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 was a senior backbencher until 1970, by which time he was in his mid-eighties. That year he accepted a life peerage and was an active member of the House of Lords until shortly before his death, aged 101, in 1986. Shinwell was born in Spitalfields on 18 October 1884, London, but his family moved to Glasgow, Scotland. His father was a Polish Jew who had a small clothing shop and his mother, a Dutch Jew, was a cook from London. He was the eldest of 13 children. He educated himself in a public library and at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery.