Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
What was the position of John Smith (Labour Party leader) from Jun 1987 to Mar 1992?
John Smith ( Labour Party leader ) John Smith ( 13 September 1938 – 12 May 1994 ) was a Scottish Labour politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from July 1992 until his death from a heart attack in May 1994 . Smith first entered Parliament in 1970 and , after junior ministerial roles as Minister of State for Energy ( 1975–1976 ) and Minister of State for the Privy Council Office ( 1976–1978 ) , he entered the Cabinet towards the end of James Callaghans tenure as Prime Minister , serving as Secretary of State for Trade and President of the Board of Trade ( 1978–1979 ) . During Labours time in Opposition to Margaret Thatchers Conservative government , he rose through the Shadow Cabinet , serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Trade ( 1979–1982 ) , Shadow Secretary of State for Energy ( 1982–1983 ) , Shadow Secretary of State for Employment ( 1983–1984 ) , Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry ( 1984–1987 ) and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer ( 1987–1992 ) . After Labour leader Neil Kinnock resigned following the Partys surprise loss in the 1992 general election to new Conservative leader John Major , Smith was elected his successor in July 1992 . He continued Kinnocks moves to reform Labour , abolishing the trade union block vote at Labour party conferences and replacing it with one member , one vote at the 1993 party conference . However , his overall cautious approach to reform , which was dubbed one more heave , sought to avoid controversy and win the next election by capitalising on the unpopularity of the Conservative government . This frustrated many modernisers like Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and after Smiths sudden death in May 1994 , he was succeeded as Leader by Blair . Early life . Smith was born at Baddarroch , Dalmally , Argyll , the eldest of three children of Sarah Cameron , née Scott ( 29 July 1910 – 11 January 1997 ) , and Archibald Leitch Smith ( 18 June 1907 – 1981 ) . At the time of Smiths birth , his father was schoolmaster at Portnahaven , Islay ; however , two years later he became the headmaster of the primary school at Ardrishaig , Argyll , which Smith went on to attend . From September 1952 , Smith attended Dunoon Grammar School , lodging in the town with a landlady and going home during the school holidays , before enrolling at the University of Glasgow . He studied History from 1956 to 1959 , and then Law , from 1959 to 1962 . He joined the Labour Party in 1955 . Smith became involved in debating with the Glasgow University Dialectic Society and the Glasgow University Union : in 1962 , he won The Observer Mace debating competition , speaking with Gordon Hunter . In 1995 , after his death , the competition was renamed the John Smith Memorial Mace in his honour . In 1963 , he became a solicitor and then in 1967 , an advocate at the Scottish bar , supplementing his income by working as a libel lawyer for the Daily Record and the Sunday Mail . Member of Parliament . Smith first stood as a Labour parliamentary candidate aged 23 at a by-election in 1961 in the East Fife constituency ; he contested that seat again in the 1964 general election . As it was a safe seat for the Unionist Party ( who at the time ran in place of the Conservatives ) , Smith came second by some distance on both occasions . At the 1970 general election , he was elected as Member of Parliament ( MP ) for North Lanarkshire , succeeding Margaret Herbison . Smith made his maiden speech on 10 November 1970 , opposing the Conservative governments Family Income Supplements Act 1970 . On 28 October 1971 , Smith defied the Labour whips in joining Labour MPs led by Roy Jenkins to vote in favour of entry to the European Economic Community . These included Roy Hattersley , Shirley Williams , Bill Rodgers and David Owen , all of whom he was later to sit with in the Callaghan cabinet . In government . In February 1974 Smith declined Harold Wilsons offer of the office of Solicitor General for Scotland , not wishing his political career to become sidelined as a law officer . In October , he was made an Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Energy . In December 1975 , he was made a Minister of State . Smith supported James Callaghan in the Labour Party leadership election after Wilson resigned in April 1976 . When Callaghan became Prime Minister , Smith became a Minister of State at the Privy Council Office , serving with Labours Deputy leader , Michael Foot , the Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons . In this position , Smith piloted the highly controversial devolution proposals for Scotland and Wales through the House of Commons . Smiths adroit handling of these proposals impressed Callaghan , and in November 1978 , when Edmund Dell retired , Callaghan appointed Smith Secretary of State for Trade . In this post , Smith was the youngest member of the cabinet , and served there until the 1979 general election . Shadow Cabinet . Smith was voted to the Shadow Cabinet in the elections of June 1979 and would be re-elected every year until 1992 . Smith became Shadow Energy Secretary . In the Labour leadership election of November 1980 , Smith voted for Denis Healey over Michael Foot . Smith remained in the Labour Party after figures on the right of the party formed the breakaway Social Democratic Party , remarking : I am comfortable with the unions . They arent . Thats the big difference . Smith voted for Healey in the deputy leadership election of September 1981 . He became a QC in 1983 , the same year that his constituency became Monklands East . During the 1983 general election , Smith concentrated on unemployment , arguing that the Conservatives had caused deindustrialisation and that a Labour government would increase investment , and therefore employment . Smith received over 50 per cent of the vote in Monklands East , but Labour lost badly nationally . Smith then acted as Roy Hattersleys campaign manager in the leadership election and the deputy leadership election . After serving a year as Shadow Employment Secretary , Smith was Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry between late 1984 and 1987 . Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer . Smith was appointed Shadow Chancellor by Neil Kinnock in July 1987 after the Labour Partys general election defeat . Despite a quiet , modest manner and his politically moderate stance , he was a witty , often scathing speaker . Smith was named as Parliamentarian of the Year twice : first in November 1986 for his performances during the Westland controversy during which Leon Brittan resigned , and the second time in November 1989 for taking Nigel Lawson to task over the state of the economy and over his difficult relationship with Sir Alan Walters , the Prime Ministers economic adviser . Smith made two notably witty attacks on Lawson that year . On 7 June 1989 , he sang the theme tune for the soap Neighbours at the dispatch box , lampooning the differences between Lawson and Walters , who was critical of Lawsons policies but whom Thatcher refused to sack . Then , on 24 October , he made another scathing attack on the differences . Two days later , Lawson resigned , followed shortly afterwards by Walters . First heart attack . Smith suffered a heart attack on 9 October 1988 , and was forced to spend three months away from Westminster to recover . On that occasion , he had complained of chest pains the night before and had to be persuaded to cancel a flight to London so he could go to hospital for a check-up . He was examined at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary by an ECG . The doctor who examined him said , Whatever it is , we dont think it is your heart . Then , Smith suddenly collapsed and was briefly unconscious before coming around . He spent three days in intensive care before leaving hospital on 20 October 1988 and made a full recovery . Smith made modifications to his lifestyle by going on a diet of 1,000 calories , cutting down on rich foods and fine wines , giving up smoking and taking up Munro bagging . By the time of his death , he had succeeded in climbing 108 of the 277 Scottish Munros ( mountains over 3,000 feet above sea level at the summit ) . His weight dropped from at the time of the first heart attack , to when he returned to Parliament on 23 January 1989 . Leader of the Opposition . Following Labours fourth consecutive defeat at the general election of April 1992 , Neil Kinnock resigned as leader and Smith was elected Labour leader . Although Labour had now been out of power for 13 years , their performance in the 1992 election had been much better than in the previous three . They had cut the Conservative majority from 102 seats to 21 , and for most of the three years leading up to the election , opinion polls had indicated that Labour were more likely to win the election than the Conservatives . The resignation of long-serving but increasingly unpopular Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher , and the well-received election of John Major as her successor , had seen the comfortable Labour lead in the opinion polls wiped out and in the 17 months leading up to the election , its outcome had become much harder to predict . Much of the blame had been placed on Labours shadow budget drawn up by Smith , which included raising the top rate of income tax from 40p in the pound to 50p , and the Conservative election campaign was centred on warning voters that they would face higher taxes under a Labour government . In September 1992 , Smith made his maiden speech as party leader , in which he attacked the governments ERM debacle eight days earlier – an event which was seen by many observers as playing a large part in determining the outcome of the next general election , long before it was even on the political horizon , as from that point onwards the Labour Party was ascendant in the opinion polls , winning several seats from the Conservatives in by-elections ( eventually even attracting a Conservative MP to defect to Labour ) and trouncing them in local council elections . In this speech , he referred to John Major as the devalued Prime Minister of a devalued Government . At Labours party conference , Smith branded Major and Norman Lamont the Laurel and Hardy of British politics . This echoed his attacks on Majors government made before the 1992 election ( while he was still shadow chancellor ) , most memorably when he labelled irresponsible Conservative plans for cutting income tax to 20 per cent , and joked at a Labour Party rally in Sheffield that the Conservatives would have a box-office disaster with Honey , I Shrunk the Economy – in reference to the recent Disney motion picture Honey , I Shrunk the Kids – mocking the recession which was plaguing the British economy at the time . In a June 1993 debate , Smith again savaged the Conservative government , saying that under John Majors premiership , the man with the non-Midas touch is in charge . It is no wonder that we live in a country where the Grand National does not start and hotels fall into the sea ( in reference to the 1993 Grand National , which was cancelled after a false start , and to Holbeck Hall Hotel in Scarborough , which had recently