Thomas Dugdale
[and the Crichel Down Affair] From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Jump to: navigation,
search Sir Thomas Lionel Dugdale, 1st Baron Crathorne, PC
(20
July 1897-26
March 1977)
was a British
Conservative
politician. A government minister, he resigned over the
Crichel
Down Affair, a classic example of the convention of
individual ministerial responsibility. Dugdale was educated at Eton
College and Sandhurst.
He joined the Army in 1916, serving with the Scots
Greys in World
War I and the Yorkshire
Hussars in World
War II. In 1929,
Dugdale was elected as Member
of Parliament for Richmond,
Yorkshire,
where he remained until 1959. He served as Parliamentary
Private Secretary to several ministers, including
Stanley
Baldwin, and Deputy
Chief Whip. He was later Chairman
of the Conservative Party and Chairman of the Party's
Agricultural Committee. He was made a baronet
in 1945. When the Conservatives won the 1951
election, Churchill
made Dugdale his Minister of Agriculture
and Fisheries. Crichel
Down was a piece of farmland in Dorset
compulsorily bought by the government for defence use.
Commander George Martin, son of the original farmer,
wanted to buy the land back in the 1950s
now that it was no longer used by the MoD. However the
Ministry of Agriculture resisted, wanting to use the land
for experimental farming in a time of rationing and
agricultural development. However, Martin, a former
equerry
in the Royal Family, had very influential friends and
stirred up much trouble in the local Conservative Party
and government backbenches. There followed a public
inquiry which criticised the department's decision and
civil servants, especially their methods. It was seen as
an example of an over-powerful state. Finally Dugdale
announced that Martin could buy the land back and told
the House of Commons he was resigning. Dugdale's resignation went down in history as an
honourable, even heroic, one: a minister taking
responsibility for civil
servants' actions, which would lead to the perceived
code of individual ministerial responsibility. However,
in papers released thirty years after the affair, it was
found that Dugdale had known and approved of his civil
servants' actions and had to an extent passed the buck to
them himself. It was also found that the inquiry was
inaccurate and biased, led by a former Conservative
candidate who was very against civil servants and state
interference. Dugdale's junior minister, Lord
Carrington, tried to resign too but was refused. He
went on to be Foreign
Secretary. Commander Martin got his land but not a
Conservative seat, which he had hoped for. Dugdale
himself was made 1st Baron
Crathorne in 1959
and had a second political career in Europe, building
links with parliamentarians in NATO
and the Council
of Europe. He died aged 79 and was succeeded by his
son, Charles. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Dugdale" |