Dick Taverne
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The Right Honourable The Lord Taverne QC |
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|---|---|
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| Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies | |
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In office 1970–1979 |
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| Preceded by | Position Established |
| Succeeded by | John Kay |
| Financial Secretary to the Treasury | |
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In office 13 October 1969 – 19 June 1970 |
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| Prime Minister | Harold Wilson |
| Preceded by | Harold Lever |
| Succeeded by | Patrick Jenkin |
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Member of Parliament for Lincoln |
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In office 8 March 1962 – 10 October 1974 |
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| Preceded by | Geoffrey de Freitas |
| Succeeded by | Margaret Jackson |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 18 October 1928 |
| Political party |
Labour (−1972) Democratic Labour (1972–80) Social Democratic (1981–88) Liberal Democrats (1988–) |
| Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford |
Dick Taverne, Baron Taverne, QC (born 18 October 1928) is an English politician, who is one of the small number of members of the British House of Commons elected since the Second World War who was not the candidate of a major political party.
In the 1970s, as a Labour Member of Parliament (MP), he was dissatisfied with the party's political direction, so he left Labour and resigned his seat, forcing a by-election which he won.
Taverne's 1973 victory in Lincoln was short-lived: Labour regained the seat at the October 1974 general election. However, his success opened the possibility of a realignment on the left of British politics, which took shape in 1981 as the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which Taverne joined. He later joined the Liberal Democrats when the SDP merged with the Liberal Party.
Educated at Charterhouse School, and then Balliol College, Oxford, he graduated in Philosophy and Ancient History, qualified as a barrister in 1954 and became a Queen's Counsel (QC) in 1965.
He unsuccessfully contested Putney as the Labour Party candidate at the 1959 general election, and was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Lincoln at a by-election in March 1962. Under Harold Wilson's premiership in the 1960s, he served as a Home Office Minister from 1966 to 1968, Minister of State at the Treasury from 1968 to 1969 and then as Financial Secretary to the Treasury from 1969 to 1970. In 1970, he helped to launch the Institute for Fiscal Studies, now an influential independent think tank and was the first Director, later chairman.
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