Peter Griffiths

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Peter Harry Steve Griffiths (born May 24, 1928) is a retired English Conservative Party politician.

He attended West Bromwich Grammar School, Leeds Teacher Training College and London and Birmingham Universities before entering a teaching career. In 1955 he was elected to Smethwick Borough Council.

He served as a councillor until 1963 when he resigned to fight the Smethwick parliamentary seat in the forthcoming general election against the sitting Labour Member of Parliament (MP) Patrick Gordon Walker. Labour were expected to win the 1964 election and Gordon Walker was Foreign Secretary designate. It was, perhaps, this historical involvement in issues of Commonwealth immigration that allowed race and nationality to occupy a prominent role in what became an increasingly ill-tempered local campaign by both candidates. Smethwick had been a focus of immigration from the Commonwealth in the economic and industrial growth of the years following World War II and Griffiths ran a campaign critical of the opposition's, and government's, policy. There were rumours that his supporters had covertly circulated the slogan If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour. The defeat of Gordon Walker shocked the establishment, causing Harold Wilson to call Griffiths a parliamentary leper.

Griffiths was in turn defeated by Labour candidate Andrew Faulds in the 1966 general election and returned to a career in education. He unsuccessfully fought the Portsmouth North constituency in February 1974 general election, but did not stand in the October 1974 election. However, he stood again at the 1979 general election, defeating the sitting Labour MP Frank Judd. He held the seat until the Labour landslide at the 1997 election.

He is married to Jeannette and they have one son and one daughter.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Patrick Gordon Walker
Member of Parliament for Smethwick
19641966
Succeeded by
Andrew Faulds
Preceded by
Frank Judd
Member of Parliament for Portsmouth North
19791997
Succeeded by
Syd Rapson
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