Henry Norman Smith was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 Labour Party

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 politician. He unsuccessfully contested the Faversham

Faversham (UK Parliament constituency)

Faversham was a parliamentary constituency centered on the town of Faversham in Kent which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom....

 constituency in 1931

United Kingdom general election, 1931

The United Kingdom general election on Tuesday 27 October 1931 was the last in the United Kingdom not held on a Thursday. It was also the last election, and the only one under universal suffrage, where one party received an absolute majority of the votes cast.The 1931 general election was the...

 and 1935

United Kingdom general election, 1935

The United Kingdom general election held on 14 November 1935 resulted in a large, though reduced, majority for the National Government now led by Conservative Stanley Baldwin. The greatest number of MPs, as before, were Conservative, while the National Liberal vote held steady...

, and was elected at the 1945 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1945

The United Kingdom general election of 1945 was a general election held on 5 July 1945, with polls in some constituencies delayed until 12 July and in Nelson and Colne until 19 July, due to local wakes weeks. The results were counted and declared on 26 July, due in part to the time it took to...

 as Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) for Nottingham South

Nottingham South (UK Parliament constituency)

Nottingham South is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election....

. He held that seat until for ten years, until his defeat at the 1955 election

United Kingdom general election, 1955

The 1955 United Kingdom general election was held on 26 May 1955, four years after the previous general election. It resulted in a substantially increased majority of 60 for the Conservative government under new leader and prime minister Sir Anthony Eden against Labour Party, now in their 20th year...

 by the Conservative Party

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

 candidate Denis Keegan

Denis Keegan

Denis Michael Keegan was a British barrister and company manager who served a single term as a Conservative Party Member of Parliament. He became known as a moderate politician who opposed capital punishment and restrictions on immigration...

.

An outspoken MP, he was known for not always following the Government brief:

“Mr. Smith has the engaging quality of hitting hard without making personal charges against the integrity and motives of those who think differently. He said many things that made the House gasp, and many that made it laugh..."

With Robert Boothby

Robert Boothby

Robert John Graham Boothby, Baron Boothby, KBE was a controversial British Conservative politician.-Early life:...

 he was almost alone in condemnation of the Bretton Woods system

Bretton Woods system

The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the world's major industrial states in the mid 20th century...

. He also found Keynesian economics

Keynesian economics

Keynesian economics is a school of macroeconomic thought based on the ideas of 20th-century English economist John Maynard Keynes.Keynesian economics argues that private sector decisions sometimes lead to inefficient macroeconomic outcomes and, therefore, advocates active policy responses by the...

 wanting. In his book Politics of Plenty (published 1944) he warned his readers of the dangers of Keynes:

“In due course the Keynes plan for an irresponsible world financial government came to maturity and, by hole and corner methods for which Britain's third Labour Government must share responsibility, was thrust on an unsuspecting world."

He complained that British politics regarded financial policy as being something over and above party strife; to accept the rules of orthodox financial practice as being conventions to which all political parties must defer.

He was a supporter of Social Credit

Social Credit

Social Credit is an economic philosophy developed by C. H. Douglas , a British engineer, who wrote a book by that name in 1924. Social Credit is described by Douglas as "the policy of a philosophy"; he called his philosophy "practical Christianity"...

 – believing that it could solve the problems of modern banking, highlighted by the 1930s depression. He wrote many articles supporting Social Credit.

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