Mark Carlisle - Life and Career

Life and Career

He was educated at Radley College in Abingdon, Oxfordshire and the University of Manchester before becoming an MP in 1964 for the Cheshire constituency of Runcorn. He was Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs from 1970-1972 when he became a Minister of State for Home Affairs leaving the job when the Conservatives went out of office in 1974. He was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Science in 1978 before being appointed to the department itself when Margaret Thatcher was elected in May 1979. Former Labour Cabinet Minister Clare Short has said that it was her low opinion of Carlisle, who she worked under as a civil servant persuaded her to enter elected politics herself because she believed she "could do better" than many of the MPs she dealt with.

Thatcher writes in her memoirs that Carlisle "had not proved a particularly effective Education Secretary" and to this effect he was dismissed in the September 1981 Cabinet reshuffle. However, Thatcher did write that he left with ‘courteousness and good humour', which was in contrast to Sir Ian Gilmour who having left the cabinet in the same reshuffle, stormed out of Downing Street, announcing that government policy was "heading for the rocks". Boundary changes meant that Carlisle appeared to change seats at the 1983 general election but in fact areas to the south of Warrington had previously been part of the Runcorn seat. He remained an MP until June 1987. Later the same year he was elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Carlisle of Bucklow, of Mobberley in the County of Cheshire where he sat as a Conservative life peer.

In the 2012 film The Iron Lady he was played by Martin Wimbush.