though he were the Almighty, though, of course, infinitely stronger on the leg side." History of Test cricket Hodgson, Derek. The Official History of Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
Ramsbury, Wiltshire: The Crowood Press. ISBN 1-85223-274-9. Kilburn, J. M.. A History of Yorkshire Cricket. Stanley Paul. ISBN 0-09-101110-8. Woodhouse, Anthony; the History of Yorkshire County Cricket Club. London: Christopher Helm. ISBN 0-7470-3408-7. Media related to Stanley Jackson at Wikimedia Commons Stanley Jackson at ESPNcricinfo "Jackson, Francis Stanley". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge. Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Stanley Jackson
Minister without portfolio
A minister without portfolio is either a government minister with no specific responsibilities or a minister who does not head a particular ministry. The sinecure is common in countries ruled by coalition governments and a cabinet with decision-making authority wherein a minister without portfolio, while he or she may not head any particular office or ministry, still receives a ministerial salary and has the right to cast a vote in cabinet decisions. In some countries where the executive branch is not composed of a coalition of parties and, more in countries with purely presidential systems of government, such as the United States, the position of minister without portfolio is uncommon. Stanley Bruce was given the title of minister without portfolio when he took up his position in 1932 as the Commonwealth Minister in London, he was given the title by Lyon's Cabinet so that he could better represent the PM and his colleagues free from the limitations of a portfolio. In this case the title carried considerable responsibilities.
Bangladesh appoints ministers without portfolio during fresh appointments. Ministers are not appointed without portfolio as a coalition negotiation – all long run ministers end up with a portfolio. Suranjit Sengupta was a minister without portfolio in Sheikh Hasina's second government. Bozhidar Dimitrov While the minister without portfolio is seen by some as a mere sinecure appointment, it has been a role that numerous political notables have played over time, including former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who filled the role in a Pearson cabinet in the 1960s. Notable Conservatives who filled the role include R. B. Bennett, Arthur Meighen; the title of minister without portfolio has been used on. The practice has continued under the guise of ministers of state without responsibilities in the ministers' titles; the position has been filled on the federal or provincial level by experienced politicians near the end of their careers as a way of allowing them to counsel the government and take on projects without the burdens associated with administering a government department.
Three "control ministers" served as ministers without portfolio during World War I. After the Liberation of Denmark in May 1945, the first Danish cabinet included four ministers without portfolio. Among these were Danish ambassador to the U. S. Henrik Kauffmann, who had conducted his own foreign policy throughout the war and refused to follow orders from Copenhagen as long as Denmark remained occupied by a foreign power. Kauffmann served in this capacity from 12 May to 7 November 1945; the three other holders of this title had joined the cabinet a few days before -- Kr.. Juul Christensen and Frode Jakobsen. Lise Østergaard held a position as minister without portfolio with special attention to foreign policy issues in Anker Jørgensen's cabinet from 26 February 1977 to 28 February 1980. Anders Fogh Rasmussen appointed Bertel Haarder to Minister without Portfolio, but Minister for European Affairs. Haarder served in this capacity from 27 November 2001 to 18 February 2005; the reason for appointing a minister without a ministry was the Danish European Union Presidency of 2002.
Haarder was considered the most experienced Danish politician on European affairs. Jaan Tõnisson Karl Ast Juhan Kaarlimäe Johannes Sikkar Artur Terras Aksel Mark Arvo Horm Peeter Panksep Eduard Leetmaa Ivar Grünthal Renate Kaasik Verner Hans Puurand Jaan Timusk Ants Pallop Arvo Horm Ivar Paljak Olev Olesk Endel Lippmaa Artur Kuznetsov Klara Hallik Arvo Niitenberg Jüri Luik Peeter Olesk Eiki Nestor Arvo Niitenberg Ants Leemets Jaak Allik Endel Lippmaa Tiit Kubri Riivo Sinijärv Andra Veidemann Peep Aru Katrin Saks Toivo Asmer Eldar Efendijev Paul-Eerik Rummo Jaan Õunapuu Urve Palo Urmas Kruuse Anne Sulling Hermann Göring Rudolf Hess Arthur Seyss-Inquart Hjalmar Schacht Since 1949, a Federal Minister for Special Affairs is a member of the Federal Government that does not have charge of a Federal Ministry, although some have been Chief of the Federal Chancellor's Office. Zsolt Semjén Tamás Fellegi V. K. Krishna Menon - Nehru government Mamata Banerjee - Vajpayee government Natwar Singh - Manmohan Singh government Arun Jaitley - Narendra Modi Government Since the inception of the state, Indonesia had ministers without portfolio given the title Menteri Negara.
