Cecil Edward Parkinson, Baron Parkinson, (1 September 1931 – 22 January 2016) was a British Conservative Party politician and cabinet minister. A chartered accountant by training, he entered Parliament in November 1970, and was appointed a minister in Margaret Thatcher's first government in May 1979. He successfully managed the Conservative Party's 1983 election campaign, and was rewarded with an appointment as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, but was forced to resign following revelations that his former secretary, Sara Keays, was pregnant with his child, whom she later bore and named Flora Keays. Flora was born with severe cerebral palsy.
Parkinson subsequently served as Secretary of State for Energy, and later Secretary of State for Transport. He resigned that office in 1990, on the same day that Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister. He was created Baron Parkinson in 1992, and served in the House of Lords until his retirement in September 2015.
Early life
Cecil Parkinson was born at 4 Edward Street, Carnforth, Lancashire, the son of Sydney Parkinson (13 April 1906 – 15 July 1995), a warehouseman for a corn dealer, later a railwayman, and his wife, Bridget, née Graham (29 January 1910 – 1991), who was from a Northern Irish family from Tyrone and Fermanagh but their roots were in Scotland. He had a younger sister, Norma (b. March 1933). He was educated at Lancaster Royal Grammar School, a state-run day and boarding school for boys, from 1943 to 1950 after passing his eleven-plus from where he won a scholarship to Cambridge University, where he read English at Emmanuel College, later switching to read law. He won a Blue as an athlete, competing over 220 and 440 yards. While at university, Parkinson was a Labour supporter and for a time was a member of that party. He even canvassed for them at the 1950 and 1951 General Elections. He did National service as an NCO in the Royal Air Force from 1950 to 1952.
After leaving university, Parkinson worked as a manager for the Metal Box Company, later becoming a consultant. He trained and qualified as a chartered accountant, and founded Parkinson-Hart Securities in 1961.
Member of Parliament
In the June 1970 general election Parkinson stood as Conservative candidate for Northampton, but was not elected. He was elected MP for Enfield West at a by-election in November 1970, following the death of Iain Macleod. When that constituency was abolished for the February 1974 general election he was elected for the new South Hertfordshire constituency. Following the 1979 general election he was made a junior trade minister. On 14 September 1981, he was appointed Chairman of the Conservative Party as well as Paymaster General with a seat in the cabinet; he was given the added official title of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1982. Despite his relatively junior status, he was a member of the small War Cabinet that Margaret Thatcher set up to run the Falklands War.
In government
He worked on the Conservative Party's 1983 election campaign, standing in the new Hertsmere constituency after South Hertfordshire's abolition. As a result of his success on the campaign, Thatcher had intended to promote him to Foreign Secretary; however, before the election he warned her that this would be unwise, for his former secretary, Sara Keays, was pregnant with his child. Although Thatcher initially remonstrated with him that Anthony Eden's womanising had been no bar on his being Foreign Secretary, she instead appointed him Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
Parkinson was forced to resign on 14 October 1983, after the news of Sara Keays' pregnancy had become public knowledge. The child was born on New Year's Eve, and christened Flora Keays. Subsequently, as a result of a dispute over child maintenance payments, Parkinson (with Keays' initial consent) was able to gain an injunction in 1993, forbidding the British media from making any reference to their daughter. Following the birth, Parkinson released a statement in which he wished the baby "peace, privacy and a happy life". Flora Keays has learning difficulties and Asperger syndrome, and also underwent an operation to remove a brain tumour when she was four, although it is unknown if this either caused or complicated her condition.