Peter Griffiths

Griffiths was born in West Bromwich, Staffordshire, and attended West Bromwich Grammar School. He was educated at Leeds Teacher Training College and, after his National Service, studied for an external London University economics degree and a master's degree in education at Birmingham University, while teaching in West Bromwich.{{cite news|date=27 November 2013 |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10479104/Peter-Griffiths-obituary.html |title=Peter Griffiths – obituary |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|access-date=27 November 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160412173418/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10479104/Peter-Griffiths-obituary.html |archive-date=12 April 2016 |url-status=live}} From 1962, he was the head of Hall Green Road primary school, West Bromwich.

Griffiths was elected to Smethwick County Borough Council in 1955.Who's Who 2007 At the 1959 election, he stood against Smethwick's sitting Member of Parliament (MP) Patrick Gordon Walker for the first time, and succeeded in reducing Gordon Walker's majority from 6,495 to 3,544. Griffiths became leader of the council's Conservative group in 1960, serving as a local councillor until 1963 when he resigned to stand again for the Smethwick parliamentary seat in the forthcoming general election.

{{main|Smethwick in the 1964 general election}}

Labour's victory in the 1964 election had been predicted, and Patrick Gordon Walker, who had been Shadow Foreign Secretary for 18 months, was expected to hold on to his seat.{{cite news|last=Brown|first=Derek|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/apr/27/race.world2|title=A new language of racism in politics|work=The Guardian|date=27 April 2001|access-date=6 May 2016}} Instead, Griffiths gained the seat for the Conservatives on a 7% swing, in a county borough that had the highest percentage of recent immigrants to England.{{cite news|last=Wigmore|first=Tim|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/10/fifty-years-conservative-partys-race-problem-remains|title=Fifty years on, the Conservative party's race problem remains|work=New Statesman|date=15 October 2014|access-date=6 May 2016}} Racial discrimination was common in the constituency and nationally; the local Labour club operated a colour bar.{{cite news|last1=Stanley|first1=Tim|url=http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100248091/peter-griffiths-and-the-tory-racism-of-the-1960s-killed-rational-debate-about-immigration/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131201001553/http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100248091/peter-griffiths-and-the-tory-racism-of-the-1960s-killed-rational-debate-about-immigration/|url-status=dead|archive-date=1 December 2013|title=Peter Griffiths and the ugly Tory racism of the 1960s killed rational debate about immigration|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=28 November 2013|access-date=6 May 2016}}{{cite news|last1=Jeffries|first1=Stuart|title=Britain's most racist election: the story of Smethwick, 50 years on|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/15/britains-most-racist-election-smethwick-50-years-on|work=The Guardian|date=15 October 2014|access-date=17 March 2015}}

In what Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson later described as an "utterly squalid" campaign, Conservative party members were accused of having used the slogan "If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour".Childs, P., Storry, M. (1999) Encyclopaedia of contemporary British culture, London: Routledge p. 13Geddes, A. (2003) The politics of migration and immigration in Europe, London: Sage Publications, p. 34 Colin Jordan, a British Neo-Nazi and leader of the British Movement, said that members of his group had produced the initial slogan as well as spread the poster and sticker campaign; Jordan's group in the past had also campaigned on other slogans, such as: "Don't vote – a vote for Tory, Labour or Liberal is a vote for more Blacks!".{{Cite book|title=Colin Jordan and Britain's Neo-Nazi Movement: Hitler's Echo|last=Jackson|first=Paul|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic|year=2016|isbn=978-1472509314|pages=129}} Although Griffiths himself did not coin the phrase or approve its use,{{cite news|last=Foot|first=Paul|url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v17/n23/paul-foot/tearing-up-the-race-card|title=Tearing up the Race Card|work=London Review of Books|issue=23|date=30 November 1995|volume=17 |access-date=6 May 2016}} {{subscription required}} he declined to disown it. The Times quoted Griffiths as saying: "I would not condemn any man who said that. I regard it as a manifestation of popular feeling", adding that the quote represented "exasperation, not fascism".{{cite news |title=Labour Accusation of Exploitation |url=https://www.thetimes.com/archive/article/1964-03-09/6/4.html |work=The Times|url-access=subscription |date=9 March 1964 |page=6}} He denied that there was any "resentment in Smethwick on the grounds of race or colour".

