David Garrard (property developer)

Last updated

Sir David Garrard
Born
David Eardley Garrard

(1939-01-12) 12 January 1939 (age 84)
Streatham, London, England
Occupationproperty developer
Known forCo-founder, Minerva PLC

Sir David Eardley Garrard (born 12 January 1939) is a retired British property developer.

Contents

Personal and early life

David Garrard was born Streatham on 12 January 1939, the son of a Stamford Hill upholsterer. [1] He attended Battersea Grammar School in South London. [2] Garrard is Jewish. [3]

Garrard was married for forty-seven years to Maureen, who became a director of The Garrard Family Foundation [4] and The Garrard Academy. [5] She died in 2011. [6]

Career

Garrard left school at 16 and joined an estate agency. [1] He co-founded Minerva PLC with Andrew Rosenfeld, [7] a property investment and development company, whose shares are quoted in the London Stock Exchange FTSE 250 Index, and served as its chairman for many years until his retirement in March 2005. [1] Before co-founding Minerva, Garrard worked as a financial adviser. [8] In 2008, he set up a venture capital business with his son in law Alexander Salter, but the two fell out when Salter and Garrard's daughter divorced in 2013, leading to a High Court case. [9]

Garrard was listed by the Sunday Times Rich List 2005 as the joint 451st richest person in the UK, with a fortune in excess of £100 million,[ citation needed ] falling to 575th with £95 million in 2009. [10]

In 2014 Garrard was involved in a legal dispute with his former son-in-law related to an alleged attempted transfer of £2.5 million from a bank account and the appointment of Lord Mendelsohn as a director of jointly owned companies. [6]

Political involvement

Labour Party

In 2002 the first city academy under a new Labour programme, Business Academy Bexley (now Harris Garrard Academy) was opened by prime minister Tony Blair with Garrard as principal sponsor with a financial contribution of £2.5 million. Garrard chaired its governing body. [11] [12]

Before the 2005 General Election Garrard secretly provided the Labour Party with a loan of £2.3 million at a time when loans on commercial terms did not have to be declared, [13] to be repaid on 28 April 2007. [9] [14] Following the discovery of the loan in the course of the Cash for Honours political scandal in the UK, Garrard withdrew his nomination for a peerage. [13] [15] [16] The loan was extended, and Gerrard eventually called for it to be repaid in 2015, in a reaction against the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. [17]

In 2013, Garrard hosted a visit to Israel by eleven Labour MPs, including shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy, shadow defence minister Gemma Doyle, Labour Friends of Israel chair Anne McGuire and vice-chair Louise Ellman. [18] He also sponsored the 2014 Labour Friends of Israel annual lunch, which included a speech by Labour leader Ed Miliband. [19] [20]

In 2014, Garrard donated £500,000 to the Labour party, one of the largest private donations under Ed Miliband's leadership. [13] This prompted criticism of "double standards" when the media reported that Garrard had placed shares in an offshore trust to avoid tax, similar to Conservative donor and co-treasurer Lord Fink, whom Labour had criticised. [21]

Garrard left the Labour Party in March 2018 due to his unhappiness with the party's response to allegations of antisemitism. [22] In February 2019, Garrard added that he had concerns about the nation's future should Corbyn lead the country. "From the very outset of Mr Corbyn’s leadership I had feared the ultra-Left Marxist/Socialist nature of the Labour party’s new leadership and its supporters, all of which led me to conclude that a socialist republic for our nation was what these politicians intend". [23]

After leaving the party, he has provided funding on several occasions to Tom Watson in addition to his support for Change UK. [24]

The Independent Group

In February 2019 Garrard provided funding to support the launch of pro-EU political group The Independent Group; the amount as reported by The Sunday Telegraph was £1.5 million. [25] [26]

Honours

Garrard was knighted in the 2003 [1] New Year Honours.

Charitable activities

Garrard is a patron of children's charity Lifeline 4 Kids, is a trustee of the Police Foundation, and has been a director of the Princes Trust Business Division. [27]

Garrard donated £2.4 million to the Bexley Business Academy (now known as the Harris Garrard Academy), a first- and second-level school, and chaired its governing body. [28] The Business Academy Bexley was renamed the Harris Garrard Academy when it was taken over by the Harris Federation in 2017, to reflect the support Garrard had put into the academy. [29] [ self-published source? ]

Related Research Articles

Dame Maureen Diane Lipman is an English actress, writer and comedian. She trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and her stage work has included appearances with the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. She was made a dame in the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours for services to charity, entertainment and the arts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nick Brown</span> British Labour politician