The number was not fixed depended on the behest of the President. Below is the list of Ministers without Portfolio in each Cabinet. Mohammad Amir Abdul Wahid Hasyim Sartono Alexander Andries Maramis Mohamma
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom. The governing party since 2010, it is the largest in the House of Commons, with 313 Members of Parliament, has 249 members of the House of Lords, 18 members of the European Parliament, 31 Members of the Scottish Parliament, 12 members of the Welsh Assembly, eight members of the London Assembly and 8,916 local councillors; the Conservative Party was founded in 1834 from the Tory Party—the Conservatives' colloquial name is "Tories"—and was one of two dominant political parties in the nineteenth century, along with the Liberal Party. Under Benjamin Disraeli it played a preeminent role in politics at the height of the British Empire. In 1912, the Liberal Unionist Party merged with the party to form the Conservative and Unionist Party. In the 1920s, the Labour Party surpassed the Liberals as the Conservatives' main rivals. Conservative Prime Ministers — notably Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher — led governments for 57 years of the twentieth century.
Positioned on the centre-right of British politics, the Conservative Party is ideologically conservative. Different factions have dominated the party at different times, including One Nation Conservatives and liberal conservatives, while its views and policies have changed throughout its history; the party has adopted liberal economic policies—favouring free market economics, limiting state regulation, pursuing privatisation—although in the past has supported protectionism. The party is British unionist, opposing both Irish reunification and Welsh and Scottish independence, supported the maintenance of the British Empire; the party includes those with differing views on the European Union, with Eurosceptic and pro-European wings. In foreign policy, it is for a strong national defence; the Conservatives are a member of the International Democrat Union and the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe and sit with the European Conservatives and Reformists parliamentary group. The Scottish, Northern Irish and Gibraltan branches of the party are semi-autonomous.
Its support base consists of middle-class voters in rural areas of England, its domination of British politics throughout the twentieth century has led to it being referred to as one of the most successful political parties in the Western world. The Conservative Party was founded in the 1830s. However, some writers trace its origins to the reign of Charles II in the 1670s Exclusion Crisis. Other historians point to a faction, rooted in the 18th century Whig Party, that coalesced around William Pitt the Younger in the 1780s, they were known as "Independent Whigs", "Friends of Mr Pitt", or "Pittites" and never used terms such as "Tory" or "Conservative". Pitt died in 1806. From about 1812 on the name "Tory" was used for a new party that, according to historian Robert Blake, "are the ancestors of Conservatism". Blake adds that Pitt's successors after 1812 "were not in any sense standard-bearer's of true Toryism"; the term "Conservative" was suggested as a title for the party by a magazine article by J. Wilson Croker in the Quarterly Review in 1830.
The name caught on and was adopted under the aegis of Sir Robert Peel around 1834. Peel is acknowledged as the founder of the Conservative Party, which he created with the announcement of the Tamworth Manifesto; the term "Conservative Party" rather than Tory was the dominant usage by 1845. The widening of the electoral franchise in the nineteenth century forced the Conservative Party to popularise its approach under Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby and Benjamin Disraeli, who carried through their own expansion of the franchise with the Reform Act of 1867. In 1886, the party formed an alliance with Spencer Compton Cavendish, Lord Hartington and Joseph Chamberlain's new Liberal Unionist Party and, under the statesmen Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Lord Salisbury and Arthur Balfour, held power for all but three of the following twenty years before suffering a heavy defeat in 1906 when it split over the issue of free trade. Young Winston Churchill denounced Chamberlain's attack on free trade, helped organize the opposition inside the Unionist/Conservative Party.
Balfour, as party leader, followed Chamberlain's policy introduced protectionist legislation. The high tariff element called itself "Tariff Reformers" and in a major speech in Manchester on May 13, 1904, Churchill warned their takeover of the Unionist/Conservative party would permanently brand it as: A party of great vested interests, banded together in a formidable confederation. Two weeks Churchill crossed the floor and formally joined the Liberal Party. )He rejoined the Conservatives in 1925.) In December, Balfour lost control of his party, as the defections multiplied. He was replaced by Liberal Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman who called an election in January 1906, which produced a massive Liberal victory with a gain of 214 seats. Liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith enacted a great deal of reform legislation, but the Unionists worked hard at grassroots organizing. Two general elections were held in one in January and one in December; the two main parties were now dead equal in seats.
