Britain’s Oldest Politician, Lord Shinwell, Dies at 101

Lord Manny Shinwell, Britain’s oldest politician, died today after a lifetime that saw six monarchs and 20 prime ministers take office. He was 101.

Shinwell, once jailed as a revolutionary but who ended his political career in the ermine robes of the peerage, died at his London home from complications after bronchial pneumonia, his family said.

Shinwell, a pipe-smoker who loved a glass of good Scotch whisky, grew up in poverty and remained a committed socialist all his life, although he once said: “I don’t give a damn about Karl Marx.”

He did not hold with the Labor Party’s drift to the extreme left, and in his later years sat as an independent in the House of Lords. When leading Labor politician Roy Jenkins helped form the centrist Social Democrats in 1981 his reaction was typically blunt--”Anyone who joins Mr. Jenkins must be off his head.”

A trade-union activist, he was jailed for five months in 1919 for inciting dockworkers to riot during a strike, but ended his career a life peer in Lords, an honor he was proud to accept.

The son of a Jewish refugee tailor, Emmanuel Shinwell served in three Labor governments and was responsible for nationalizing Britain’s coal industry.

He served 40 years in Parliament, giving up his House of Commons seat in 1970 after which he was made a life peer.