Isaac Leslie Hore-Belisha, 1st Baron Hore-Belisha (; 7 September 1893 – 16 February 1957) was a British politician, at first a member of the Liberal Party, later of the Liberal Nationals, and eventually of the Conservative Party, who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) and Cabinet Minister. He proved highly successful in modernising the British road system between 1934 and 1937 as Minister of Transport.
As War Secretary from 1937 to 1940, he feuded with the commanding generals and was removed in 1940. Some writers believe that antisemitism played a role in both his dismissal and in blocking his appointment as Minister of Information.
One historian compares his strong and weak points:
He was a brilliant speaker, a warm and engaging personality, a go-getter and a persistent driver, a master of the unconventional or indirect approach, a patriot and a man of moral and physical courage, not a great intellect but an original with a flair for imaginative gestures and for public relations. He also had personal weaknesses. He was extremely self-centred and had a fine conceit of himself. At times he was accused of sharp practice. ... Sharp practitioner or not, [his] quickness of mind and tongue, and transparent ambition to be seen to succeed, made him vulnerable to smears. ... His over-assertiveness ... led him to appear inconsiderate of the feelings and views of others.
His name is still widely associated in the UK with the flashing amber "Belisha beacons" that were introduced at pedestrian crossings while he was Minister of Transport.
Isaac Leslie Belisha was born into a Jewish family in Hampstead, London, on 7 September 1893. He was the only son of Jacob Isaac Belisha and his wife Elizabeth Miriam (née Miers). His grandfather, Isaac Belisha, was the president of the Manchester Sephardi community; the family originated in Morocco. His father died when he was less than one year old. In 1912 his widowed mother married Adair Hore, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Pensions. Belisha then adopted the double-barrelled surname.
Hore-Belisha was educated at Clifton College, where he was in Polack's House. He continued his studies in Paris and Heidelberg, before attending St John's College, Oxford, where he was president of the Oxford Union Society. While in Heidelberg, he became a member of Burschenschaft Frankonia Heidelberg in 1912. During the First World War he joined the British Army and served in France, Flanders and Salonika, finishing the war with the rank of major in the Army Service Corps. After leaving the army, he returned to Oxford and, in 1923, qualified as a barrister.
At the 1922 general election, Hore-Belisha was an unsuccessful candidate for the Liberal Party in the Plymouth Devonport constituency. However, thanks to his new political agent, Benjamin Musgrave, he won the seat at the general election the following year, and became known in Parliament as a flamboyant and brilliant speaker.
He generally allied himself with right-wing Liberals critical of their party's support for the Labour minority governments, joining with Sir John Simon in becoming a Liberal National upon the formation of the National Government in 1931. After the 1931 general election, Hore-Belisha was appointed a junior minister at the Board of Trade.
He remained in government when the official Liberals withdrew in September 1932 over the issue of free trade, and was promoted to Financial Secretary to the Treasury. Hore-Belisha showed considerable intelligence and drive in government, although his intense energy tended to alienate traditionalist elements who resented his status as an "outsider".
Hore-Belisha was appointed Minister of Transport in 1934 coming to public prominence at a time when motoring was becoming available to the masses. All speed limits for motor cars had controversially been removed by the Road Traffic Act 1930 during the previous administration. There was, in 1934, a record number of road casualties in the UK, with 7,343 deaths and 231,603 injuries being recorded, with half of the casualties being pedestrians and three-quarters occurring in built-up areas.
Shortly after being appointed, he was crossing Camden High Street when a sports car shot along the street without stopping, nearly causing him "serious injury or worse". He became involved in a public-relations exercise to demonstrate how to use the new "uncontrolled crossings".
Hore-Belisha's Road Traffic Act 1934 introduced a speed limit of 30 mph for motor cars in built-up areas. The new act was vigorously opposed by many, who saw the new regulations as a removal of "an Englishman's freedom of the highway". The earlier 20 mph speed limit had been abolished in 1930 because it was universally flouted. A large backlog of court cases had made the law unenforceable. In addition, The Automobile Association (AA) and the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) had frequently been successful in defending their members against evidence from primitive speed traps.
Hore-Belisha rewrote the Highway Code and was responsible for the introduction of two innovations that led to a dramatic drop in the number of road accidents: the driving test and the Belisha beacon, named after him by the public. On his retirement, he was made vice-president of the Pedestrians' Association and, the organisation adopted a logo (since replaced) of a walking zebra crossing with Belisha Beacon.
Secretary of State for War, 1937–1940
His success at the Ministry of Transport, in 1937, led to an appointment by Neville Chamberlain as Secretary of State for War replacing the popular Alfred Duff Cooper, who later resigned from the government over Chamberlain's policy of appeasement. There were voices within the Conservative majority that such a high-profile appointment should not have gone to a Liberal National, and Hore-Belisha's Conservative colleagues labelled him a warmonger. Many took to nicknaming him "Horeb-Elisha" or "Horeb" as an antisemitic pun on his race. (Horeb is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the place where the golden calf was made and to which Elijah fled.)
Upon appointing Hore-Belisha as Secretary of State, Chamberlain advised him to read B. H. Liddell Hart's book Europe in Arms, which advocated that Britain should avoid becoming involved in a continental land war and rely on the Royal Air Force as its offensive arm.
Impressed by the book's arguments and under Cabinet pressure to control expenditure, Hore-Belisha formed a close partnership with Liddell Hart and sought to refocus the British Army away from the aim of raising a second British Expeditionary Force to fight in France.