1930s and was fired up with an ambition to change things". He made a quiet start to his Commons career; he delayed his maiden speech until 12 December 1945, when he spoke in the debate on the proposed American loan. On 12 January 1946 he was appointed to a government post, as a junior minister at the Board of Trade, one of the first of the 1945 intake to be promoted. As such, his chief responsibility was for the administration of the elaborate system of controls and licences which were a feature of the postwar British economy. Belcher was a conscientious and generally popular minister. He was anxious to secure the trust of the business community by operating these controls fairly, and instituted an "open door" policy through which he sought to meet directly with many of the leading figures in the business world. His health was undermined by his heavy workload, and by mid-1947 he was suffering from severe stress. In May 1948 he was hospitalised for several weeks. Sidney Stanley Belcher's open style brought him into contact with many people who were anxious to influence his decisions. Among those who sought and obtained access was Sidney Stanley, otherwise known as Kohsyzcky, Rechtand or Wulkan. Stanley was an undischarged bankrupt who had been the subject of a deportation order in 1933, which he had avoided. He re-emerged in 1945, and by 1947 was living in style in a luxury Park Lane apartment where he entertained members of the business community on a lavish scale. He operated as a business agent, making large claims to the business world that he could advance their interests through his contacts with senior government officials and ministers, and had sufficient plausibility to be taken seriously by leading businessmen. Stanley had been introduced to Belcher by George Gibson, a respected trade unionist who had recently been appointed as a director of the Bank of England. Belcher readily accepted Stanley's claims that he could act as a bridge between the business community and the government, and the two established a friendship; Belcher would later describe Stanley as "interesting, amusing, generous". In the course of this friendship, Belcher was often the beneficiary of Stanley's generosity, in the form of much hospitality and various gifts. While many in the Labour Party at that time questioned the ethics of ministers or officials accepting even the smallest of gifts or