biography
| name: |
Brittan (of Pennithorne), Leon Brittan, Baron
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1939– )
|
| biography:
| British statesman, born in London, UK. He studied at Cambridge and Harvard, and qualified as a barrister. He became a Conservative MP in 1974, and from 1979 held ministerial posts under Margaret Thatcher, including Treasury chief secretary (1981–3), home secretary (1983–5), and trade and industry secretary (1985–6). He resigned from the cabinet in 1986 because of his involvement in a political dispute over the sale of the Westland Helicopter Co. In 1989 he was nominated as a vice-president of the European Commission with special responsibility for competition policy. He resigned from the Commission in 1999 along with all his fellow commissioners following the publication of a report severely critical of European administration. He was knighted in 1989, and created a life peer in 1999. |
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