The Unionists had more popular votes but the Liberals kept control with a coalition with the Irish Parliamentary Party. In 1912, the Liberal Unionis
Iain Macleod
Iain Norman Macleod was a British Conservative Party politician and government minister. A playboy and professional bridge player in his twenties, after war service Macleod worked for the Conservative Research Department before entering Parliament in 1950, he was an outstanding orator and debater, was soon appointed Minister of Health serving as Minister of Labour. He served an important term as Secretary of State for the Colonies under Harold Macmillan in the early 1960s, overseeing the independence of many African countries from British rule but earning the enmity of the Tory right, the soubriquet that he was "too clever by half". Macleod was unhappy with the "emergence" of Sir Alec Douglas-Home as party leader and Prime Minister in succession to Macmillan in 1963, he refused to serve in Home's government, whilst serving as editor of The Spectator, alleged that the succession had been stitched up by Macmillan and a "magic circle" of Old Etonians. Macleod did not contest the first Conservative Party leadership election in 1965, but endorsed the eventual winner Edward Heath.
When the Conservatives returned to power in June 1970, he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in Heath's government, but died only a month later. Iain Macleod was born at Clifford House, Yorkshire, on 11 November 1913, his father, Dr. Norman Alexander Macleod, was a well-respected general practitioner in Skipton, with a substantial poor-law practice, his parents were from the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles of Scotland, belonging to the branch of the Macleods of Pabbay and Uig. They moved to Skipton in 1907. Macleod grew up with strong personal and cultural ties to Scotland, as his parents bought in 1917 part of the Leverhulme estate on the Isle of Lewis, where they used to stay for family holidays, he was educated at Ermysted's Grammar School in Skipton, followed by four years at St Ninian's Dumfriesshire, followed by five years at the private school Fettes College in Edinburgh. Macleod showed no great academic talent, but did develop an enduring love of literature poetry, which he read and memorised in great quantity.
In his final year at school Macleod appears to have blossomed a little, standing for Oswald Mosley's New Party in the mock election in October 1931. He won the School History Prize in his final year. In 1932 Macleod went up to Gonville and Caius College, where he read History, his only recorded speech at the Cambridge Union Society was in his first term against the Ottawa agreement – his biographer comments that although not too much should be made of this, it suggests a lack of sentimental attachment to the Empire. He took no other part in student politics, but spent much of his time reading poetry and playing bridge, both for the University and at Crockfords and in the West End, he graduated with a Lower Second in 1935. A bridge connection with the chairman of the printing company De La Rue earned him a job offer. However, he devoted most of his energies to bridge, by 1936 he was an international bridge player, he was one of the great British bridge players. He won the Gold Cup in 1937, with teammates Maurice Harrison-Gray, Skid Simon, Jack Marx and Colin Harding.
At a time when average male earnings were around £200 per annum and he was earning around £150 per annum at De La Rue, Macleod sometimes made £100 in a night gambling, but on another occasion had to borrow £100 from his father to pay his debts. Macleod was too tired to work in the mornings after gambling for much of the night, although he tended to perk up as the day went on, his biographer comments that he "might have stayed" had he found the work more interesting, but after tolerating him for a number of years De La Rue sacked him in 1938. In order to placate his father he joined the Inner Temple and went through the motions of studying to become a barrister, but in the late 1930s he was living the life of a playboy off his bridge earnings, he was winning up to £2,500 per annum tax free. He wrote a book that contains a description of the Acol system of bidding: Bridge is an Easy Game, published in 1952 by Falcon Press, London, he was still earning money from playing and writing newspaper columns about bridge until 1952, when his developing political career became his priority.
In September 1939, upon the outbreak of the Second World War, Macleod enlisted in the British Army as a private in the Royal Fusiliers. On 20 April 1940 he was commissioned as an officer with the rank of second lieutenant in the Duke of Wellington's Regiment, he was given the service number of 129352. He was posted to the 2/7th Battalion, DWR, serving as part of the 137th Infantry Brigade of the 46th Infantry Division, a second line Territorial Army formation commanded by Major-General Henry Curtis. Macleod's battalion was sent overseas to France in time to see action in the Battle of France in May, where he was injured in the leg by a flying log when a German armoured car burst through a road block which his men had just erected, he was left with a lifelong slight limp. In life, besides his limp he suffered pain and reduce
