Jack Diamond, Baron Diamond Explained

Honorific-Prefix:The Right Honourable
The Lord Diamond
Honorific-Suffix:PC
Order:Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Term Start:20 October 1964
Term End:19 June 1970
Primeminister:Harold Wilson
Chancellor:James Callaghan
Roy Jenkins
Predecessor:John Boyd-Carpenter
Successor:Maurice Macmillan
Office2:Member of Parliament
for Gloucester
Term Start2:12 September 1957
Term End2:29 May 1970
Predecessor2:Moss Turner-Samuels
Successor2:Sally Oppenheim
Office3:Member of Parliament
for Manchester Blackley
Term Start3:5 July 1945
Term End3:4 October 1951
Predecessor3:John Lees-Jones
Successor3:Eric Johnson
Birth Name:John Diamond
Birth Date:30 April 1907
Birth Place:Leeds, West Yorkshire, England
Death Place:Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, England
Party:Labour
SDP
'Continuing' SDP
Non-affiliated

John Diamond, Baron Diamond, PC (30 April 1907 – 3 April 2004), known as Jack Diamond, was a British Labour Party politician.

Diamond was educated at Leeds Grammar School and became an accountant. Diamond became managing director of Capitol and Provincial News Theatres.[1] He was elected Member of Parliament in 1945 for the Blackley division of Manchester, but lost it in 1951. In 1946 and 1947, he was parliamentary private secretary to the Ministry of Works. He returned to the House of Commons in a 1957 by-election for Gloucester, caused by the death of its Labour MP, Moss Turner-Samuels.

He served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 1964, a cabinet position from 1968, and Privy Councillor from 1965. He represented Gloucester until his surprise defeat in 1970 by the Conservative candidate, Sally Oppenheim-Barnes.

Diamond was appointed to the Privy Council in the 1965 Birthday Honours, and was created a life peer as Baron Diamond of the City of Gloucester on 25 September 1970. In 1981 he left the Labour Party for the new Social Democratic Party (SDP). He led the SDP in the House of Lords from 1982 to 1988 but opposed its merger with the Liberals, associating instead with the Owenite 'continuing' SDP before rejoining Labour in 1995.[2]

Family

Diamond was first married in 1932 and had two sons and a daughter. He had a daughter, Joan, by his second wife, Julie Goodman, whom he married in 1948. They separated in 1966 and divorced 10 years later. Upon his death at 96, he was survived by his children and by his third wife, Barbara Kagan, whom he had married in 1976.

Notes and References

  1. News: Roth . Andrew . obituaries: Lord Diamond . 4 July 2024 . The Guardian . 6 April 2004.
  2. Sheila Gunn, 'Diamond refuses to yield ground.' The Times, 15 March 1988, p. 4.