Anthony Perrinott Lysberg Barber, Baron Barber, (4 July 1920 – 16 December 2005) was a British Conservative politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1970 to 1974.
After serving in both the Territorial Army and the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, Barber studied at Oxford and became a barrister. Elected as MP for Doncaster in 1951, Barber served in government under Harold Macmillan as Economic Secretary to the Treasury and Financial Secretary to the Treasury, before being appointed Minister of Health by Alec Douglas-Home in 1963. After losing his seat in 1964, he won the 1965 by-election in Altrincham and Sale and returned to Parliament.
Barber was appointed as Chancellor of the Exchequer by Edward Heath in 1970, and oversaw a major liberalisation of the banking system, replaced purchase tax and Selective Employment Tax with Value Added Tax, and also relaxed exchange controls. During his term the economy suffered due to stagflation and industrial unrest, including a miners strike which led to the Three-Day Week. In 1972 he delivered a budget which was designed to return the Conservatives to power in an election expected in 1974 or 1975. This budget led to a brief period of growth known as "The Barber Boom," followed by a wage-price spiral and high inflation, culminating in the 1976 sterling crisis. He was forced to introduce anti-inflation measures, along with a Price Commission and a Pay Board. After the Conservatives lost the first general election of 1974, he did not stand in the second election of that year.
Birth and early life
Barber was born on 4 July 1920 in Kingston upon Hull. He was the third son of John Barber and his Danish wife, Musse. Barber's unusual middle names arose from his mother, who contributed the "Lysberg", and French grandmother, who contributed the "Perrinott". His father was company secretary and director of a Doncaster confectionery works. He had two brothers: Noel, who became a journalist and novelist, and Kenneth, who became company secretary of Midland Bank.
Barber was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School in Retford, Nottinghamshire.
Barber is a prominent figure throughout Calnan's book:
:"It was natural that Charles Hall, Tony Barber and I should plot escape together. We had known one another at Benson, before being shot down and we still felt that we all belonged to the same unit."
Barber also wrote a brief foreword to this volume: "What has struck me most forcibly is how, after more than twenty years, he has recounted our adventures with such accuracy. He has managed to make a reality, once again, of the hopes and fears, the depression and the excitement which, for most of us who were there, now seems more like a dream."
While still a prisoner, Barber took a law degree with first-class honours from the University of London, through the International Red Cross. The inflation of capital asset values was also followed by the 1973 oil crisis which followed the Yom Kippur War, adding to inflationary pressures in the economy and feeding industrial militancy (already at a high as a result of the struggle over the Industrial Relations Act 1971).
In 1972, having said a week earlier in the House of Commons that he had "no reason to believe that the pound was overvalued", he floated it (most of the world currencies were fixed under the Bretton Woods system at that time) "as a temporary measure". The pound immediately plunged on the markets, and it was impossible during his time as Chancellor to impose a new parity. and served as Chairman of Standard Chartered Bank from 1974 to 1987, where future Prime Minister John Major was his personal assistant. In 1987, he was appointed to be a Deputy Lieutenant of the County of West Yorkshire. Barber was also a director of BP from 1979 to 1988. He visited Nelson Mandela in prison, and was a member of the Franks Committee that investigated the Falklands War. In 1991, he became chair of the RAF Benevolent Association's appeal for the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, which raised £26 million. In 1989, he married Rosemary Youens.