Manny Shinwell junior minister) for his lack of zeal about further nationalisation. Shinwell was demoted to Secretary of State for War (Minister for the Army, but no longer a full member of the Cabinet) a position which he held until 1950. He was a vigorous War Minister, who got on well with the Army and was seen as jingoistic. In November 1947 a report from MI5 alleged that Shinwell had passed secret information to a man named "Stanley", who had passed it on to Zionist paramilitary group, the Irgun. Shinwell knew self-styled "contact man" Sidney Stanley, whom he had approached for help
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.