Griffiths' defeat of Gordon Walker resulted in Harold Wilson claiming in the House of Commons that Griffiths should "serve his term here as a parliamentary leper".{{cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/peter-griffiths-qdlkzggcbbq|title=Peter Griffiths|work=The Times|date=11 December 2014|access-date=6 May 2016|url-access=subscription }} Conservatives urged the Speaker, Harry Hylton-Foster, to force Wilson to withdraw the comment. While the Speaker objected to such language, he refused to censure the Prime Minister, and order in the Commons chamber was not restored for ten minutes. In his maiden speech in the Commons, Griffiths pointed out the problems faced by local industry and drew attention to the fact that 4,000 families were awaiting local authority accommodation.Hansard, 1964 Griffiths remained an alderman in Smethwick until 1966. He both supported and arranged for Smethwick council to purchase a row of houses with the intention of letting them exclusively to white families. The government's Housing minister, Richard Crossman, was able to block this proposal by refusing the council permission to borrow the money required.

Griffiths was defeated by the actor and Labour candidate Andrew Faulds in the 1966 general election. Griffiths wrote his own account of his election in 1964. In A Question of Colour (1966), he said that he had "no colour prejudice". In the book he considered South Africa to be "a model of Parliamentary democracy" and that "Apartheid, if it could be separated from racialism, could well be an alternative to integration". Griffiths also blamed immigration from the Caribbean for the spread of disease.

In 1967, he became a lecturer in economics at Portsmouth College of Technology. After a year as an exchange professor in California, he returned to what became Portsmouth Polytechnic, until he returned to Parliament.

Griffiths unsuccessfully stood for Portsmouth North constituency at the February 1974 general election, but was elected for the seat at the 1979 general election. He held the constituency until the Labour landslide at the 1997 election, when he was defeated.

He was married to Jeannette (née Rubery); the couple had a son and daughter.

Griffiths died on 20 November 2013, aged 85.

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book|author=Griffiths, P.|title=A Question Of Colour? The Smethwick Election Of 1964| location=London|publisher=Leslie Frewin|year=1966}}
• Pearce, R. (2004) "[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31161, Walker, Patrick Chrestien Gordon, Baron Gordon-Walker (1907–1980)]", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, accessed 26 Aug 2007 (subscription required)
• {{cite book|author=Prem, D. R.|title=Parliamentary Leper: A History of Colour Prejudice in Britain|publisher=Metric Publications|location=Aligarh University Press|year=1965}}
• {{cite book|author=Webster, L.|title=Lone Wolf|publisher=The Kates Hill Press|location=Dudley|year=2012}}
• Who's Who 2007, "[http://www.credoreference.com/entry/6096856 Griffiths, Peter Harry Steve]", accessed 26 August 2007 (subscription required)

• {{Hansard-contribs|mr-peter-griffiths|Peter Griffiths}}

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{{succession box|title=Member of Parliament for Smethwick|years=1964–1966|before=Patrick Gordon Walker|after=Andrew Faulds}}

{{succession box|title=Member of Parliament for Portsmouth North|years=1979–1997|before=Frank Judd|after=Syd Rapson}}

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Category:1928 births

Category:2013 deaths

Category:Academics of the University of Portsmouth

Category:Alumni of the University of London

Category:Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies

Category:Councillors in the West Midlands (county)

Category:UK MPs 1964–1966

Category:UK MPs 1979–1983

Category:UK MPs 1983–1987

Category:UK MPs 1987–1992

Category:UK MPs 1992–1997

Category:Race relations in the United Kingdom

Category:Conservative Party (UK) councillors

Category:People educated at West Bromwich Grammar School