David Owen

David Owen     (Physician)
Born	1938-07-02 Plympton, Devon, England
Nationality	UK
Alma mater	Sidney Sussex College (Cambridge)
Children	3
Spouse	Deborah Schabert
Member of	European Leadership Network, Königswinter/Speakers, Trilateral Commission
Party	Social Democratic Party (UK), Independent
UK politician who attended the 1973, 1982 and 1993 Bilderbergs  Leader of the 'continuing' Social Democratic Party In office 3 March 1988 - 6 June 1990  Leader of the Social Democratic Party In office 21 June 1983 - 6 August 1987 Preceded by Roy Jenkins  Deputy Leader of the Social Democratic Party In office October 1982 - 21 June 1983  Shadow Secretary of State for Energy In office 14 July 1979 - 4 November 1980 Succeeded by Merlyn Rees  Shadow Foreign Secretary  In office 4 May 1979 - 14 July 1979 Preceded by Francis Pym Succeeded by Peter Shore  Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs In office 21 February 1977 - 4 May 1979 Succeeded by Peter Carrington  Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs In office 10 September 1976 - 21 February 1977 Preceded by Roy Hattersley  Minister of State for Health and Social Security In office 26 July 1974 - 10 September 1976  Member of Parliament for Plymouth Devonport In office 28 February 1974 - 9 April 1992  Member of Parliament for Plymouth Sutton In office 31 March 1966 - 28 February 1974 Preceded by Geoffrey Howe, Peter Thorneycroft Succeeded by Bruce GeorgeMichael Ancram, Tom Boardman, Robert Bradford, Robert Carr, Gwyneth Dunwoody, Ian Gilmour, Alastair Goodlad, Michael Heseltine, Geoffrey Howe, Harold Lever, Reginald Maudling, John Stonehouse, Peter Temple-Morris  Leader of the Social Democratic Party"Continuing" In office 3 March 1988 - 6 June 1990  Member of Parliamentfor Plymouth Devonport In office 28 February 1974 - 9 April 1992  Member of Parliamentfor Plymouth Sutton In office 31 March 1966 - 28 February 1974

David Anthony Llewellyn Owen, Baron Owen CH PC FRCP MB BChir is a British politician.

Career

Owen was UK Foreign Secretary from 1977 to 1979, the youngest person in over forty years to hold the post. In 1981, Owen was one of the "Gang of Four" who left the Labour Party to found the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Owen led the SDP from 1983 to 1987, and the continuing SDP from 1988 to 1990. He sat in the House of Lords as a crossbencher until March 2014, and now sits as an "independent social democrat".

Criticism

Patrick Haseldine's letter was published 14 days before the Lockerbie Bombing

In the Observer of Sunday 11 December 1988, Richard Ingrams wrote:

I switched on the Today Programme last week to hear a nicely spoken man being cross-examined about the silly plan to make local government candidates in Ulster sign a renunciation of violence before they can stand for office. The man, whom I assumed to be a junior Government Minister of some kind, defended the measure as best he could, saying that he was sure it would be a useful weapon in the battle against "terrorism" and one which was bound to reduce violence.

"Thank you Mr Ashdown," the interviewer concluded after a minute or two. It turned out, to my great surprise, that the speaker was the newly-elected leader of the Democrats and the man who has pledged himself to replace Mr Neil Kinnock as the Leader of the Opposition. Paddy Ashdown appears not to have grasped the point that the job of an Opposition leader is to oppose. In this respect, there is nothing to choose between him and his rival Dr David Owen.

Owen is a natural Tory, as he showed again last week over the case of Mr Patrick Haseldine, the Foreign Office official, who in a letter to The Guardian last week made a splendid kamikaze attack on Mrs Thatcher for indulging in 'self-righteous invective' over the Patrick Ryan case.

Instead of taking up Mr Haseldine's point and using it as a stick to beat the Government with, as any good Opposition leader would have done, Dr Goody-Two-Shoes called for Haseldine's immediate dismissal.

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/1973	11 May 1973	13 May 1973	Sweden Saltsjöbaden	The meeting at which the 1973 oil crisis appears to have been planned.
Bilderberg/1982	14 May 1982	16 May 1982	Norway Sandefjord	The 30th Bilderberg, held in Norway.
Bilderberg/1993	22 April 1993	25 April 1993	Greece Nafsika Astir Palace Hotel Vouliagmeni	The 41st Bilderberg, held in Greece

 

Related Document

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:The Rossing File:The Inside Story of Britain's Secret Contract for Namibian Uranium	pamphlet	1980	Alun Roberts	Scandal in the 1970s and 1980s of collusion by successive British governments with the mining conglomerate Rio Tinto to import yellowcake from the Rössing Uranium Mine in Namibia (illegally occupied by apartheid South Africa) in defiance of international law, and leading to the targeting of UN Commissioner for Namibia Bernt Carlsson on Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988.

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