Tom Boardman

Tom Boardman   (soldier, politician, financier)
Born	12 January 1919
Died	10 March 2003 (Age 84)
Nationality	British
Alma mater	Bromsgrove School, University of London
Parents	John Clayton Boardman
Party	Conservative Party
UK soldier politician banker who attended the 1986 Bilderberg  Chief Secretary to the Treasury  In office 8 January 1974 - 4 March 1974 Preceded by Patrick Jenkin Succeeded by Joel Barnett  Member of Parliament for Leicester South In office 28 February 1974 - 20 September 1974 Preceded by Robert Carr, David Clark, Ian Gilmour, Michael Heseltine, Greville Janner, Fitzroy MacLean, Reginald Maudling, David Owen, Enoch Powell, John Stonehouse, John Wilkinson  Member of Parliament for Leicester South West In office 3 November 1967 - 8 February 1974 Preceded by Herbert Bowden

Thomas "Tom" Gray Boardman, Baron Boardman was a British solicitor, manager, banker and politician of the Conservative Party, who attended the 1986 Bilderberg Conference.

Boardman was a Member of the House of Commons for seven years and became a Life peer member of the House of Lords in 1980. He was appointed Minister of State for Industry at the Department of Trade and Industry by Prime Minister Edward Heath as part of a cabinet reshuffle following the introduction of controversial economic policy laws in April 1972. As Minister of Industry, he was also responsible for energy policy during the first oil crisis in 1973 and introduced energy-saving measures such as the three-day week. After politics, he became a banker.

Training as a solicitor, World War II and business manager

Boardman, whose father John Clayton Boardman was a landowner in Northamptonshire and mayor of Daventry, was a trainee solicitor in Daventry after attending the traditional Bromsgrove School.

However, he joined the 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry after the start of the Second World War. After Operation Overlord in 1944, as a captain with his unit, he was awarded the Military Cross (MC) for his service.

After the end of the war, he studied law at the University of London and, after completing his training as a legal consultant, joined the firm Phipps & Troup in Northampton, where he eventually rose to the position of director. Due to his trust in the Phipps family, he later became chairman of the board of Chamberlain Phipps, a supplier to the footwear industry. In addition, he worked for several other companies. In 1968, he first became the financial director of the Allied Breweries concern, and later became the deputy chairman of the board of this company.

Members of the House of Commons

In a by-election, Boardman was surprisingly elected to the House of Commons for the first time as a Conservative Party candidate in the Leicester South West constituency, after the previous long-standing constituency holder from the Labour Party, Herbert Bowden, became a member of the House of Lords.

In the elections of 18 June 1970 he was re-elected with a narrow majority of only 106 votes. Due to his economic activities, he renounced the government function offered to him, as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Margaret Thatcher, who had been appointed Secretary of State for Education by Prime Minister Edward Heath after the Conservative Party's victory in the 1970 general election. He represented the Leicester South West constituency until its dissolution at the General election on 28 February 1974.

Minister of Industry and Chief Secretary of the Treasury

Boardman, who originally worked as a solicitor, was appointed Minister of State for Industry in the Department of Trade and Industry by Prime Minister Edward Heath as part of a cabinet reshuffle after the introduction of controversial economic policy laws on April 7, 1972, and was thus one of the closest collaborators of Peter Walker, who was appointed Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on November 5, 1972. This represented a turnaround in Edward Heath's industrial policy, in which the previous economic liberal approaches were abandoned in favor of a return to political interference, subsidies for troubled companies and price control.

1972 Miners' strike and negotiations with the National Miners Union

After the miners' strike in 1972, Boardman was responsible for passing the Coal Industry Act in Parliament to ensure the liquidity of the National Coal Board through substantial subsidies. After the miners were subsequently paid a record wage, they skipped strike action until the summer of 1973, before demanding a further 35 percent wage increase.

Together with the Undersecretary of State for Industry assigned to him, Peter Emery, he represented the government in the subsequent negotiations, in which the National Coal Authority presented a formula for the highest possible wage payment as well as a cut of productivity. This maximum offer did not allow any further negotiation opportunity on the part of the National Coal Board. However, the hope that Joe Gormley, the president of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), could convince his union to accept this offer was not fulfilled, since Mick McGahey, the far-left vice-president of the NUM, rejected this offer and stated that he wanted the end of the Heath government in the 1974 general election.

