Michael Grylls
Encyclopedia
Sir William Michael John Grylls, known as Michael Grylls, (21 February 1934 – 7 February 2001) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

 politician. He was implicated in the cash-for-questions affair
Cash-for-questions affair
The "Cash-for-questions affair" was one of the biggest political scandals of the 1990s in the United Kingdom.It began in October 1994 when The Guardian newspaper alleged that London's most successful parliamentary lobbyist, Ian Greer of Ian Greer Associates, had bribed two Conservative Members of...

, a poitical scandal of the 1990s. He was the father of adventurer Bear Grylls
Bear Grylls
Edward Michael "Bear" Grylls is an English adventurer, writer and television presenter. He is best known for his television series Man vs. Wild, known as Born Survivor in the United Kingdom...

.

Education and early career

Grylls, the son of an army officer
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

, was educated at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. His eyesight was not good enough for the Navy, so he joined the Royal Marines
Royal Marines
The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...

, and saw active service, leaving in 1955, and studying Spanish at the University of Madrid
University of Madrid
The Complutense University of Madrid is a public university in Madrid, Spain, and one of the oldest universities in the world.The University of Madrid may also refer to:* The Autonomous University of Madrid, a public university founded in 1968...

.

He turned his hand to business, setting up a wine importing firm called the Costa Brava
Costa Brava
The Costa Brava is a coastal region of northeastern Catalonia, Spain, in the comarques of Alt Empordà, Baix Empordà and Selva, in the province of Girona. Costa is the Catalan and Spanish word for 'coast', and Brava means 'rugged' or 'wild'...

 Company. His description of some of his products as "Spanish champagne" provoked the ire of both the makers of genuine champagne and its London importers; he was unsuccessfully prosecuted for trading under a false description, but they won a civil writ against him for "passing off
Passing off
Passing off is a common law tort which can be used to enforce unregistered trademark rights. The tort of passing off protects the goodwill of a trader from a misrepresentation that causes damage to goodwill....

", i.e. misrepresenting his goods by using someone else's trademark.

From 1959 he served as a councillor on St. Pancras Borough Council
Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras
The Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras was a Metropolitan borough of the County of London between 1900 and 1965, when it was amalgamated with the Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead and the Metropolitan Borough of Holborn to form the London Borough of Camden...

, and was elected to the Greater London Council
Greater London Council
The Greater London Council was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council which had covered a much smaller area...

 for the Cities of London and Westminster from 1967-70.

Family

Grylls married Sally Ford, the daughter of Patricia Ford, Lady Fisher
Patricia Ford (politician)
Patricia Ford, Lady Fisher was an Ulster Unionist Party politician in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom...

, briefly an Ulster Unionist MP, and cricketer Neville Montagu Ford
Neville Ford
Neville Montague Ford was an English cricketer who played for Derbyshire, Oxford University, Middlesex and MCC between 1926 and 1934....

. Sally is the stepdaughter of Conservative MP Nigel Fisher
Nigel Fisher
Sir Nigel Thomas Loveridge Fisher MC was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom.Fisher was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was in the Welsh Guards of the British Army during World War II, serving as a major in north west Europe. He was awarded the...

 and the stepsister of Labour MP Mark Fisher
Mark Fisher
Mark Fisher is a British Labour Party politician. He was the Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent Central from 1983 to 2010 and Minister for the Arts between 1997-98.-Early life:...

. The Grylls had one daughter and one son, the adventurer Edward Michael "Bear" Grylls
Bear Grylls
Edward Michael "Bear" Grylls is an English adventurer, writer and television presenter. He is best known for his television series Man vs. Wild, known as Born Survivor in the United Kingdom...

, who is most recognised as the host of Born Survivor (Man vs. Wild
Man vs. Wild
Man vs. Wild, also called Born Survivor: Bear Grylls, Ultimate Survival, or Survival Game, is a survival television series hosted by Bear Grylls on the Discovery Channel. In the United Kingdom, the series was originally shown on Channel 4, but later series were broadcast on Discovery Channel UK...

in the U.S.).

Career as Member of Parliament

Grylls was an unsuccessful candidate in the Fulham constituency
Fulham (UK Parliament constituency)
Fulham was a borough constituency based around the London district of Fulham. It was represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1885 until 1918 and from 1955 to 1997....

 in both the 1964
United Kingdom general election, 1964
The United Kingdom general election of 1964 was held on 15 October 1964, more than five years after the preceding election, and thirteen years after the Conservative Party had retaken power...

 and 1966 general elections
United Kingdom general election, 1966
The 1966 United Kingdom general election on 31 March 1966 was called by sitting Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Wilson's decision to call an election turned on the fact that his government, elected a mere 17 months previously in 1964 had an unworkably small majority of only 4 MPs...