Nicholas Hugh Brown is a British Independent politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Newcastle upon Tyne East since 1983, making him the fifth longest serving MP in the House of Commons. He is the longest serving Chief Whip of the Labour Party, holding the position in three separate periods under six Labour leaders – Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Harriet Harman, Ed Miliband, Jeremy Corbyn and Keir Starmer. He also held several ministerial positions whilst his party was in government from 1997 until 2010. On 26 May 2021, Brown was elected as chair of the Finance Committee. Brown sits in the House of Commons as an independent, having had the whip removed in September 2022, triggered by an investigation into undisclosed matters affecting his Labour membership.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeremy Corbyn</span> UK Leader of the Opposition from 2015 to 2020 (born 1949)

Jeremy Bernard Corbyn is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North since 1983. Corbyn sits in the House of Commons as an independent, having had the whip suspended in October 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ivan Lewis</span> British Independent politician

Ivan Lewis is a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bury South from 1997 to 2019, initially as a member of the Labour Party then as an independent from 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fabian Hamilton</span> British politician

Fabian Uziell-Hamilton is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leeds North East since 1997. He served as Shadow Minister for Peace and Disarmament, Latin America and the Caribean from November 2016 to September 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ed Miliband</span> British politician (born 1969)

Edward Samuel Miliband is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero since 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliband was Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition between 2010 and 2015. Alongside his brother, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, he served in the Cabinet from 2007 to 2010 under Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian Austin</span> British politician

Ian Christopher Austin, Baron Austin of Dudley is a British politician who sits as a life peer in the House of Lords. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Dudley North from the 2005 general election until the 2019 general election when he stood down. Formerly a member of the Labour Party, he resigned from the party on 22 February 2019 to sit as an independent, and was ennobled in the 2019 Dissolution Honours. He served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government from 2009 to 2010.

Andrew Philip Drummond-Murray, commonly known as Andrew Murray, is a British trade union and Labour Party official and activist. Murray was seconded from Unite the Union to Labour headquarters for the 2017 United Kingdom general election, subsequently becoming an adviser to Jeremy Corbyn from 2018 to 2020.

Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) is a group in the Parliament of the United Kingdom that promotes support for a strong bilateral relationship between Britain and Israel, and seeks to strengthen ties between the British Labour Party and the Israeli Labor Party. LFI says it supports a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, with Israel recognised and secure within its borders, and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. As of July 2020, it comprises around one quarter of the Parliamentary Labour Party and one third of the Shadow Cabinet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cash-for-Honours scandal</span> Political scandal in the United Kingdom

The Cash-for-Honours scandal was a political scandal in the United Kingdom in 2006 and 2007 concerning the connection between political donations and the award of life peerages. A loophole in electoral law in the United Kingdom means that although anyone donating even small sums of money to a political party has to declare this as a matter of public record, those loaning money at commercial rates of interest did not have to make a public declaration.

Andrew Ian Rosenfeld was a British businessman who was co-founder, chief executive, and chairman of Minerva plc. He volunteered for a number of charitable organisations and was a major donor to the Labour Party. Rosenfeld was one of twelve wealthy donors to the Labour Party named in the Cash for Honours scandal of 2006. In 2012 he co-founded The People's Operator, a mobile telephone company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chuka Umunna</span> British Liberal Democrat politician

Chuka Harrison Umunna is a British businessman and former politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Streatham from 2010 until 2019. A former member of the Labour Party, he was part of the Shadow Cabinet from 2011 to 2015. He left Labour in February 2019, when he resigned to form The Independent Group, later Change UK, along with six other MPs. Later in 2019, he left Change UK and, after a short time as an independent MP, joined the Liberal Democrats. In the 2019 general election, he was unsuccessful in being re-elected as an MP and did not return to the House of Commons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keir Starmer</span> Leader of the Opposition in the United Kingdom since 2020

Sir Keir Rodney Starmer is a British politician and barrister who has served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party since 2020. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St Pancras since 2015. He was previously Director of Public Prosecutions from 2008 to 2013.

Michael Vincent Dugher is a former British Labour politician who was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Barnsley East at the 2010 general election. He has held several senior positions within the party, including Shadow Secretary of State for Transport and Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. He did not stand at the 2017 general election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grahame Morris</span> British Labour politician

Grahame Mark Morris is a British Labour Party politician. He was elected at the 2010 general election as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Easington, replacing Labour MP John Cummings, who decided to step down.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Len McCluskey</span> British trade unionist

Leonard David McCluskey is a British trade unionist. He was General Secretary of Unite the Union, the largest affiliate and a major donor to the Labour Party. As a young adult, he spent some years working in the Liverpool Docks for the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company prior to becoming a full-time union official for the Transport and General Workers' Union (T&GWU) in 1979.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Schneider</span>

James Gerald Hylton Schneider is an English political organiser and writer currently serving as Communications Director for Progressive International. He co-founded the left-wing grassroots movement Momentum. In October 2016, he was appointed PR advisor to then leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn as Director of Strategic Communications.

