Keith Speed

Sir
Keith Speed
RD DL
Sir Keith Speed RD DL
Member of Parliament; for Meriden
	In office; 29 March 1968 – 8 February 1974
Preceded by	Christopher Rowland
Succeeded by	John Tomlinson
Member of Parliament; for Ashford
	In office; 10 October 1974 – 8 April 1997
Preceded by	Bill Deedes
Succeeded by	Damian Green
Personal details
Born	Herbert Keith Speed; 11 March 1934; Evesham, Worcestershire, England
Died	12 January 2018 (aged 83); Ashford, Kent, England
Political party	Conservative

Sir Herbert Keith Speed RD DL (11 March 1934 – 12 January 2018) was a British Conservative politician and former Member of Parliament.^[1]^[2] He was a descendant of cartographer and historian John Speed.^[3]

Life

Speed was born on 11 March 1934 in Evesham and educated at Bedford Modern School.^[4] He served in the Royal Navy from 1947 to 1956 and continued in the Royal Naval Reserve thereafter as a Lt Cdr. After a period as a sales and marketing manager, he gained employment in the Conservative Research Department in 1965.^[5]

After unsuccessfully contesting St Helens in 1964, Speed was elected MP for Meriden in Warwickshire in a 1968 by-election and held the seat until 1974. New constituency boundaries were drawn up prior to the February 1974 general election and Speed lost his Meriden seat to Labour's John Tomlinson, who retained the seat in October 1974 defeating Christopher Horne. He was selected to succeed Bill Deedes as Conservative Candidate for the seat of Ashford in Kent in the October 1974 General Election, and was elected as MP with a majority of over 6,000.

On 4 May 1979 he was appointed Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Defence, a position known then as the Navy Minister. He was sacked by Margaret Thatcher in May 1981, after refusing to hand in his resignation. This was because he was unable to accept the reductions in the strength of the Royal Navy proposed by Thatcher and then Secretary of State for Defence, John Nott. With typical service humour, a Royal Navy saying of the time was the fictitious order "Less (K)notts, more Speed!".^[6] Later events in the Falklands War showed the shrewdness of his position, and he was knighted in the 1992 Birthday Honours.^[7] He retired as an MP in 1997.

In 1982 he wrote a book, Sea Change (see bibliography), which outlined the background to the Falklands conflict and expressed admiration for former Soviet Admiral Sergey Gorshkov.

As of April 2005, Sir Keith Speed was a Deputy Lord-Lieutenant for the County Of Kent, and Vice President of the Maritime Volunteer Service.

Speed died in hospital on 12 January 2018.^[8]

Bibliography

Speed, Keith (1982). Sea Change: The Battle For The Falklands And The Future Of Britain's Navy. Ashgrove Press ISBN 0-906798-20-5

References

^ "Speed, Sir (Herbert) Keith, (11 March 1934–12 Jan. 2018), DL; Director, Folkestone & Dover Water Services (formerly Folkestone and District Water Co.), 1986–2007". WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U35763. ISBN 978-0-19-954088-4.
^ "Sir Keith Speed, former Navy minister – obituary". The Telegraph. 22 January 2018. Retrieved 6 April 2019 – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
^ "Sir Keith Speed, former Navy minister – obituary". The Daily Telegraph. 22 January 2018 – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
^ Bedford Modern School of the black & red. OCLC 16558393 – via worldcat.org.
^ Speed, Keith (1982) Sea Change: The Battle for the Falklands and the Future of the Royal Navy, Ashgrove Press, jacket cover inset
^ Rick Jolly, Jackspeak: A Guide to British Naval Slang & Usage, FoSAMMA (2000), ISBN 0-9514305-2-1
^ "No. 52952". The London Gazette (Supplement). 12 June 1992. p. 2. (United Kingdom)
^ "Tributes to 'model of kindness' former MP". Kent Online. 17 January 2018. Retrieved 30 March 2019.

External links

Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Keith Speed

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Christopher Rowland	Member of Parliament for Meriden 1968 – Feb. 1974	Succeeded by John Tomlinson
Preceded by W.F. Deedes	Member of Parliament for Ashford Oct. 1974 – 1997	Succeeded by Damian Green