Reginald Yarnitz Freeson PC known as Reg Freeson (24 February 1926 – 9 October 2006), was a British politician. He was a Labour Member of Parliament for 23 years, from 1964 to 1987, with 14 years on the front bench. He became a junior minister in the Ministry of Power in 1967, and then led for his party on housing policy for 10 years, from 1969 to 1979, serving as Minister of State for Housing from 1969 to 1970 and then again from 1974 to 1979, and being his party's housing spokesman in the intervening period. He continued as health and social security spokesman until 1981. His relatively moderate left-wing views made him vulnerable to the hard left in the early 1980s, and he was deselected in 1985, leaving Parliament at the 1987 UK general election. Her Majestys Most Honourable Privy Council is a body of advisors to the British Sovereign. ... February 24 is the 55th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... October 9 is the 282nd day of the year (283rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Labour Party has been, since its founding in the early 20th century, the main democratic socialist [1] political party in the United Kingdom. ... A Member of Parliament, or MP, is a representative elected by the voters of an electoral district to a parliament; in the Westminster system, specifically to the lower house. ... In many parliaments and other similar assemblies, seating is typically arranged in banks or rows, with each political party or caucus grouped together. ... Minister of State is a title borne by officials in certain countries governed under the parliamentary system. ... In politics, left-wing, political left, leftism, or simply the left, are terms which refer (with no particular precision) to the segment of the political spectrum typically associated with any of several strains of socialism, social democracy, or liberalism (especially in the American sense of the word), or with opposition... Far left is a vague term used to refer to people or ideas falling into the general category of left wing which the speaker considers to be extreme. ... (Redirected from 1987 UK general election) The general election of June 11, 1987 was the third victory in a row for Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives. ...

Early and private life

Freeson was born in St Pancras and raised in the Jewish orphanage in West Norwood from the age of 5. His grandparents were Jews who came to the UK to escape the pogroms in Poland and Russia in the 1890s, but he was abandoned by his parents. Things called Saint Pancras or St Pancras include: The saint after whom the others are directly or indirectly named: Saint Pancras. ... An orphanage is an institution dedicated to caring for orphans (children who have lost their parents). ... West Norwood is a place in the London Borough of Lambeth. ... Pogrom (from Russian: ; from громить IPA: - to wreak havoc, to demolish violently) is a form of riot, a massive violent attack on a particular group; ethnic, religious or other, primarily characterized by destruction of their environment (homes, businesses, religious centers). ...

After a successful school career, he volunteered to joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve aged 16, but was posted to the Rifle Brigade for training in 1944 and then passed on to the Royal Engineers in Egypt. He spent some time working for the Inter Services Publications Unit. The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the air force branch of the British Armed Forces. ... The Rifle Brigade (Prince Consorts Own) was a regiment of the British Army. ... The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army. ...

He worked as a journalist in the Middle East for one year after being demobbed in 1947, and his experiences made him a convinced Zionist. He continued his print career in Fleet Street, where he worked on publications including John Bull, Everybody's Weekly, London Illustrated, News Review, Today, Education, The Daily Mirror and the News Chronicle. He was later an assistant press officer at the Ministry of Works and the British Railways Board. A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ... 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1947 calendar). ... A bilingual poster in Romanian and Hungarian promoting a film about Jewish settlement in Palestine, 1930s. ... Fleet Street road sign Fleet Street in 1890 Fleet Street in 2005 Fleet Street is a famous London street, named after the River Fleet. ... Alternate newspaper: The Daily Mirror (Australia) The Daily Mirror is a British left-leaning tabloid daily newspaper. ... The News Chronicle was a British Liberal newspaper which closed in 1960, being absorbed into the right-wing Daily Mail. ... A press secretary is a senior advisor (usually to a politician) who provides advice on how to deal with the media and, using news management techniques, helps them to maintain a positive public image and avoid negative media coverage. ... The Ministry of Works was a department of the UK Government formed in 1943 to organise the requisitioning of property for wartime use. ... The British Railways Board (BRB) was the governing body of British Railways (later British Rail) from 1962 until privatisation in the 1990s. ...

He was married twice. He first married in 1971, but was divorced in 1983. He remarried in 1983, and is survived by his second wife, and a son and daughter from his first marriage.