collapsed off a cliff ) . During the same debate , Smith commented on a recent government defeat in the Newbury by-election to the Liberal Democrats , a poor showing in the local elections and a subsequent Cabinet reshuffle by saying that if we were to offer that tale of events to the BBC Light Entertainment Department as a script for a programme , I think that the producers of Yes Minister would have turned it down as hopelessly over the top . It might have even been too much for Some Mothers Do Ave Em . In the same speech , Smith also attacked the Conservatives broken election promises ( in particular Lamonts recent Budget decision to impose VAT on domestic energy bills ) – claiming he possessed the last copy of a 1992 policy document to escape the Central Office shredder . He also performed very well in the July 1993 motion of confidence debate on the Conservative government . Despite his dispatch box successes ( Smith was always more effective in the House of Commons than on platforms or at Prime Ministers Questions , though he began to improve at the latter towards the end of his life ) , Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were , under Smiths leadership , restless and privately anxious that the party had adopted a One more heave approach and had become over-cautious in tackling the legacy of tax and spend . Despite this , during his time as leader of the Labour Party , Smith abolished the trade union block vote at Labour party conferences and replaced it with One member , one vote at the 1993 party conference . He also committed a future Labour government to establishing a Scottish Parliament , an aim fulfilled by his successors after his death ( most notably his close friend Donald Dewar ) . Smith was also a committed British Unionist . During Smiths tenure as leader the Labour party gained a significant lead in the polls over the Conservatives ; on 5 May 1994 , one week before Smiths death , the Conservatives suffered a major defeat in the British council elections , their worst in over 30 years . This happened in spite of the strong economic recovery and reduction of unemployment which had followed the declaration of the recessions end in April 1993 . Labours opinion poll lead was shown to be as high as 23 per cent in May 1994 . Death . On the evening of 11 May 1994 , with around 500 people present , Smith made a speech at a fundraising dinner at Park Lane Hotel , London , saying The opportunity to serve our country—that is all we ask . At 8:05 a.m . the following morning , whilst in his Barbican flat , Smith suffered a fatal heart attack . His wife phoned an ambulance and he was taken to St Bartholomews Hospital where he died at 9:15 a.m. , having never regained consciousness . On 28 April , a fortnight before his death , Smith had visited the same accident and emergency department to campaign against its proposed closure . The doctor who had served as his tour guide , Professor Mike Besser , tried unsuccessfully to save Smiths life . In response to his death , John Major paid tribute in the House of Commons to Smith , culminating in the now well-known line that he and Smith would share a drink : sometimes tea , sometimes not tea . It was reported that there was weeping in the chamber . On the day of his death , the BBC 9 OClock News was extended to an hour as opposed to the usual half-hour . This replaced the medical drama which was due to follow at 9:30 , coincidentally entitled Cardiac Arrest . During Question Time that evening , panellists paid tribute to Smith instead of debating . George Robertson and Menzies Campbell were among the participants . On 20 May 1994 , after a public funeral service in Cluny Parish Church , Edinburgh , which was attended by almost 1,000 people , Smith was buried in a private family service on the island of Iona , at the sacred burial ground of Reilig Odhráin , where many early Scottish and Norse kings are said to be buried . His grave is marked with an epitaph quoting the Fourth Epistle of An Essay On Man by Alexander Pope : An honest mans the noblest work of God . His close friend Donald Dewar acted as one of Smiths pallbearers . On 14 July 1994 , a memorial service for Smith took place at Westminster Abbey and was attended by over 2,000 people . The Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey gave an address . Aftermath in the Labour Party . Following Smiths death , the Labour Party renamed its Walworth Road headquarters John Smith House in his memory . Tony Blair , Smiths successor as Leader of the Labour Party , was an effective campaigner who capitalised on public mistrust of the Conservative Party to win a landslide victory at the 1997 general election . Smiths biographer , Mark Stuart , claimed that Smith could have won Labour a victory on a scale similar to that achieved by Blair because of the combination of the Black Wednesday debacle and internal Conservative Party divisions over Europe since 1992 . Stuart argues that the lack of a Blair effect would have meant that the Conservative Party would have held slightly over 200 seats ( rather than the 165 it actually won ) in the House of Commons , leaving the Conservatives in a position similar to that of Labour after the 1983 general election . Personal life . Smith was married to Elizabeth Bennett from 5 July 1967 until his death . Elizabeth Smith was created Baroness Smith of Gilmorehill in 1995 . They had three daughters , one of whom , Sarah Smith , has served as the Washington correspondent for Channel 4 news and has worked for the BBC since 2014 . Their other daughters are Jane , a costume designer , and Catherine , a lawyer . External links . - ( Mixed with the Welsh politician with the same name. )