As well as commanding the Special Boat Service in the Second World War, George Jellicoe was a long-serving parliamentarian, being a member of the House of Lords for 68 years (1939–2007).

The others were: Miss Lilian Lear, Admiral Sir Lionel Halsey (Third Sea Lord), Mr. Eustace Burrows (cousin), Major Herbert Cayzer (uncle), and The Rev.

[5] In September 1943, Jellicoe was sent to the Italian-held island of Rhodes to negotiate with the Italian Admiral Inigo Campioni for the surrender of his forces to the Allies.

At the end of the war, Jellicoe was among the first Allied soldiers to enter German-occupied Athens, beating the communist-controlled guerrillas ELAS, to create a pro-Allied presence in the capital.

[7] Years later, when First Lord of the Admiralty, Jellicoe told at least one reporter, "The only serious military distinction I ever achieved was having a new type of assault boat named after me.

The Suez Crisis (from July 1956) wrecked everything the Pact was trying to achieve; Jellicoe was appalled by British policy and came close to resigning (L. Windmill p. 136).

Jellicoe eventually left the Foreign Office in March 1958, after marital difficulties had caused an impasse (February 1958, Permanent Secretary Sir Derek Hoyar-Millar wrote; 'You have a choice of ceasing your relationship with this lady [Philippa Dunne] or changing your job').

He became a director of the Cayzer dynasty's Clan Line Steamers (cargo ships), and Union Castle Steamship Co. (passengers).

However, enthusiasm for his mother's family's businesses ultimately gave way to the call of the Palace of Westminster, where, back from Iraq, he took the Oath in the Lords on 3 December 1957, in the Third Session of the 41st Parliament.

He spoke from the Cross-Benches about the Baghdad Pact and Iraq: ... Having lately lived for a year or so in Baghdad I confess that I have not been untouched by the charm of that ugly yet fascinating city, and, if I may say so, of the diverse peoples of Iraq ... Like all your Lordships, I felt, and feel, a deep sense of shock, indeed revulsion, at the brutal butchery of the young King and his family, and of that great, and greatly human, statesman, Nuri Pasha.

But the Iraqis did not believe that; they thought-it was a very widespread belief which one could not eradicate-that these schools were camouflaged barracks intended for the British Army when they reoccupied Iraq.

With this in mind, can my noble friend assure us, first, that the advice of the Advisory Committee [on the Landscape Treatment of Trunk Roads] to which he referred will in all cases in future be sought at a very early stage in the planning of these new roads; and, secondly, that permanent professional advice will be enlisted from the outset at the planning, the reconnaissance stage, in order to ensure that these great new roads blend as harmoniously as possible with the land-scape through which they pass?On 20 July 1959, he initiated a debate on Western aid for uncommitted countries, and by January 1961 he was a Lord-in-waiting to H.M. the Queen, a Government Whip, in Macmillan's administration.

He was Joint Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Local Government June 1961 – July 1962; Minister of State, Home Office July 1962 – October 1963; First Lord of the Admiralty October 1963 – April 1964; Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy April–October 1964; delegate to the Council of Europe and the Western European Union (WEU) 1965–1967; president of the National Federation of Housing Societies 1965–1970; a governor of the Centre for Environmental Studies 1967–1970; chairman of the British Advisory Committee on Oil Pollution at Sea 1968; chairman of the third International Conference on oil pollution of the sea 1968; an hon.

Leading the debate for the (Conservative) Opposition in November 1968 Jellicoe said: We hold that a grave constitutional change of this kind should not be brought into effect in the dying years of a discredited Government ... a viable Upper House has an essential part to play in our parliamentary structure.

We now have a quite considerable constitutional prize in our grasp, the opportunity to build a really viable Upper House on the basis of a broad consensus of support from all Parties ... (19 November 1968, Hansard via L. Windmill).During the late 1960s he worked in the City of London where he became chairman of British Reserve Insurance and a director of S G Warburg (Finance and Development) Ltd.

Having earlier re-established relations with the miners' union leaders in February 1972, Heath appointed Jellicoe "energy supremo" to restore power supplies around the time of the Three-Day Week and had him set up and chair a Civil Contingencies Unit, which was, when an internal crisis arose, to operate through "COBRA" (Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms).

As Alan Trengove in My Lord, the super salesman, in the Australian The Sun of 22 June 1972 put it, There has probably never been a sales team [122 strong] quite like the aristocratic British contingent that is trying to sell the Anglo-French supersonic Concorde to Qantas ...

He has the stamina to address a couple of press conferences each day as well as make daily speeches ... cultivate politicians, DCA personnel and Qantas bosses.

Jellicoe, with the help of his very experienced Chief Whip, the second Earl St Aldwyn, steered the European Communities Act (1972) through the Lords, allowing no amendments.

In May 1973, Jellicoe admitted "some casual affairs" with call girls (from Mayfair Escorts) in the wake of an accidental confusion with Lord Lambton's prostitution scandal.

The word Jellicoe was seen in Levy's notebook, and a connection was assumed to the Minister rather than the building; a structure named after the earl's distant cousin, and one that may have been opened by the Admiral himself in June 1928.

(Hansard, 5 June 1973)William Kendall, general secretary of the Civil and Public Services Association, said: In our union we respected him as a tough, capable and fair negotiator (quoted from The Times, 25 May 1973, page 2); or, as Daniel McGeachie (of The Daily Express) reported on 25 May 1973, He was a man in the Macmillan mould ... [H]e gave the impression of a solid and straightforward approach to life, to the cut and thrust of debate-but at the same time he was an extraordinarlily subtle person.In July 1973, the Diplock Commission, which had been set up to look into the security implications of Lambton and Jellicoe's adventures, concluded its section on Jellicoe (paragraph 24): ... it was Lord Jellicoe's misfortune that his use of 'call girls' happened to come to light at the particular moment that it did, when the attention of the Press was focused on the private conduct of Ministers in connection with the entirely separate case of Lord Lambton.With no estates to distract him, Jellicoe was free to re-join S. G. Warburg & Co. (1 October 1973), and with the help of Alan Lennox-Boyd, who was soon to retire from the board, he became a non-executive director of the sugar company Tate & Lyle in 1973, a position held until 1993.

Moreover, at the time of his death, on the Privy Council only the Duke of Edinburgh (1951) and Lords Carrington (1959), Deedes and Renton (both 1962) had served longer.

(quoted from Christopher Sweeney's article in The Times, 25 May 1973, page 2)In July 1970, as one of the first people to be breathalized, he was banned from driving for a year and fined 75 pounds with 20 guineas costs for having consumed more than the permitted level of alcohol in Old Brompton Road at 4 a.m. on 21 March 1970.

[citation needed] In 2000, his friend, the former British Ambassador to the United States, Sir Nicholas Henderson, wrote: George is a man of moods.

(Old Friends and Modern Instances, 2000)Lorna Windmill's biography termed Jellicoe a "British Achilles" on account of two of his careers derailing as a result of women: in the 1950s for love, and in the 1970s for escorts.