The Ministry was responsible for aircraft production and supplying the armed forces, and Maudling came to agree with critics who argued that it was an unnecessary intermediary ; he therefore recommended its abolition.

However, Macmillan's sudden illness and announcement of his resignation in October 1963 came at a time when Maudling was considered too junior.

Nine months later, Maudling had proved his usefulness and Macmillan brought him into the Cabinet ( 17 September 1957 ) where he acted more as a Minister without Portfolio: he had specific responsibility for persuading the six members of the embryonic European Economic Community, who had recently signed the Treaty of Rome, to abandon their proposal for a customs union in favour of a wider free-trade area where each country would preserve their own external tariffs.

Devlin punched Reginald Maudling, the Secretary of State for the Home Department in the Conservative government, when he made a statement to Parliament on the events of Bloody Sunday stating that the British Army had fired only in self-defence.

Though he voted for the Labour Party in their 1945 landslide victory, because he wanted to punish the Conservative Party for the Munich agreement, after the war he joined the Conservatives and worked for the Conservative Research Department under Rab Butler, where his colleagues included Iain Macleod and Reginald Maudling.

Nonetheless, Butler and Maudling ( who was very popular with backbench MPs at that time ) declined to push for his resignation, especially after a tide of support from Conservative activists around the country.

* Reginald Maudling: Secretary of State for the Colonies

In the UK, on April 1963, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Reggie Maudling removed the need for the 1880 brewing license.

The Lord Chancellor, Lord Dilhorne, conducted a poll of cabinet members, and reported to Macmillan that taking account of first and second preferences there were ten votes for Home, four for Maudling, three for Butler and two for Hailsham.

Three candidates stood for the vacancy: Heath, Maudling and Powell.

Heath won with 150 votes ( one of them cast by Douglas-Home ) to 133 for Maudling and 15 for Powell.

Reginald Maudling was born in Woodside Park, North Finchley, and was named for his father, Reginald George Maudling, an actuary, who contracted to do actuarial and financial calculations as the Commercial Calculating Company Ltd.

In March 1946, Maudling was chosen as the prospective candidate for Barnet, close to his birthplace in Finchley, and began giving speeches there.

Macmillan appointed Maudling to the post of Paymaster General and spokesman in the House of Commons for the Ministry of Fuel and Power, which was technically a demotion.

Meanwhile Maudling became an underwriting member of Lloyd's of London in December 1957, although his assets were somewhat below average for other ' names '.

Maudling also succeeded in negotiating a free trade agreement between the countries outside the Common Market ; this became the European Free Trade Association and was some compensation for his failure to negotiate a free trade area with the Common Market.

Reginald Maudling was for a short time, as Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1961, responsible for the process of decolonisation.

Maudling later revised his proposals which were to form the basis of the European Free Trade Association.

This was the period in which Maudling was at his most popular within the Conservative Party and in the country.

Out of office, Maudling accepted the offer of a seat on the board of Kleinwort Benson in November 1964, one of the factors which led to his being shifted to spokesman on Foreign Affairs in early 1965.

When Douglas-Home resigned, after putting in place a system in which the leadership was directly elected, Maudling fought against Edward Heath for the position of candidate to the party centre-right.

That August, Maudling reluctantly authorised the Northern Ireland government to introduce internment without trial for terror suspects, which caused widespread upheaval and anger among the nationalist population due to its exclusive use on that community, and was followed by a massive escalation in the level of violence.

In 1974, Shane Paul O ' Doherty, a PIRA volunteer, sent Maudling a letter bomb, which slightly injured him.

This inquiry published its report on 14 July 1977 ; the report concluded that Maudling had indulged in " conduct inconsistent with the standards which the House is entitled to expect from its members ".

Notorious for his abuse of his power, he was brought down by, and jailed for his role in, the Poulson scandal of 1974, which also destroyed the careers of T. Dan Smith and Tory Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling.

After several unsuccessful attempts to launch the project, Byron was introduced to the brothers Chris and Jonny Maudling in 1993, who were also looking to form a serious band.

With the president of the Board of Trade Reginald Maudling, he was during a meeting of non EEC countries in the Alabama Room in Geneva, one of the initiators of the European Free-Trade Association ( EFTA ) in December 1958.

Before his speech Powell was favoured to replace Heath as Conservative leader by 1 per cent, with Reginald Maudling favoured by 20 per cent ; after his speech 24 per cent favoured Powell and 18 per cent Maudling.

Reginald Maudling PC ( 7 March 1917 – 14 February 1979 ) was a British politician who held several Cabinet posts, including Chancellor of the Exchequer.

At Oxford, Maudling stayed out of undergraduate politics and studied the works of Hegel ; he was to formulate his conclusions later as the inseparability of economic and political freedom: " the purpose of State control and the guiding principle of its application is the achievement of true freedom ".

Maudling was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple in 1940.

In the subsequent Labour landslide Maudling was defeated like many others, although Heston and Isleworth had been expected to be a safe Conservative seat.

When Anthony Eden took over as Prime Minister in 1955, Maudling was promoted to head a department as Minister of Supply.

Maudling was opposed to any proposal to join the Common Market on the basis that it would end Britain's right to make commercial agreements with New Zealand and Australia.

However Maudling was keen to return to economic policy, and seized his opportunity when Macmillan made it clear in private that he supported a voluntary incomes policy.

Maudling promptly made his case in public, and three weeks later was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in Macmillan's " Night of the Long Knives " attempt to rejuvenate his Cabinet.

Maudling was able to remove income tax from owner occupiers ' residential premises.

In 1969, he had been President of the Real Estate Fund of America, whose Chief Executive, Jerome Hoffman, had been imprisoned for fraud ; Maudling had also been an adviser to the Peachey Property Corporation, whose Chairman Sir Eric Miller had embezzled company money and later committed suicide.

These further revelations led to a Parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of Maudling and two other MPs linked to Poulson.

He was replaced by Reginald Maudling, then seen as a potential future leader of the Conservative Party, and whose remit was to reflate the economy going into the next General Election due by the end of 1964.

* Corrupt architect John Poulson and links to Conservative Home Secretary Reginald Maudling, Labour council leader T. Dan Smith and others ( 1972-4 ): Maudling resigned, Smith sentenced to imprisonment.

In his Memoirs, Home Secretary Reginald Maudling describes himself as Deputy Prime Minister under Heath from 1970 to his resignation in 1972 over the Poulson affair.

In 1966, he had obtained a directorship in the company of John Poulson, an architect Maudling helped obtain lucrative contracts.

Another contact was the then Shadow Commonwealth Secretary Reginald Maudling, whom Poulson knew from his National Liberal activities.

Maudling was anxious to build up a business career to keep up his income and Poulson needed a big name as Chairman of one of his companies, Construction Promotion.

In return, Maudling helped to bring pressure on the government of Malta to award a £ 1. 5 million contract for the new Victoria Hospital on Gozo to Poulson.