Howe (of Aberavon), (Richard Edward) Geoffrey Howe, Baron 1926-
British Conservative politician

Born in Port Talbot, Glamorgan, he was educated at Cambridge. He was called to the Bar in 1952 and first elected to parliament as a Conservative MP in 1964. Knighted in 1970, he was Solicitor-General from 1970 to 1972. In his four years as Chancellor of the Exchequer (1979-83), he successfully engineered a reduction in the rate of inflation. He became Foreign Secretary after the 1983 general election. In 1989, in a major Cabinet reshuffle, he was moved from the Foreign Office to the leadership of the House of Commons (with the title of Deputy Prime Minister) following policy disagreements with Margaret Thatcher over European monetary union. A year later, he resigned in protest at her continuing intransigence, and his highly critical speech to the House in October 1990 heightened the party split that contributed to Thatcher's downfall and replacement by John Major. In 1991, he announced his decision not to continue as an MP after the next general election. He was made a life peer in 1992 and his memoirs, Conflict of Loyalties, were published in 1994.