Political career

Freeson joined the Labour party after returning to England in 1948. He became active in local politics, and was elected to Willesden Borough Council in 1952 and became an alderman in 1955. He was the council's leader from 1958 until it was abolished in 1965. He chaired the shadow council of the London Borough of Brent from 1964 to 1965, and was an alderman of Brent until 1968. Willesden is an area in North West London which forms part of the London Borough of Brent. ... The London Borough of Brent is a London borough in north west London and forms part of Outer London. ... An alderman is a member of a municipal legislative body in a town or city with many jurisdictions. ...

He was elected as MP for Willesden East with a majority of less than 2,000 votes in the 1964 UK general election, taking the seat from Conservative Trevor Skeet, and Harold Wilson's Labour government took power with a slim majority of only five seats, which was quickly reduced to three. Within weeks, he was appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Tom Fraser, the Minister of Transport, from 1964 to 1967, and then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Power from 1967 to 1969. He served as Minister of Housing and Local Government from 1969 to the 1970 UK general election. Willesden East was a constituency in North-West London which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. ... Harold Wilson Alec Douglas-Home The United Kingdom general election of 1964 was held on October 15, 1964, more than five years after its predecessor, and thirteen years after the Conservative Party had first taken power. ... Sir Trevor Herbert Harry Skeet (January 28, 1918 – August 14, 2004) was a New Zealand lawyer and a British Conservative politician. ... James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, PC (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was one of the most prominent British politicians of the 20th Century. ... A Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) is a junior role given to British Government MPs to act as the Parliamentary contact of senior Ministers. ... Tom Fraser was a Labour MP for the Hamilton constituency (1950-1967) [[1]]. He was Minister of Transport from October 16, 1964 until December 23 1965. ... The government role of Minister for Transport is common to several countries: The British Secretary of State for Transport The Canadian Minister of Transport The Irish Minister for Transport This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... A Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, in the United Kingdom government structure, is a minister who is junior to a Minister of State who is then junior to a Secretary of State. ... (Redirected from 1970 UK general election) The United Kingdom general election of 1970 was held on June 18, 1970, and resulted in a surprise loss of power for Labour under Harold Wilson, who was replaced as Prime Minister by the Conservative leader, Edward Heath. ...

He remained housing spokesman in opposition, and his mastery of the subject made him a fearsome opponent to the incumbent Conservative ministers. With Eric Heffer, he led a Commons protest over the guillotine of the controversial bill which was to become the Industrial Relations Act 1971. Eric Samuel Heffer (January 12, 1922 – May 27, 1991) was a British socialist politician. ... The Maiden, an older Scottish design. ... The Industrial Relations Act 1971 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. ...

Freeson's seat was renamed Brent East in 1974, and he returned as Minister for Housing and Construction in the new Department of the Environment after the 1974 UK general election, in a period of high interest rates and rapidly rising house prices. He later added responsiblity for new towns, planning, land and local government to his portfolio. He retained his ministerial office when James Callaghan took over from Harold Wilson in 1976, becoming a privy counsellor that year, and retained his office until Labour's defeat at the 1979 UK general election. He remained on the Labour front bench in opposition, as spokesman on health and social security, but was demoted by Michael Foot in 1981. He later served on the Environment Select Committee. Brent East is constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. ... The Department for the Environment (Formerly the Department of Environmental Protection) was West Australias environmental agency. ... There were two general elections held in the United Kingdom in 1974: United Kingdom general election, February 1974 United Kingdom general election, October 1974 Category: ... A new town, planned community or planned city is a city, town, or community that was designed from scratch, and grew up more or less following the plan. ... Planning is the (psychological) process of creating and refining a plan, or integrating it with other plans. ... Local governments are administrative offices of an area smaller than a state. ... Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, PC (27 March 1912 – 26 March 2005), was Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979. ... This article concerns the British Sovereigns Privy Council. ... The British general election of May 3, 1979 was a pivotal point in 20th century British politics. ... Michael Foot For other people named Michael Foot, see Michael Foot (disambiguation). ... A Select Committee is a committee made up of a small number of parliamentary members appointed to deal with particular areas or issues originating in the Westminster System of parliamentary democracy. ...

