Eric Varley

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Early lifeEdit

Eric Graham Varley was born in Poolsbrook, Derbyshire, to Frank and Eva (née Goring) Varley.<ref name = ODNB>Template:Cite ODNB</ref> His father was a coalminer.<ref name = ODNB/> He left school at the age of fourteen in 1946.<ref name = ODNB/><ref name = Goodman>Template:Cite news</ref> His mother did not wish for him to follow his father's line of work, and he began an early career at the iron works before training as an engineer.<ref name = ODNB/> He was an accomplished football player as a young man who played semi-professionally. He initially aspired to play professionally, and it was speculated that he could have done so.<ref name = Dalyell>Template:Cite news</ref> However, he decided to start a career in politics, partially at the behest of trade unionist Bert Wynn.<ref name = Goodman/>

Political careerEdit

Varley was active in the National Union of Mineworkers, and became a branch secretary of the union in 1955, joining the Labour Party the same year.<ref name = Goodman/> After a period at Ruskin College, Varley won the NUM nomination to be the Labour candidate for his home town, where the sitting Labour Member of Parliament (MP) George Benson was retiring from Parliament.<ref name = Goodman/> He was narrowly selected in June 1963 and duly held the Chesterfield seat in the 1964 election.<ref name = Goodman/>

Despite rebelling against the government's application to join the Common Market in 1967, Varley became an Assistant Whip later that year, and Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister Harold Wilson in November 1968.<ref name = Goodman/> He served briefly as a junior minister under Tony Benn at the Ministry of Technology from 1969. During the Labour Party's period of opposition in the early 1970s, Varley was Chairman of the Trade Union Group of MPs, and became spokesman on fuel and power.<ref name = ODNB/>

Varley was appointed Secretary of State for Energy when Labour returned to power in 1974, and was the cabinet's youngest member.<ref name = ODNB/> The appointment of an NUM-sponsored MP helped the government end the NUM strike which had led the previous government to ration electricity to three days a week. Varley subsidised the National Coal Board and chose a British design for new nuclear power stations over an American rival. He also began the procedure to nationalise North Sea oil.<ref name = Goodman/>

During the Common Market referendum he advocated a 'No' vote but was not prominent in the campaign.<ref name = ODNB/> Immediately afterwards Wilson swapped Varley's and Benn's posts, so that Varley was effectively promoted to Secretary of State for Industry. In November 1976 Varley suffered an embarrassing public defeat when he determined to shut down the loss-making Chrysler car factory: the Cabinet forced him to increase its subsidy to keep it open. He continued the government's slow nationalisation programme by appointing Michael Edwardes to take over at British Leyland.<ref name = Goodman/>

When Labour went into opposition in 1979, Varley was elected to the Shadow Cabinet in fifth place.<ref name = ODNB/> He led Denis Healey's campaign for the party leadership in 1980 and defeated the left-winger Norman Atkinson for the post of party Treasurer (an office he had coveted for some years) in 1981.<ref name = Goodman/> He served as opposition spokesman on employment, and resisted an attempt by Michael Foot to replace him with Neil Kinnock (whom he disliked) in 1982.<ref name = Goodman/>

After Kinnock's election as party leader in 1983, Varley announced that he would retire from Parliament at the next general election.<ref name = Goodman/> However, he ended up leaving before then, as he was appointed as Chairman of Coalite plc, a private company manufacturing coal-based products including a coke-like smokeless fuel of the same name.<ref name = ODNB/> He resigned his seat in January 1984. Ironically, this opened the way for Tony Benn to return to the House of Commons as Varley's successor in the seat. Varley served five years at Coalite, until the company was acquired in 1989, and subsequently held other directorships, including as a regional director for Lloyds Bank.<ref name = ODNB/><ref name = Goodman/> Following a Labour Party nomination, he was created a life peer on 30 May 1990 taking the title Baron Varley, of Chesterfield in the County of Derbyshire.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref>

Personal lifeEdit

In 1955, Varley married Marjorie Turner, and they had one son.<ref name = ODNB/>

Varley was a Methodist.<ref name = ODNB/> He lived in Walton, Chesterfield, and was known for maintaining an elaborate garden at his home.<ref name = ODNB/><ref name = Dalyell/> He died from cancer at his residence on 29 July 2008, at the age of 75.<ref name = ODNB/><ref name = Goodman/>

ReferencesEdit

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External linksEdit

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