Prime Minister Harold Wilson Succeeded by John Boyd-Carpenter Party Labour Party Preceded by Glenvil Hall Education Winchester College | Prime Minister Clement Attlee Role British Politician Succeeded by Anthony Crosland Name Douglas Baron Children Peter Jay | |
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Preceded by Edward Heath (Secretary of State for Trade, Industry and Regional Development) Died March 6, 1996, Minster Lovell, United Kingdom Books The Socialist Case, Change and fortune Similar People Peter Jay, Margaret Jay - Baroness, G D H Cole, James Callaghan, Audrey Callaghan - Baroness | ||
Douglas Patrick Thomas Jay, Baron Jay, PC (23 March 1907 – 6 March 1996) was a British Labour Party politician.
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Early life
Educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, Jay won the Chancellor's English Essay in 1927 and gained a First in Literae Humaniores ('Greats') in 1929. He was a Fellow of All Souls between 1930 and 1937. His early career was as an economics journalist working for The Times (1929–33), The Economist (1933–37), and the Daily Herald (1937–41), then as a civil servant in the Ministry of Supply and Board of Trade, from 1943 as personal assistant to Hugh Dalton.
Parliamentary career
Jay was elected member of Parliament for Battersea North at a by-election in July 1946, and held the seat until the constituency was abolished for the 1983 general election. Alongside Evan Durbin and Hugh Gaitskell, he brought the thinking of John Maynard Keynes to the Labour Party, especially in relation to price determination. Later, his views somewhat mellowed, as he became influenced by the successful operation of rationing during the war. He served as Economic Secretary to the Treasury from 1947–1950, Financial Secretary to the Treasury from 1950–1951 and President of the Board of Trade from 1964 until being sacked in 1967. He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1951.
In The Socialist Case in 1937 he had written: ‘in the case of nutrition and health, just as in the case of education, the gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for people than the people know themselves.’ This statement was mercilessly exploited by the Conservatives and won him long-lasting notoriety; it has often been misquoted as ‘the man in Whitehall knows best’.
He was opposed to the UK's entry into the European Economic Community and campaigned for a 'no' vote in the 1975 referendum.
Honours
Jay was created a life peer as Baron Jay, of Battersea in Greater London, on 8 October 1987.
Family
His first wife was the councillor Peggy Jay and their son is the economist Peter Jay, who married (and later divorced) Margaret Jay, daughter of James Callaghan, whose premiership Baron Jay had served under. His second wife had been one of his assistant private secretaries at the Board of Trade.