Manny Shinwell in finding employment for his son Ernie, and Stanley had obtained information on the disbandment of the Transjordan Frontier Force from some government source. Shinwell's seat became Easington at the February 1950 election, after which he was promoted to Minister of Defence and became a full member of the Cabinet once more. Edmund Dell described him as "putty in the hands of the defence chiefs" and his promotion as "[a] ludicrous appointment. No failure was ever great enough to persuade Attlee to deny one of his cohorts new opportunities to do damage … Shinwell never forgave Gaitskell, whom he blamed
Manny Shinwell middle class "not worth a tinker's cuss". His insistence on the open-cast mining of the park of the Wentworth Woodhouse estate, to the doorsteps of the house, when the quality of the coal was poor, was viewed by its owners and the local mining community, which opposed it, as pure vindictiveness - an act of class warfare. In 1947-8 he was Chairman of the Labour Party. In 1947, Britain experienced, in an exceptionally severe winter, a serious coal shortage. The supply system collapsed, leaving Britain to freeze and close down. Shinwell denied there were problems and refused to assume responsibility,