Radice, Giles 1936-

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RADICE, Giles 1936-

PERSONAL: Surname is pronounced "rad-ee-che"; born October 4, 1936, in London, England; son of Lawrence and Pat (Heneage) Radice; married Penelope Jean Angus, April 10, 1959; children: Adele, Sophie. Education: Attended Magdalen College, Oxford, 1957-60. Politics: Socialist.

ADDRESSES: Home—58A Dartmouth Park Rd., London NW5 1SN, England. Office—House of Commons, London S.W.1, England; (constituent address) Station Master's House, Station Lane, Chester-le-Street, Co. Durham DH3 3DU, England.

CAREER: House of Commons, London, England, legislative assistant to Francis Noel-Baker, member of Parliament, 1960-64; General and Municipal Workers Union, Claygate, Esher, Surrey, England, research officer and head of research department, 1965-73; House of Commons, Labour Party member of Parliament representing Chester-le-Street district (Durham), 1973-83, member of Parliament representing Durham North, 1983—. Front Bench spokesman on foreign affairs, 1981, on employment, 1981-83, and on education, 1983—. Labour candidate for Chippenham, 1964, 1966; member of Fabian Society, 1966; chairman of Young Fabian Group, 1967-68; member of council of Policy Studies Institute, 1978-82, European Movement, chairman, 1995-2001, Association for Central and Eastern Europe, chairman, 1997—. Military service: British Army, Coldstream Guards, second lieutenant, 1955-57.

WRITINGS:

Democratic Socialism, Longmans (London, England), 1965, F. A. Praeger (New York, NY), 1966.

(Editor, with Brian Lapping) More Power to the People: Young Fabian Essays on Democracy in Britain, Longmans (London, England), 1968.

(With Lisanne Radice) Will Thorne, Constructive Militant: A Study in New Unionism and New Politics, Allen & Unwin (London, England), 1974.

The Industrial Democrats: Trade Unions in an Uncertain World, Allen & Unwin (Boston, MA), 1978.

(With Lisanne Radice) Socialists in the Recession: The Search for Solidarity, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1986.

Labour's Path to Power: The New Revisionism, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1989.

Offshore: Britain and the European Idea, Tauris (London, England), 1992.

The New Germans, Michael Joseph (London, England), 1995.

(Editor and author of foreword) What Needs to Change: New Visions for Britain, introduction by Tony Blair, HarperCollins (London, England), 1996.

Friends and Rivals: Crosland, Jenkins, and Healey, Little Brown (London, England), 2002.

Author, coauthor, or editor of booklets for the Fabian Society (London, England), including Low Pay, 1968, Divide and Rule: The Industrial Relations Bill, 1971, Working Power: Politics for Industrial Democracy, 1974, Community Socialism, 1979, Southern Discomfort, 1992, Any Southern Comfort?, 1994, and More Southern Discomfort: A Year On—Taxing and Spending, 1993; contributor to British Socialist journals.

SIDELIGHTS: Labour Party Member of Parliament Giles Radice has written a number of books, includingThe New Germans, in which he studies German history and the individuals who have contributed to it. Contemporary Review critic Leo Muray noted that Radice "has met most of those who matter and gives glowing accounts of Germany's 'Big Four,' the Chancellors Adenauer, Brandt, Schmidt, and Kohl." Radice discusses the differences between East and West Germans, the tribal makeup of the country, and Germany's place within the economics of the European community. An Economist reviewer wrote that the title of the book "makes a double point: the Germans are 'new' because they are reunified, and they are 'new' in the fundamental sense of having removed by their exemplary democratic record the Hitlerian stigma."

Radice is editor and author of the foreword of What Needs to Change: New Visions for Britain, in which journalists, academics, and politicians discuss an agenda for a Labour government. "One of the most welcome surprises is the depth of the commitment to political pluralism," noted Conrad Russell in the New Statesman & Society, "not only in the discussion of Europe, but in Neal Ascherson's essay on Britain as a multinational state (an idea more familiar to historians than he realizes) and in Denis Healy's on the 'new world disorder,' perhaps the best in the book. His remarks on G7, GATT, the IMF, and other global bodies call for more thought than any of us is giving them."

Friends and Rivals: Crosland, Jenkins, and Healey is Radice's study of the careers of three Labour MPs, their evolution as leaders over thirty years, and the petty rivalries that prevented any of them from reaching their potential and becoming prime minister. Contemporary Review's Jonathan Doering described Tony Crosland as "a mercurial intellectual," Denis Healey as "an articulate pragmatist," and Roy Jenkins as "the magisterial figure who left the party over Europe. Mr. Radice … states explicitly his admiration for each man's abilities, and his frustration that their mutual jealousy and antagonism over the party leadership and the premiership in the seventies split Labour's reformist vote, allowing the solid James Callaghan into Number ten."

New Statesman reviewer Roy Hattersley wrote that Friends and Rivals "is far more than an examination of the relationships between complex and, in some ways, conflicting personalities. It is the best analysis I know of why the Labour Party, apparently so strong in the mid-1960s, had become unelectable by 1983." Hattersley concluded his review by writing that "squabbles and niggles aside, it is the intellect and commitment of Crosland, Jenkins, and Healey that shine through on almost every page of Friends and Rivals. This book is an adventure story, because, despite their human failings, the three principal characters all have heroic qualities."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Contemporary Review, January, 1996, Leo Muray, review of The New Germans, p. 47; August, 2003, Jonathan Doering, review of Friends and Rivals: Crosland, Jenkins, and Healey, p. 112.

Economist, May 27, 1995, review of The New Germans, p. 79; May 4, 1996, review of What Needs to Change: New Visions for Britain, p. 90.

New Statesman, September 23, 2002, Roy Hattersley, review of Friends and Rivals, p. 52.

New Statesman & Society, April 26, 1996, Conrad Russell, review of What Needs to Change, p. 29.

Times Literary Supplement, June 4, 1993, William Wallace, review of Offshore: Britain and the European Idea, p. 29; May 19, 1995, Peter Graves, review of The New Germans, p. 26; September 27, 2002, John Lloyd, review of Friends and Rivals, p. 7.

West European Politics, Georg Wiessala, review of The New Germans, p. 427.