He is most famous in the UK for his controversial tenure at the British Steel Corporation and his conduct during the 1984–85 miners' strike while managing the National Coal Board.
His parents were Daniel MacGregor, an accountant at the British Aluminium plant,[1] and his wife Grace Alexanderina, née Fraser Maclean, a schoolteacher.
MacGregor's handling of the matter, involving driving cranes himself for two weeks, brought him to the attention of chairman Sir James Lithgow, who marked him out for rapid promotion.
Minister of Aircraft Production Lord Beaverbrook was the next to spot his talent and commandeered him to travel to Canada and the US on procurement missions for aviation armour.
[5] At the end of the war in 1945, MacGregor remained in the US, attracted to its culture and disdainful of the newly elected British Labour government with its programme of nationalisation.
He developed a reputation for shrewd, no-nonsense negotiation in various strands of American business, and an uncompromising attitude towards trade unions accompanied by something of an appetite for confrontation.
During the British miners' strike he nostalgically observed:[5] I never thought the day would come when I wished I had some of my scruffy, sometimes ill-disciplined, sometimes loud-mouthed American police by my side in this country, and some of the curious ways of the law to back them up.In later life he explained:[3] Management is a calling and people ought to be dedicated to it.
MacGregor served on the Steering Committee, and delivered a speech which reassured Europeans on American commitment for trade expansion.
This was during heightened concerns following the Nixon Administration's decoupling of the dollar's linkage with gold and the threat of Labor-backed legislation (the Burke-Hartke Bill) with protectionist quotas and investment curbs.
Secretary of State for Industry Sir Keith Joseph recognised MacGregor as an instinctive supporter and potential implementer of the programme.
[1] MacGregor's approach to turning the NCB into a profitable concern was similar to the line he had taken at British Steel: cut jobs and close unprofitable pits.
[2] Only 15 deep mines remained at the time of privatisation in 1994, although some briefly reopened; fewer than 10% of the figure 10 years earlier, when 170 collieries had still been operational.
In the UK, there were campaigns to appoint him as head of the National Health Service and to the board of directors of British Gas plc but without success.
[1][4] Outside the boardroom, some found him "a benign and rather avuncular man, whose Scottish burr was distinctly audible beneath the overlay of his American accent.
He thought of himself as a creator; he returned to the UK out of a sense of patriotism as much Scots as British; and the large fees he earned were less for consumption – certainly not of any conspicuous kind – as to sustain his ceaseless world travels.
MacGregor was a vicious anti-trades unionist, anti-working class person, recruited by the Tory government quite deliberately for the purpose of destroying trade unionism in the mining industry.