The first oil crisis of 1973

In this function, he was also responsible for energy policy during the first oil crisis in 1973. In the meantime, the Yom Kippur War had broken out in the Middle East in October 1973, which led to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cutting production volumes and the oil price rising dramatically. This also strengthened the miners, who imposed an overtime ban on themselves in November 1973. Due to the shortage of oil and coal supplies, the Heath government declared a state of emergency. In this extremely tense situation, Boardman bore the main responsibility for the state emergency measures, which included a ban on unnecessary electricity consumption and restrictions on heating shops and offices.

However, the original plan to also reduce the heating of schools was not implemented after Education Minister Margaret Thatcher, who was not informed in advance, strongly demanded that this intention be withdrawn. In the following period, however, energy-saving measures such as the three-day week ("Three-Day Week") were introduced. This provided that from January 1 to March 7, 1974, the withdrawal of electricity by commercial electricity consumers was limited to three consecutive days. Necessary service companies such as hospitals, supermarkets and newspaper publishers were excluded from this. Television companies were asked to stop broadcasting their programs at 22.30 during the crisis in order to save electricity.

Boardman came under increasing pressure because of these measures and his composure, but assured that the stocks of coal-fired power plants would be enough for the winter. When a dispute broke out over the possible rationing of oil, he downplayed the preparations of his ministry with the words as a "purely administrative action ... officials are looking to see whether the mice have eaten the ration books"

Chief Secretary of the Treasury

After the general election of 28 February 1974, he was appointed by Prime Minister Heath as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, where he had to decide on equally painful cuts in public spending. He lost his own House of Commons mandate in the early elections of October 10, 1974, where the Conservatives also lost the majority, and their government came to an end.

He became Deputy Lieutenant in 1977 and High Sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1979.

Functions in the private sector and member of the Upper House

In 1977, he took on a new role as president of the Association of British Chambers of Commerce and at the same time became a board member of the National Westminster Bank (NatWest), founded in 1968, where he became chairman of the Board of the Eastern Region in 1979.

On 10 July 1980, Boardman was raised to the rank of Life Peer, as Baron Boardman, of Welford in the County of Northamptonshire and belonged to the House of Lords until his death.

A little later, he also was treasurer of the Conservative Party between 1981 and 1982.

Chairman of the Board of the National Westminster Bank and the Blue Arrow scandal

After Robert Leigh-Pemberton became governor of the Bank of England in 1983, Baron Boardman succeeded him as chairman of the board of the National Westminster Bank. During the following period, the bank took over the financial institution Barclays, thereby becoming the market leader. NatWest also intended to expand as an investment bank and enter the North American market. As Boardman said in 1988, "Our philosophy is, and was, and remains, that we are going to be a major player in the global market".

However, these ambitions stalled because of the difficult situation in the late 1980s and the so-called Blue Arrow scandal. In 1987, NatWest's investment banking arm, County NatWest, was one of the managers of a rights issue of 837 million pounds sterling for the rapidly growing employment agency Blue Arrow. Since the managing managers did not succeed in placing shares with actual investors, they covered up the unsuccessful success by falsifying their books before the scandal became apparent when the market collapsed in October 1987.

This was followed by an investigation by the Ministry of Trade and Industry as well as criminal investigations against those directly involved, during which numerous senior managers of NatWest resigned. There were no suspicions against Boardman as chairman of the board that he knew about the misconduct. However, it became clear that the board of NatWest had made mistakes in the supervision of the investment banking branch Country NatWest, so that Boardman ultimately resigned as chairman of the board in 1989.

After that, he was chairman of the Committee of London & Scottish Clearing Bankers for London and Scotland between 1987 and 1989, as well as Chairman of the Board of the building materials group Steetley and a member of the board of the real estate company MEPC plc. In 1993, he became chairman of the board of the troubled property development company Heron International, founded by Gerald Ronson.

Boardman was chairman of the national appeal for the Prince's Youth Business Trust, charity founded in 1976 by King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) to help vulnerable young people get their lives on track.

 

Event Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/1986	25 April 1986	27 April 1986	Scotland Gleneagles Hotel	The 34th Bilderberg, 109 participants

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References

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