Fair dealing/fair use
I have chosen to start this with a piece on Ernest Marples. I remember him as Minister for Transport opening the first motorway section of the M1 in 1959 when I was 8, technically it was the second section of motorway because the Preston bypass was the first. It turns out Ernest was a bit of a lad when it came to business deals and especially contributing to the Robbery.
He always had the look of Stanley Unwin about him, not a ringer but just something that reminded me of the infamous Professor. I also believe he was highly addicted to getting his picture in the papers, wasn’t there a former Chief Constable who had the same weakness and was nicknamed Kodak. In his previous incarnation as Postmaster General he had been responsible for introducing postcodes and premium bonds including the much touted ERNIE that drew the numbers.
Ernest was born in 1907 in Manchester. He worked as a miner, a postie, a chef and an accountant. In WW2 he was in the Royal Artillery and ended up as a Captain. At the end of the war he joined the Tory Party and was elected to become the member for Wallasey. From 1957 to 1959 he was the Postmaster General and then moved to become Minister of Transport until 1964 when the abysmal Wilson government took over from the just as abysmal Tory administration. He remained an MP until 1974 when he took the ermine and the title Baron Marples of Wallasey.
In 1948 he, along with civil engineer Reginald Ridgway set up Marples Ridgway, a civil engineering company. This company was sold off in 1964. Upon becoming a junior minister in 1951 Ernest was accused of a conflict of interest because Marples Ridgway was building flyovers and being paid by the government. He also tried to pull a few strokes with his shares and got called out.
Although his company was not involved in building the M1 it was alleged that the company had a least a finger in the pie. During the investigation into the Profumo affair, it was discovered that Ernest was in the habit of using prostitutes, allegedly fond of being whipped while dressed in women’s clothing. These days that would be seen as fairly normal behaviour and any criticism would be treated as bullying.
Early in 1975 Marples took off for Monaco and thereby avoided an enormous tax bill and quite a few outstanding court cases where he was being sued, he eventually died in Monaco in July 1978.
He wasn’t really a big villain in the scheme of things but he was certainly pretty dodgy and cavalier in his relations with the then Inland Robbery, better known to us these days as HMRC though more abusive names have been heard. His conviction for drink driving seems rather modest when compared to other (dis)honourable members.
© well_chuffed 2026
