Member of Parliament
He had specialised in political economy during part of his degree and joined the Labour Party in 1948. He spent the 1950s working for the party and, after two unsuccessful Parliamentary contests, he was appointed as Head of the Labour Party's Research Department in 1959 and took charge of the renewal of party policy following its third successive defeat. Shore was only briefly a follower of Hugh Gaitskell; his adherence to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament from 1958 led to a breach in relations for several years.
He became close to Harold Wilson once he had been elected as Leader, and was the main author of the Labour Party manifesto for the 1964 general election. At the last minute, he was selected to fight the safe seat of Stepney in the election, which he easily retained after unsuccessfully fighting St Ives in 1950 and Halifax in 1959.
After only a short time on the backbenches, Wilson chose Shore to be Parliamentary Private Secretary, responsible for liaising between the Prime Minister and Labour MPs, though Denis Healey termed him "Harold's lapdog". Shore was responsible for drafting the 1966 and 1970 election manifestos. Shore's job as Wilson's PPS kept them in close contact and he was impressed enough to give Shore rapid promotion. In August 1967, at 43, after less than three years as an MP, Shore became a member of the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Economic Affairs.
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