David Owen facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
The Lord Owen
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Official portrait, 2018
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| Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 21 February 1977 – 4 May 1979 |
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| Prime Minister | James Callaghan | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Anthony Crosland | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | The Lord Carrington | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
David Anthony Llewellyn Owen
2 July 1938 Plympton, Devon, England |
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| Political party | Independent (1990–present) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Other political affiliations |
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| Spouse |
Deborah Schabert
(m. 1968) |
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| Children | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Signature |  |
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David Anthony Llewellyn Owen, Baron Owen (born 2 July 1938) is a British politician and doctor. He served as the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs for the Labour Party from 1977 to 1979. This role is like being the UK's chief diplomat, dealing with other countries.
Later, he became the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for 26 years, from 1966 to 1992. An MP is a person elected to represent a group of voters in the House of Commons.
In 1981, David Owen was one of the "Gang of Four". These four politicians left the Labour Party to create the Social Democratic Party. He was the only one of the four who did not join the Liberal Democrats when the SDP merged with the Liberal Party. Lord Owen led the Social Democratic Party from 1983 to 1987. He then led the "continuing SDP" from 1988 to 1990.
In 1992, he became a life peer, which means he was given a special title and a seat in the House of Lords for life. He sat there as a non-party member until 2014, and then as an "independent social democrat" until he retired in 2024. Throughout his career, Owen sometimes left important jobs because he disagreed with policies. For example, he left the Labour Party in 1981 over disagreements about how the party was run.
Contents
- Early Life and Education
- Becoming a Doctor and Entering Politics
- Serving as a Member of Parliament
- Key Roles in Government
- Forming the Social Democratic Party
- Later Political Views and Roles
- International Work After Politics
- Other Work and Interests
- Personal Life
- Selected Books
- Images for kids
- See also
Early Life and Education
David Owen was born in 1938 in Plympton, near Plymouth, England. His parents were from Wales, and he also has Swiss and Irish family roots. He went to Mount House School, Tavistock and Bradfield College.
In 1956, he started studying medicine at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He later continued his medical training at St Thomas's Hospital in London.
The Suez Crisis of 1956 greatly affected Owen when he was 18. This was when the British government took military action after Egypt took control of the Suez Canal. He learned a lot from the working people he met, which shaped his views on politics and society.
Becoming a Doctor and Entering Politics
In 1960, David Owen joined the Labour Party. He also joined the Fabian Society, a group that promotes socialist ideas through research and discussion.
He became a qualified doctor in 1962 and worked at St Thomas's Hospital. In 1964, he ran for Parliament in the Torrington area but did not win. He then worked as a specialist doctor in neurology and psychiatry for two years.
Serving as a Member of Parliament
In the 1966 general election, Owen was elected as a Labour MP for Plymouth Sutton. He was only 27, making him one of the youngest MPs at the time. In the February 1974 election, he became the MP for the nearby Plymouth Devonport area. He won this seat by a small number of votes.
He continued to hold the Plymouth Devonport seat in the 1979 general election. When he joined the SDP in 1981, he became very popular in his local area. This helped him win re-election easily as an SDP candidate. He remained the MP for Plymouth Devonport until 1992.
From 1968 to 1970, Owen worked as a junior minister for the Royal Navy under Prime Minister Harold Wilson. After the Labour Party lost the 1970 election, he became a spokesperson for defence. He later resigned from this role in 1972 because he disagreed with Labour's stance on the European Economic Community (EEC). When Labour returned to power in 1974, he became a junior minister for Health. He was promoted to Minister of State for Health in July 1974.
Key Roles in Government
As Minister of State for Health, David Owen wanted Britain to produce its own blood products. This was to avoid risks from blood imported from other countries. He has spoken out about the Tainted Blood Scandal. This scandal led to many people with haemophilia being infected with Hepatitis C and HIV from contaminated blood products.
In September 1976, Prime Minister James Callaghan made Owen a Minister of State at the Foreign Office. This meant he helped the Foreign Secretary with international relations. Just five months later, the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Crosland, passed away. Owen was then appointed as his replacement. At 38, he was the youngest Foreign Secretary in over 40 years.
As Foreign Secretary, Owen worked on the Anglo-American plan for Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). This plan helped lead to the Lancaster House Agreement in 1979, which brought independence to Rhodesia. He also supported UN Resolution 435 in 1978, which helped Namibia gain independence. He wrote a book called Human Rights and supported human rights in Africa and the Soviet Union.
After Labour lost the 1979 general election, Owen became the Shadow Secretary of State for Energy. This was seen as a less important role than his previous one.
Forming the Social Democratic Party
In 1980, Michael Foot became the leader of the Labour Party. This made the party more left-wing. It decided to leave the EEC without a public vote. The party also supported getting rid of nuclear weapons without other countries doing the same.
In early 1981, David Owen and three other senior Labour politicians – Roy Jenkins, Bill Rodgers, and Shirley Williams – decided to leave the Labour Party. They announced their plan in what became known as the Limehouse Declaration. These four were called the "Gang of Four". They formed the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
Twenty-eight other Labour MPs and one Conservative MP joined the new party. In late 1981, the SDP joined forces with the Liberal Party. This was called the SDP–Liberal Alliance. They hoped this alliance would help them win more seats in elections. For a while, it looked like they might even form the next government.
