Christopher Paget Mayhew, Baron Mayhew was a British politician who was a Labour Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1950 and from 1951 to 1974, when he left the Labour Party to join the Liberals.
17 Facts About Christopher Mayhew
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In 1981 Mayhew received a life peerage and was raised to the House of Lords as Baron Mayhew.
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Christopher Mayhew was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps in 1940, rising to the rank of Major.
4.
Christopher Mayhew was elected to Parliament for the constituency of South Norfolk in the general election of 1945.
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In 1945, Christopher Mayhew became Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, where he served under Ernest Bevin.
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Christopher Mayhew lost his seat in 1950, but soon returned to Parliament after the death of Bevin, when he won the by-election in 1951 for Bevin's seat of Woolwich East.
7.
Christopher Mayhew introduced the first Labour broadcast, in 1951, in which he talked with Sir Hartley Shawcross.
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Christopher Mayhew served as Shadow War Secretary from 1960 to 1961 and as a spokesman on foreign affairs from 1961 to 1964.
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When Labour took office in 1964, Christopher Mayhew was appointed as Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy.
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However, in 1966, after the Wilson government decided to shift British airpower from carrier-based planes to land-based planes and cancel the CVA-01 aircraft carrier programme, Christopher Mayhew resigned along with the First Sea Lord, Sir David Luce.
11.
Christopher Mayhew remained Chairman of MEI until his death in 1997.
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Christopher Mayhew had been feeling increasingly uneasy with Labour policies under Harold Wilson and in 1974 he moved to the Liberals, being the first Member of Parliament to cross the floor to the Liberals in several decades.
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Christopher Mayhew was defeated in Bath, which he unsuccessfully contested in 1979.
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On 6 July 1981 Christopher Mayhew was named a life peer with the title Baron Christopher Mayhew, of Wimbledon in Greater London, and became the Liberals' spokesman on defence in the House of Lords.
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Christopher Mayhew was active as an advocate for the mentally ill and served as Chairman of MIND from 1992 to 1997.
16.
In 1955 Christopher Mayhew took part in an experiment that was intended to form a Panorama special for BBC TV, but was never broadcast.
17.
Christopher Mayhew died in London on 7 January 1997, at the age of 81.