Gerald Fairbrook

**Gerald Robert Fairbrook** (born 15th April 1935, aged age 81) is a Kymrian Labour party politician who served as the Prime Minister of Kymry from 1987-1990. He was Minister of the Treasury from 1979-87 in the cabinet of Matthew Griffiths and leader of the Labour Party from 1987-1990. He was also MP for Pemstride in the House of Councillors from 1970-97 and Yn Monyth in the House of Senators from 1997-2010.

Griffiths was born in Gwellynsea, Fairbrook became involved in politics when he served as a secretary for Labour MP and Treasury Minister Matthew Griffiths in 1969. In 1970 he was elected to the Labour safe seat of Pemstride, and became one of the Labour modernisers within the party as part of the "*Young Turks*" group of MP's. He rose to become Shadow Health Minister under Griffiths, and when the Labour party took power in 1979 Fairbrook was appointed to the position of Minister of Treasury during the early 1980's recession.

Fairbrook's predecessor, Michael Langly, had relied on orthodox Keynesian economics to deal with the recession, although this had resulted in high inflation. Faribrook's, under the influence of Treasury bureaucrats, adopted a more monetarist approach to the crisis deregulating the economy, corporatising state owned corporations and cutting government spending. Eventually these reforms became more free-market, overseeing privatisations and budget expenditures. These reforms were controversial both amongst the electorate, the Labour party and Cabinet itself, but resulted in the economy to expand after 1983.

During his term in the Treasury Fairbrook and Griffiths came into conflict with eachother, as Fairbrook wanted to implement more market based reforms, but Griffiths wanted to take a more traditional Labour party lie. Fairbrook resigned from cabinet in June 1987, but the Baghdad Scandal and internal party pressure led to Griffiths to step down, with Fairbrook taking over as Labour party leader and Prime Minister.

The Fairbrook government thanks to the influence of the Radical Party resulted in the reform process to be accelerated, with the government implementing a series of welfare cuts, moving away from corporatisation to privatisation and attempts to pass trade union reform, which alienated Labour supporters and met with strong opposition within the caucus. In 1989 the Fairbrook government announced it would introduce tuition fees for tertiary education, implement tough welfare cuts and begin a process of privatising the health sector which led to the left of the party to split to form the Social Democratic Party, reducing the coalition to a minority government. With the split tensions between the Labour party and the Radicals intensified as many Labour MP's blamed the Radicals for making the government extremely unpopular in opinion polls. Fairbrook was ousted from office in early 1990 by his party and replaced with Charlotte Barber, but Labour still went on to lose the election.

Fairbrook has been criticised for allowing inequality to rise and being ineffective in managing both his party and coalition government as a whole. However, neoliberals and the new right have praised the Fairbrook's government's economic policies, which they credit with leading to the general good economic health of Kymry in the 1990's.