In 1982, Owen challenged Roy Jenkins for the leadership of the SDP but lost. In the 1983 general election, the Alliance won 25% of the votes. However, because of the "first past the post" voting system, they only won 23 out of 650 seats. After this election, Jenkins resigned, and Owen became the leader of the SDP.
The success of the Falklands War in 1982 helped the Conservative government become very popular. This made it harder for the SDP to win the 1983 election.
Leading the SDP
David Owen was seen as a good leader for the SDP. He was very popular, and the SDP–Liberal Alliance also had high approval ratings. Owen kept the party in the public eye and maintained its independence from the Liberals. Under his leadership, the SDP gained two more seats in Parliament through special elections.
However, the Alliance faced disagreements on important issues. They disagreed on how to handle the miners' strike of 1984–85. They also had different views on Britain's nuclear weapons. These disagreements made the Alliance seem less ready to govern the country.
In the 1987 general election, the Alliance again did not win many seats. After this election, the Liberal leader David Steel suggested that the Liberal and SDP parties should fully merge. Owen disagreed with this idea. He wanted the SDP to stay true to its own principles.
Party Merger and Retirement from Parliament
Despite Owen's objections, most SDP members supported the merger. The Liberal Party and SDP merged in March 1988 to form the Social and Liberal Democrats (SLD), later renamed the Liberal Democrats.
Owen continued to lead a smaller "continuing SDP" with two other MPs. This party did well in one early election but then had very poor results in others. This led Owen to close down the party in 1990. He felt that changes in the Labour Party had made the SDP less necessary.
After closing the SDP, Owen announced he would not run for Parliament again. In 1992, after the 1992 general election, he was made a life peer by Prime Minister John Major. This gave him the title Baron Owen, and he became a member of the House of Lords. In the House of Lords, he was known as "Lord Owen" and sat as a non-party member until 2014.
Later Political Views and Roles
Lord Owen was asked by Labour leader Tony Blair in 1996 if he would support the "New Labour" party. Owen declined because he disagreed with Blair's plan to join the Eurozone (using the Euro currency). In 2005, he was again asked to support Labour but chose not to. He wanted the Liberal Democrats to do well enough to reduce Labour's majority in Parliament.
In 2009, he wrote an article predicting that the Conservative Party would not win a clear majority in the next election. He helped create a website called Charter 2010 to explain what a "hung parliament" (where no party has a majority) would mean. In 2010, The Sunday Times called him "the prophet of the coalition" because his prediction came true.
In 2011, Owen said his "heart was with Labour" and that he hoped to vote Labour again. He donated money to the Labour Party in 2014. After this, he sat in the House of Lords as an "Independent Social Democrat." In 2017, he supported the Labour candidate in his old constituency. However, in 2019, he said he would not support Labour due to concerns about antisemitism in the Labour Party. He also warned that Labour's stance on a second Brexit referendum could cost them votes.
Lord Owen retired from the House of Lords on 13 August 2024.
International Work After Politics
In August 1992, British Prime Minister John Major chose Lord Owen to be the EU co-chairman for the peace talks about the Former Yugoslavia. He worked with Cyrus Vance, a former US Secretary of State.
Owen helped create the Vance–Owen Peace Plan in January 1993. This plan tried to find a solution for the conflict in Bosnia. The Bosnian government was ready to accept the plan, but the US government delayed its support. This meant a chance for peace was missed.
In 1994, the European Parliament voted to remove Owen from his role, but all 15 EU countries supported him and wanted him to stay. He was given a special award, Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour, for his work in the former Yugoslavia. He stepped down from his role in May 1995.
Owen later gave evidence as a witness in the trial of Slobodan Milošević, the former president of Yugoslavia.
Other Work and Interests
Lord Owen has held several important positions in business. He was chairman of Yukos International UK BV, an oil company, from 2002 to 2005. He also served on the board of Abbott Laboratories, a US healthcare company. He was involved with other companies in steel, oil, and textiles.
He was the Chancellor of the University of Liverpool from 1996 to 2009. He has written many books about how illness can affect politicians and leaders. He is especially interested in "hubris syndrome," which is a condition where people in powerful positions become overly confident. He is chairman of the Daedalus Trust, which studies how power can affect personality and decision-making.
Personal Life
David Owen married Deborah Schabert, an American literary agent, in 1968. They have three children: two sons named Tristan and Gareth, and a daughter named Lucy.
Selected Books
- David Owen, The Politics of Defence (1972)
- David Owen, In Sickness and in Health: the Politics of Medicine (1976)
- David Owen, Human Rights (1978)
- David Owen, Face the Future (1981)
- David Owen, A Future That Will Work (1984)
- David Owen, A United Kingdom (1986)
- David Owen, Our NHS (1988)
- David Owen, Time to Declare (1992)
- David Owen, Balkan Odyssey (1995)
- David Owen, The Hubris Syndrome: Bush, Blair and the Intoxication of Power (2007)
- David Owen, In Sickness and in Power: Illness in Heads of Government During the Last 100 Years (2008)
- David Owen, Nuclear Papers (2009)
- David Owen, Europe Restructured (2012)
- David Owen, "The Health of the Nation. NHS in Peril" (2014)
- David Owen, The Hidden Perspective: the Military Conversations 1906–1914 (2014)
- David Owen, "Cabinet's Finest Hour. The Hidden Agenda of May 1940" (2016)
- David Owen, Riddle, Mystery, and Enigma. Two Hundred Years Of British–Russian Relations (2021)
Images for kids
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David Owen's signature
See also
In Spanish: David Owen para niños