There have been incidents of antisemitism in the Labour Party of the United Kingdom (UK) since its formation, including canards about "Jewish finance" during the Boer War and antisemitic comments from leading Labour politician Ernest Bevin. In the 2000s, there were controversies over comments made by Labour politicians about an alleged "Jewish lobby", a comparison by London Labour politician Ken Livingstone of a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard, and a 2005 Labour attack on Jewish Conservative Party politician Michael Howard.

Harris Garrard Academy is a 4–18 mixed, all-through school and sixth form with academy status in Thamesmead, Erith, Greater London, England. It was established in 2002 and is now part of the Harris Federation.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 W. Rubinstein; Michael A. Jolles (27 January 2011). The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History. Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 631. ISBN   978-0-230-30466-6 . Retrieved 1 April 2018.
  2. ↑ Grammar School, Battersea (26 April 2018). "OGA Home Page - Old Grammarians - Battersea Grammar School". www.oldgrammarians.org.uk. Retrieved 26 April 2018.
  3. ↑ Singer, David; Grossman, Lawrence (2003). American Jewish Year. VNR AG. p. 377. ISBN   978-0-87495-126-4 . Retrieved 1 April 2018.
  4. ↑ "THE GARRARD FAMILY FOUNDATION - Officers (free information from Companies House)". beta.companieshouse.gov.uk. Retrieved 26 April 2018.
  5. ↑ Academy, The Garrard (26 April 2018). "THE GARRARD ACADEMY - Officers (free information from Companies House)". beta.companieshouse.gov.uk. Retrieved 26 April 2018.
  6. 1 2 Rayner, Gordon (16 July 2014). "Labour donor 'tried to transfer £2.5m from daughter and son-in-law's joint account'". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  7. ↑ "Andrew Rosenfeld". The Times. 10 February 2015. Retrieved 1 April 2018.(subscription required)
  8. ↑ Pickard, Jim (28 July 2014). "Property tycoon Sir David Garrard gives £500,000 to Labour party" . Financial Times. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  9. 1 2 Rayner, Gordon (16 July 2014). "Labour donor 'tried to transfer £2.5m from daughter and son-in-law's joint account'". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
  10. ↑ "Sir David Garrard and family". The Sunday Times. London. 26 April 2009. Retrieved 1 April 2018.(subscription required)
  11. ↑ "Academy opens doors to the future". BBC News. 10 September 2002. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
  12. ↑ Lightfoot, Liz (15 September 2004). "'Beacon' school takes on Ofsted". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
  13. 1 2 3 Pickard, Jim (28 July 2014). "Property tycoon Sir David Garrard gives £500,000 to Labour party". Financial Times. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
  14. ↑ "Labour Party full details of borrowings". Electoral Commission. Archived from the original on 18 June 2007. Retrieved 9 June 2007.
  15. ↑ Wintour, Patrick (21 March 2006). "Labour seeks to damp down scandal by naming sources of £13.9m loans". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
  16. ↑ Seib, Christine (9 November 2005). "Allders workers rail against peerage for Garrard". The Times. Retrieved 31 March 2018.(subscription required)
  17. ↑ Lyons, James; Woolf, Marie (4 October 2015). "Top Labour backer calls in £2m loan as donors revolt". The Times. London. Retrieved 1 April 2018.(subscription required)
  18. ↑ Dysch, Marcus (24 September 2013). "Senior Labour MPs to join delegation to Israel". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
  19. ↑ Rocker, Simon (19 June 2014). "Miliband warms the hearts of the Labour Friends". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
  20. ↑ "Ed Miliband - 2014 Speech to Labour Friends of Israel". UKPOL. 9 December 2015. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
  21. ↑ Lyons, James; Boswell, Josh; Thomas, Jon Ungoed (15 February 2015). "Top Labour donor in tax haven row". The Times. London. Retrieved 1 April 2018.(subscription required)
  22. ↑ Savage, Michael (31 March 2018). "Leading Jewish donor ditches Labour over antisemitism". The Observer. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
  23. ↑ Savage, Michael (23 February 2019). "Corbyn told: change course before it's too late for Labour". The Observer. Retrieved 25 March 2019.
  24. ↑ Millar, Phil (29 April 2018). "Tom Watson criticised for taking money from Change UK funder". Morning Star. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  25. ↑ Malnick, Edward (23 February 2019). "One of Labour's biggest private backers gives £1.5m to The Independent Group". Sunday Telegraph. Retrieved 25 April 2019.
  26. ↑ Savage, Michael (23 February 2019). "Corbyn told: change course before it's too late for Labour". The Observer. Retrieved 24 February 2019.
  27. ↑ "Trustees and patrons". The Police Foundation. 14 August 2017. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
  28. ↑ "Blair told police donors were being honoured for services to Labour". The Independent. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
  29. ↑ "The Garrard Academy and the Harris Federation". Harris Federation. 2017. Retrieved 1 April 2018. We are pleased to be using the name Garrard in the title to reflect the work and support that The Garrard Foundation and Sir David Garrard have put into the academy so far.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.