. At the 1970 one
United Kingdom general election, 1970
The United Kingdom general election of 1970 was held on 18 June 1970, and resulted in a surprise victory for the Conservative Party under leader Edward Heath, who defeated the Labour Party under Harold Wilson. The election also saw the Liberal Party and its new leader Jeremy Thorpe lose half their...

, he was returned to the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

 as Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Chertsey
Chertsey (UK Parliament constituency)
Chertsey was a county constituency in Surrey which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom....

. His seat was abolished in boundary changes, but he was returned to Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

 for the new North West Surrey constituency in the February 1974
United Kingdom general election, February 1974
The United Kingdom's general election of February 1974 was held on the 28th of that month. It was the first of two United Kingdom general elections held that year, and the first election since the Second World War not to produce an overall majority in the House of Commons for the winning party,...

 general election
General election
In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...

. He represented this constituency until his retirement at the 1997 election
United Kingdom general election, 1997
The United Kingdom general election, 1997 was held on 1 May 1997, more than five years after the previous election on 9 April 1992, to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party ended its 18 years in opposition under the leadership of Tony Blair, and won the general...

.

Andrew Roth
Andrew Roth
Andrew Roth was a biographer and journalist known for his compilation of Parliamentary Profiles, a directory of British Members of Parliament, which is available online in The Guardian...

, author of Parliamentary Profiles, in assessing Grylls's ideology, accused him of "opportunistic deviations", for example favouring little state interference with business, but supporting public funds for British Aerospace
British Aerospace
British Aerospace plc was a UK aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was in the Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire...

, which was a large employer in his constituency.

He was knighted in 1992.

Cash for questions

The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, which exposed the Cash-for-questions affair
Cash-for-questions affair
The "Cash-for-questions affair" was one of the biggest political scandals of the 1990s in the United Kingdom.It began in October 1994 when The Guardian newspaper alleged that London's most successful parliamentary lobbyist, Ian Greer of Ian Greer Associates, had bribed two Conservative Members of...

 in 1996, summed Grylls up as "most senior and voracious Tory MP run by the lobbyist Ian Greer". For some years he had acted as a consultant to the lobbying company run by Greer at the heart of the inquiry. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards
Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards
The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is an officer of the British House of Commons.He or she is appointed by a Resolution of the House of Commons and works a four-day week.- Tasks :...

, Sir Gordon Downey
Gordon Downey
Sir Gordon Downey was Britain's first Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.The Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards was set up by the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in 1995 as a result of recommendations made by the Committee on Standards in Public Life...

, stated that Grylls had "seriously misled" the select committee on members' interests in 1990 (replaced in 1995 by the Standards and Privileges Committee) by understating the number of payments he had received for introducing clients to ministers and Grylls's conduct, said Sir Gordon, had fallen "below the standards the House is entitled to expect of its members".
"Sir Michael received payments from Mr Greer (though not in cash) which were neither introduction commissions nor fees associated with the Unitary Tax Campaign. It is not possible to conclude that these payments originated from Mr Al Fayed, although Sir Michael actively participated in the Greer lobbying operation. Sir Michael deliberately misled the Select Committee on Members' Interests in 1990 by seriously understating the number of commission payments he had received; and by omitting to inform them of other fees received from Mr Greer. Sir Michael persistently failed to declare his interests in dealings with Ministers and officials over the House of Fraser
House of Fraser
House of Fraser is a British department store group with over 60 stores across the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was established in Glasgow, Scotland in 1849 as Arthur and Fraser. By 1891 it was known as Fraser & Sons. The company grew steadily during the early 20th century, but after the Second...

. Sir Michael's action in taking a commission payment for introducing a constituent to Mr Greer was unacceptable. There is insufficient evidence to show that Sir Michael solicited business for Mr Greer in expectation of commission payments."

Other

Grylls was a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron
Royal Yacht Squadron
The Royal Yacht Squadron is the most prestigious yacht club in the United Kingdom and arguably the world. Its clubhouse is located in Cowes Castle on the Isle of Wight in the United Kingdom...

until his death in 2001; his widow remains an honorary member.

Sources

  • Times Guide to the House of Commons, Times Newspapers Limited, 1992 edition.
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