He was a member of the Fabian Society, supported the Irish nationalist cause, fought racism, opposed the Korean War and the Vietnam War, was a founder member of CND in 1957, and was one of five Labour MPs on the first Aldermaston March in 1958. He wrote for Tribune, and edited the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight from 1964 to 1967. He attacked the British Nationality Act 1981, and criticised Conservative policy on Northern Ireland. He was a committed left-winger, but his relatively moderate ("sensible left") views made him vulnerable to the hard left in the early 1980s. He was able to retain his seat at the 1983 UK general election, but was deselected in 1985 after a bitter struggle, described as "political 'murder'" in his Guardian obituary, and replaced as Labour candidate in Brent East by Ken Livingstone at the 1987 UK general election. The Fabian Society is a British socialist intellectual movement, whose purpose is to advance the socialist cause by reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. ... Irish nationalism refers to political movements that desire greater autonomy or the independence of Ireland from Great Britain. ... An African-American man drinks out of the colored only water cooler at a racially segregated street car terminal in the United States in 1939. ... Combatants Western Allied/UN combatants: Republic of Korea United States Britain Communist combatants: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea People’s Republic of China Soviet Union Commanders Syngman Rhee Chung Il Kwon Douglas MacArthur Mark W. Clark Matthew Ridgway Kim Il-sung Choi Yong-kun Peng Dehuai Strength Note: All... Combatants Republic of Vietnam United States Republic of Korea Thailand Australia New Zealand The Philippines Democratic Republic of Vietnam National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam People’s Republic of China Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea Strength ~1,200,000 (1968) ~520,000 (1968) Casualties South Vietnamese dead... CND logo In British politics, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has been at the forefront of the peace movement in the United Kingdom and claims to be Europes largest single-issue peace campaign. ... Tribune is a democratic socialist weekly, currently a magazine though in the past more often a newspaper, published in London. ... Anti-Fascism is a belief and practice of opposing all forms of Fascism. ... Searchlight is a British anti-fascist magazine, founded in 1975, which publishes exposés about racism, anti-Semitism, and fascism in the UK. Searchlights main focus is on the British National Party (BNP), Combat 18, and other sections of the far right, although it has also published criticism of... The British Nationality Act 1981 was an Act of Parliament passed by the British Parliament. ... Motto: (French for God and my right)2 Anthem: UK: God Save the Queen Regional: (De facto) Londonderry Air Capital Belfast Largest city Belfast Official language(s) English (De facto), Irish, Ulster Scots 3 Government Constitutional monarchy  - Queen Queen Elizabeth II  - Prime Minister Tony Blair MP  - First Minister Office suspended... In politics, left-wing, political left, leftism, or simply the left, are terms which refer (with no particular precision) to the segment of the political spectrum typically associated with any of several strains of socialism, social democracy, or liberalism (especially in the American sense of the word), or with opposition... Far left is a vague term used to refer to people or ideas falling into the general category of left wing which the speaker considers to be extreme. ... (Redirected from 1983 UK general election) The general election of June 9, 1983 gave the Conservatives and Margaret Thatcher the second most decisive election victory since that of Labour in 1945. ... Ken Livingstone Kenneth Robert Livingstone (born June 17, 1945), is a British politician who has been the Mayor of London since the creation of the post in 2000. ... (Redirected from 1987 UK general election) The general election of June 11, 1987 was the third victory in a row for Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives. ...

Later life

After leaving Parliament, Freeson became a consultant on housing and planning issues. He was editor of Jewish Vanguard from 1987 to 2006, and served as chairman of Poale Zion. Poale Zion (also spelled Poalei Tziyon or Poaley Syjon, meaning Workers of Zion) was a Movement of Marxist Zionist Jewish workers circles founded in various Russian cities about the turn of the century after the Bund rejected Zionism in 1901. ...

Freeson again became a councillor in Brent in 2002, but lost his Queen's Park seat in the 2006 local elections. Queens Park is an area of North West London divided between the London Borough of Brent and the City of Westminster. ... Local government elections took place in England (only) on Thursday May 4, 2006. ...

External links

• Obituary, The Guardian, 11 October 2006
• Obituary, The Independent, 12 October 2006
• Obituary, The Daily Telegraph, 12 October 2006
• Obituary, The Times, 12 October 2006