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Obituaries
Winter
2013
against then-rampant inflation, and
introduce Capital Transfer Tax in the 1975
Finance Bill.
A consistent anti-Marketeer, he
campaigned for a “No” vote in the 1975
referendum on EC membership, and
no one was more surprised when the
repercussions won him promotion. Judith
Hart, who had campaigned alongside
him, refused demotion fromOverseas
Development Minister to Minister
of Transport under the Environment
Secretary Anthony Crosland. Robert
Mellish, the chief whip, also rejected
Transport, so Wilson picked Gilbert to
show there were “no hard feelings”
over Europe.
Gilbert made quite an impression at
Transport. This proud owner of an Aston
Martin convertible and a Mustang, he
advocated the compulsory wearing of
seat belts (failing to get a Bill through),
emission and noise checks and stiffer
penalties for drink-driving; he also
christened London’s embryonic orbital
motorway the M25. When EC transport
ministers ordered restrictions on lorry
drivers’ hours, which British unions
refused to accept as they involved fitting
every vehicle with a tachograph, he
secured a two-year exemption.
He did less well with public transport,
vetoing London Transport’s eastward Fleet
(now Jubilee) Line extension, capping
railway investment, acquiescing in bus
and rail service cuts and suggesting buses
might replace some trains.
In October 1976 James Callaghan
moved Gilbert to Defence. It was
rumoured that he wanted to sack him
outright, but Gilbert was in America and
could not be contacted, so was found a
berth as Minister of State for procurement.
He was co-opted on to a Labour working
party that proposed cuts of 28 per cent,
including phasing out Polaris, reducing the
British Army of the Rhine and cancelling
the Tornado aircraft project, but dissociated
himself from its report. Despite this
embarrassment, he was sworn of the Privy
Council in the 1978 New Year’s Honours.
After Labour’s defeat in 1979, Gilbert
stood down from the front bench as the
party moved to the Left. He was one of
20 MPs who refused to vote against the
nuclear deterrent in 1981 .
Gilbert was a natural target for
Labour’s extreme Left, and in 1985
detected a campaign to deselect him.
His critics claimed he had attended only
one local party meeting in 22 years; his
backers retaliated by recruiting 37 union
delegates to the Dudley East party’s
general committee, swamping the seven
already there. They included Gilbert’s
wife, an interior designer, representing
the quarrymen’s branch of her husband’s
General and Municipal Workers.
Labour’s National Executive refused
to bar the pro-Gilbert delegates, and
the rebels dispersed after a meeting
“noted” their demand for his resignation.
Having made sure of his seat — until a
further challenge in 1989 — he upset the
leadership by redoubling his attacks on
Labour’s “non-nuclear” policy , and by
arguing that renouncing atomic weapons
had no moral basis because it would
make Britain dependent on America’s
nuclear “umbrella”.
In 1994 Blair nominated Gilbert to
the panel of privy councillors set up
to oversee the security services; one
observer described him as the “quiet
power” behind it. On the eve of the 1997
election Blair asked him to take a life
peerage; it was assumed a seat was being
“found” for a promising Blairite, but in
fact the award heralded a return to the
MoD.
Procurement minister once again,
Gilbert worked closely with George
Robertson on a year-long Strategic
Defence Review, being credited with
securing Treasury approval for the
eventual construction of two large
aircraft carriers at a cost of £2 billion.
Gilbert was a passionate supporter
of wildlife conservation. In 1972 he
urged Edward Heath to bar “rich and
insensitive” women wearing leopard-skin
coats from government receptions; at the
MoD he halted the practice of treating
free-fall parachutists’ gloves with sperm
whale oil.
John Gilbert married first, in 1950,
Hilary Kenworthy, daughter of the
10th Lord Strabolgi. The marriage was
dissolved in 1954, and he married his
second wife, Jean, in 1963. He had two
daughters, one of whom predeceased him.
Lord Gilbert, born April 5 1927,
died June 2 2013
This article first appeared in The Telegraph on
3rd June 2013
