Lord Young, a ‘favourite’ former minister of Margaret Thatcher, dies aged 90
Lord Young of Graffham, a cabinet minister who was known as a favourite of Margaret Thatcher, has died aged 90.
A Conservative Party spokesperson confirmed the death of the peer, who became secretary of state for employment in 1985, before being appointed secretary of state for trade and industry after the 1987 election.
At the latter department, he left an overwhelming impression that he wanted to run his department as a private enterprise, and he quickly acquired a reputation as the “Mr Entrepreneur of Whitehall”.
In the Cabinet as in business, Lord Young rarely let up on a gruelling routine of international travel – and was seen as the warm-up man for UK plc.
Lord Young was a “get-things-done” man, who did not like to see political niceties and protocol obstruct what he regarded as perfectly sound and honourable business practices.
And yet, despite his presence as a key figure in the Cabinet during Mrs Thatcher’s string of privatisations during the 1980s, the peer nevertheless later attacked the John Major government’s decision to privatise British Coal and British Rail.
David Ivor Young was born on February 27, 1932, and educated at Christ’s College, Finchley and University College, London. His business acumen quickly came to the fore.
In his early 20s, Lord Young was already an executive with Great Universal Stores, and soon became chairman of a number of manufacturing and property companies.
In 1979, when the Tories came back into power, Lord Young was appointed industrial and special adviser to the Department of Industry, and in 1982 he became chairman of the Manpower Services Commission.
Two years later, Mrs Thatcher head-hunted him and he entered the House of Lords and the Cabinet at the same time as minister without portfolio – before progressing onto his two more senior roles.
In 1989, when he became deputy chairman of the Conservative Party during the latter months of Mrs Thatcher’s premiership, before leaving the political scene to become chairman of Cable and Wireless in 1990.
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In government, his smooth manner and presentational-minded outlook found favour with Mrs Thatcher, who once remarked: “Other people come to me with problems. David Young comes to me with his achievements.”
Journalists replaced the last word with “solutions” and a pervasive myth was born.
His two years at Trade and Industry virtually invited his foes to rain mortal blows on a political career which almost encompassed the chairmanship of the Conservative Party.
But, since he was never elected to office, he sometimes fell foul of “full-blooded” politicians, notably the likes of Norman Tebbit, who had to mount the hustings to win their spurs.
At the Department of Trade and Industry, Lord Young enjoyed limited success with a tangle of issues: the villainy of crooked fund manager Barlow Clowes; the vexed debate whether Kuwaiti interests should effectively subsume British Petroleum; the climbdown over the brewers’ monopoly; and criticism for declining to publish a damning report into the takeover of House of Fraser by the Fayed brothers.
He did cross the bridge between the department, which regulated the UK telephone scene, and Cable and Wireless – one of the greatest beneficiaries of the development of the market.
But he consistently rejected the suggestion that the executive suite, the butler and the ranks of soft-stepping acolytes signal favours repaid by the private sector.
In addition he held several other directorships including the Royal Opera House Trust and charitable posts.
He reneged on his pledge, after quitting the government, not to discuss political issues. In 1993, he attacked the government’s plans to privatise British Coal and British Rail, saying: “I begin to wonder if we are not trying to privatise some things which basically cannot or should not be privatised.”
Lord Young remained an influential and well-regarded voice on business and politics throughout the following decades, serving as an enterprise adviser to Conservative prime minister David Cameron while also being honoured in 2015 with appointment as a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour.
But his return to the cut-and-thrust of politics did not always go smoothly and he was forced to quit his advisory role for a short spell after suggesting that the low interest rates during the recession meant that many people “had never had it so good”.
He would later return as an adviser, with Lord Young in more recent times retaining an interest in education and youth employment, earlier this year calling for exams to be replaced by continuous assessment.
And despite retiring from the Lords in early 2022, he continued to contribute to public debates with his final article for The Telegraph newspaper published on December 7.
Former Cabinet minister Brandon Lewis was among those who paid tribute to Lord Young, tweeting: “Such sad news. A lovely man who always had time for new MPs and inexperienced ministers to pick his brain.”