Barbara Castle: Transport Minister

By: Lynsey Hanley

After two years as international development secretary, Barbara Castle took transport — an unloved government brief — and used it to vindicate Labour’s purpose in power.

Barbara Castle on stage at the Labour Party conference in Brighton in 1964. (Photo by Reg Burkett/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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When Barbara Castle, a non-driver, was appointed Labour’s transport secretary by Harold Wilson in late 1965, she was subjected to a predictable barrage of male media questioning about her fitness for the job. One in particular, a Poundshop Jeremy Clarkson before his time, disparaged her plans to test motorists for their alcohol consumption on the […]

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When Barbara Castle, a non-driver, was appointed Labour’s transport secretary by Harold Wilson in late 1965, she was subjected to a predictable barrage of male media questioning about her fitness for the job. One in particular, a Poundshop Jeremy Clarkson before his time, disparaged her plans to test motorists for their alcohol consumption on the […]

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When Barbara Castle, a non-driver, was appointed Labour’s transport secretary by Harold Wilson in late 1965, she was subjected to a predictable barrage of male media questioning about her fitness for the job. One in particular, a Poundshop Jeremy Clarkson before his time, disparaged her plans to test motorists for their alcohol consumption on the […]

When Barbara Castle, a non-driver, was appointed Labour’s transport secretary by Harold Wilson in late 1965, she was subjected to a predictable barrage of male media questioning about her fitness for the job. One in particular, a Poundshop Jeremy Clarkson before his time, disparaged her plans to test motorists for their alcohol consumption on the […]

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