Ralph Harris, Baron Harris of High Cross (10 December 1924 – 19 October 2006[1][2]) was a British economist. He was head of the Institute of Economic Affairs from 1957 to 1988.
In 1979, during Margaret Thatcher's first few months in power, he was made a life peer as Baron Harris of High Cross, of Tottenham in Greater London.[5] Yet, despite his strong affiliation with Tory free-marketeers, Harris sat on the crossbenches in the House of Lords to show his independence from any political party.[3]
He served on the council of the University of Buckingham from 1980 until 1995. It was founded in 1976 following a call from Harris and Seldon in 1968 for an independent university. Harris was Secretary of the Mont Pelerin Society from 1967, and its president from 1982 to 1984. He was "a moving spirit in the Wincott Foundation and the founding of the Social Affairs Unit".[6] He did not like to be described as a "Thatcherite", but was a founder of the No Turning Back group in 1985. Harris became a Eurosceptic, and was chairman of the Bruges Group from 1989 to 1991. He was a director of Rupert Murdoch's Times Newspapers company from 1988 to 2001, although he read and wrote for The Daily Telegraph. Nonetheless, Harris described Murdoch as the "Saviour of what we used to call Fleet Street".[3]
Harris was interviewed about his work at the IEA and the rise of Thatcherism for the 2006 BBC TV documentary series Tory! Tory! Tory!. In August 2006 he told Andy Beckett, who interviewed Harris for his book When the Lights Went Out – Britain in the 1970s, that he voted Labour twice at the two General Elections in 1974 because he was angry at Heath's U-turn of 1972, his inability to stand up to the miners, and because if you voted Labour at least you knew what you were getting.[7]
A pipe smoker, he was a chairman of smokers' rights campaigners, FOREST, and its president in 2003. He was not convinced that passive smoking was dangerous and published and campaigned against the banning of smoking on trains from Brighton to Victoria station in 1995.[citation needed]
Harris died suddenly of a ruptured aortic aneurysm at his home in North London on the morning of 19 October 2006.
Personal life
Harris married Jose Pauline Jeffery in 1949. They had two sons and a daughter. His sons predeceased him, dying in 1979 and 1992. Lady Harris died in 2017.[8]
Ralph Harris in His Own Words, The Selected Writings of Lord Harris. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar in association with the Institute of Economic Affairs. 2008. ISBN978-0255366212.
Robinson, Colin (1 November 2005). "IEA, the LSE, and the Influence of Ideas". Collected Works of Arthur Seldon. 7.