Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury

From Powerbase
Revision as of 03:10, 23 January 2010 by Tom Griffin (talk | contribs) (→‎On Ireland)
Jump to: navigation, search
Northern Ireland.jpg This article is part of SpinWatch's Northern Ireland Portal.

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil is a member of the House of Lords. [1] He is well connected with Ulster unionism, a member of Friends of the Union, and part of a number of Eurosceptic and Neoconservative connected organisations such as Open Europe.

Alternatively known as...

He is also known as:

Background

Gascoyne-Cecil comes from one of England's most prominent aristocratic families, with a long history of service in Conservative administrations. His father, the sixth Marquess was a Conservative MP and President of the Monday Club.[2]

Like the four preceding Marquesses, Gascoyne-Cecil was educated at Eton and Oxford (Christ Church).[3]

Member of Parliament

Gascoyne-Cecil was elected MP for Dorset South in 1979.[4]

John Major had also applied for the Conservative candidacy in the constituency, and recounts the following experience:

I reached the second round of interviews and was waiting with the others for my ordeal when I saw the selection committee rise respectfully as a well-built young man with dark hair entered the room. One of the other candidates scowled: 'That's Lord Cranborne - he owns the constituency.' That was not quite true, although he certainly owned a lot of land.[5]

On entering the Commons, Gascoyne-Cecil joined the "blue chip" group of backbench MPs.[6] According to John Major, this was the most prestigious of the dining clubs formed by the 1979 Conservative intake, and Gascoyne-Cecil was a leading member.[7]

Afghanistan

According to the Independent, Gascoyne-Cecil spent part of his time as an MP in Afghanistan:

He decided to offer his freelance services to the mujahedin, then resisting a Soviet puppet regime, when he found himself crouching in shallow trenches as Russian bombs rained down on him.[8]

House of Lords

Gascoyne-Cecil entered the Lords in 1992 as Baron Cecil.[9] He was awarded a life peerage in 1999 to allow him to sit in the reformed Lords. In November 2001, he announced he was taking a leave of absence from the Lords in protest at new rules on registration of interests.[10]

Major re-election campaign

After John Major resigned as Conservative leader in June 1995, Gascoyne-Cecil led his re-election campaign.[11] In his account of this period, Major wrote of Gascoyne-Cecil's "taste for intrigue":

I knew my campaign could not be in better hands. Robert's family, the Cecils, had been involved in the high intrigue of politics for more than four hundred years. It was in his blood.[12]

1997 election campaign

Gascoyne-Cecil was among those consulted by John Major during discussions about the date of the 1997 election.[13] During the campaign,he served as Major's chief of staff.[14] He unsuccessfully urged Major to sanction a party political broadcast featuring Tony Blair selling his soul to a spin-doctor.[15] Major records that prior to the election, Gascoyne-Cecil had attempted to persuade him not to resign as Conservative leader in the wake of his defeat.[16]

On Ireland

Dean Godson writes that following the emergence of dialogue with republicans in the early 1990s, John Major made few moves without the support of the whole Cabinet Northern Ireland Committee. Gascoyne-Cecil, a "well-known unionist sympathiser" was among the sceptics within this group.[17]

In 1995, a draft of the Framework Documents being negotiated between the British and Irish governments fell into the hands of Ulster Unionist MP David Burnside, who discussed it with his party leader James Molyneaux. Godson reports the following conversation:

'I have seen them and it is terrible and disastrous.' 'What do I do?' asked Molyneaux, taken aback. 'Go and see Robert Cranborne,' said Burnside, referring to the most ardent Unionist in the Cabinet. 'I don't want to compromise his position in the Cabinet'. Burnside flared up: 'For Christ's sake, this is the Unionist cause we're talking about here.'[18]

Following the leaking of the Framework Document in early 1995, John Major recounts that he met with a large number of Conservative MPs at his room in the Commons:

It was a tense occasion, but support from our position came from Robert Cranborne, the Leader of the Lords and a known supporter of the Unionist cause. This helped steady nerves.[19]

Affiliations

Connections

Cheryl Gillan - Gascoyne-Cecil's former Parliamentary Private Secretary.

See Also

External Resources

References

  1. ↑ Tom O'Sullivan The Young Elite 1-10, The Guardian, 12 March 2000.
  2. ↑ Anthony Seldon, The Saturday Profile Viscount Cranborne, Conservative Peer: The last true blue blood, Independent, 21 November 1998.
  3. ↑ Anthony Seldon, The Saturday Profile Viscount Cranborne, Conservative Peer: The last true blue blood, Independent, 21 November 1998.
  4. ↑ Anthony Seldon, The Saturday Profile Viscount Cranborne, Conservative Peer: The last true blue blood, Independent, 21 November 1998.
  5. ↑ John Major, John Major - The Autobiography, Harper Collins, 2000, p.57.
  6. ↑ Anthony Seldon, The Saturday Profile Viscount Cranborne, Conservative Peer: The last true blue blood, Independent, 21 November 1998.
  7. ↑ John Major, John Major - The Autobiography, Harper Collins, 2000, p.57.
  8. ↑ Anthony Seldon, The Saturday Profile Viscount Cranborne, Conservative Peer: The last true blue blood, Independent, 21 November 1998.
  9. ↑ Anthony Seldon, The Saturday Profile Viscount Cranborne, Conservative Peer: The last true blue blood, Independent, 21 November 1998.
  10. ↑ Nicholas Watt, Angry Cranborne quits 'enfeebled' Lords, Guardian, 3 November 2001.
  11. ↑ Anthony Seldon, The Saturday Profile Viscount Cranborne, Conservative Peer: The last true blue blood, Independent, 21 November 1998.
  12. ↑ John Major, John Major - The Autobiography, Harper Collins, 2000, p.623.
  13. ↑ John Major, John Major - The Autobiography, Harper Collins, 2000, p.706.
  14. ↑ John Major, John Major - The Autobiography, Harper Collins, 2000, p.718.
  15. ↑ John Major, John Major - The Autobiography, Harper Collins, 2000, p.695.
  16. ↑ John Major, John Major - The Autobiography, Harper Collins, 2000, p.723.
  17. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone: David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Collins, 2005, p.113.
  18. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone: David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Collins, 2005, p.122.
  19. ↑ John Major, John Major - The Autobiography, Harper Collins, 2000, p.467.
Retrieved from "https://powerbase.info/index.php?title=Robert_Gascoyne-Cecil,_7th_Marquess_of_Salisbury&oldid=105236"