Margaret Thatcher’s longest-serving press secretary Sir Bernard Ingham has died after a brief sickness, his household has mentioned.
The former Fleet Street journalist for the Guardian was 90 and died along with his household round him on Friday lunchtime, an announcement mentioned.
He served as Baroness Thatcher‘s press secretary for all however the first few months of her premiership.
During Labour’s years in energy within the Nineteen Seventies, he labored for left-wing MPs Barbara Castle and Tony Benn whereas a press officer on the departments for employment and vitality.
Mr Ingham’s household described him as a “journalist to his bones” and he had a column printed within the Yorkshire Post simply final month.
His son, John Ingham, mentioned: “To the wider world he is known as Margaret Thatcher’s chief press secretary, a formidable operator in the political and Whitehall jungles.
“But to me, he was my dad – and an incredible dad at that. He was a fellow soccer fan and an adoring grandfather and great-grandfather. My household will miss him significantly.”
Mr Ingham thanked his father’s nursing home, Tupwood Gate in Caterham, Surrey, and his previous in-home carers for their “fantastic care and help”.
After leaving Downing Street, Sir Bernard wrote his memoirs, Kill The Messenger, and worked as a political pundit, an after-dinner speaker, a cruise lecturer and a newspaper columnist.
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Born on 21 June 1932 and educated at Hebden Bridge Grammar School, he began out aged 16 on his native paper in West Yorkshire, The Hebden Bridge Times.
After shifting from the Guardian to turn out to be a authorities press officer he put himself ahead as a bitter enemy of “spin”, criticising those that practised the “black art”.
Sir Bernard was knighted in Baroness Thatcher’s resignation honours.
He was married for 60 years to Nancy Ingham, a former policewoman, who died in 2017.
He leaves a son, two grandchildren and a great-grandchild.
Former Conservative residence secretary Priti Patel described Sir Bernard as a “giant of British political communications and hugely loyal man”, and thanked him for his service to Lady Thatcher’s administration.
While Alastair Campbell – as soon as Labour PM Sir Tony Blair’s spin physician and a former Mirror journalist – mentioned he “always treated me fairly and with consideration” throughout his time reporting on the Thatcher period, regardless of “working for a paper wholly opposed to her and her policies”.
Source: information.sky.com”