John Moore, Baron Moore of Lower Marsh (26 November 1937 – 20 May 2019) was the Conservative Party MP for Croydon Central from 28 February 1974 to 9 April 1992, preceding Paul Beresford. He served in a variety of cabinet positions under Margaret Thatcher and was famous for his "moviestar good looks" and his slight American accent gained from his years living in thte United States.
Biography[]
John Moore was born in Kentish Town, London, England in 1937, and he served in the Royal Sussex Regiment of the British Army from 1955 to 1957. He became President of the LSE Students' Union and married an American woman from Chicago, working as a financial analyst with a Chicago bank. He became a Democratic precinct captain in Chicago and adopted John F. Kennedy as a role model, and he returned to the United Kingdom in 1968, settling in Wimbledon with his wife. He became active in local Conservative Party politics and became a Councillor in the London Borough of Merton in 1971, branding himself as a liberal-conservative. He opposed Education Secretary Margaret Thatcher's withdrawal of free school milk from the children of his borough, and, in 1973, he was elected as the Conservative MP for Croydon Central. His wife, who served as his speechwriter, secretary, and advisor, was the driving force behind his rise in politics. In March 1975, Thatcher appointed Moore as one of five vice-chairme of the Conservative Party, and he became Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy in 1979. Moore brought aspects of American corporate culture to government and spoke with a slight American accent, and he enjoyed a meteoric rise which led to him serving as Secretary of State for Transport from 1986 to 1987, Secretary of State for Health and Social Services from 1987 to 1988, and Secretary of State for Social Security from 1988 to 1989. He facilitated Thatcher's privatization programme, but, when he attempted to privatize the National Health Service, he faced opposition from all sides and was demoted to Social Security in 1988 and sacked in 1989. He left the House of Commons in 1992 and returned to the corporate world, and he died in 2019 at the age of 81.