Death of a Member: Lord Carrington

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten of Barnes (Con)]

My Lords, I shall be extremely brief, although not half as brief as Lord Carrington would have wanted me to be, because one thing for sure is that, although these are richly deserved tributes to one of the greatest Englishmen of his generation, he would have found them all a bit of an embarrassment.

I spent two years of my life, when I first came into politics, working for Lord Carrington when he had just been made the chairman of the Conservative Party, which the Leader of the House referred to. It has to be said that he did not greet the news of that employment with unalloyed enthusiasm. He was able to contain his joy within the bounds of public decorum, but he did the job with great verve and, as ever, with a great sense of social obligation. Working for him for two years was not only greatly enjoyable, but it was in many respects the best part of my education—I do not mean just in politics; I mean my education as a man. He was a great leader. He gave the credit to others when things went well and took the blame when things went badly: an old-fashioned set of virtues, which perhaps we should occasionally remember.

I think he regarded politics in part as an obligation but also as an honourable adventure. He was personally brave, he was wise, he was hugely funny. Alas, I cannot repeat many of his anecdotes, not least some of his anecdotes about his friends in Australia. He was a very wise and extremely competent discharger of public business. Above all, he was a great public servant. I think it is true to say that the word “honour” is hyphenated to his name. He served this country extraordinarily well, he brought lustre to politics and we should all be hugely grateful for a life wonderfully well lived.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, perhaps I may say just a few words as one of the Members of your Lordships’ House who served under Lord Carrington in the Foreign Office. I simply say that no Foreign Secretary I served—and I served quite a few—did I admire and respect more than Lord Carrington. He was a wonderful boss and he led the Foreign Office as it deserved to be led.

I was very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Patten, mentioned something not mentioned by anyone else, which was his sense of humour, which was remarkable. During those rather tedious meetings of the Council in Brussels, he was wont to write limericks about some of those around the table. When he left the Foreign Office, we collected them together and gave them to him to remind him that there were at least some useful moments spent in Brussels.

I bear my tribute to him because he was a great man.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, could I say two personal things about Peter? In Ted Heath’s Government, he was the most senior Minister and I was the most junior—so junior that I was often left off the list. But I did occasionally attend meetings with him, and the thing that I discovered, his great talent, was that he read his briefs with his fingertips. On any issue, he instinctively knew what the main issues were and what could and could not be done. That is a very rare gift among politicians, and it was why Ted depended on his judgment so much.

The one job that Ted gave him that he did not like was chairman of the Conservative Party, as has been said by my noble friend Lord Patten. He came to speak for me in a by-election when I was fighting for the constituency of St Marylebone, and he made the speech that chairmen have to make: “The candidate is brilliant, and the Government are the most successful for a decade or so”—both debatable. He was glad that it was all over and finished so that he could go and have a drink in the pub with the people next door.

He was never a propagandist for the Tories. I believe that he said once to the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, who is sitting next to me, who was then called John Selwyn Gummer, “I don’t really like Conservatives”. None the less, he had Conservative instincts. He was not in the Thatcher Government for very long, because he resigned, but we were attending a Cabinet committee attended by the chairman of the coal board, Lord Marshall, who was going on and on. The noble Lord was quite right to say that Lord Carrington wrote very good limericks; he had a gift for poetry doggerel. The limerick ran:

“The noble Lord Marshall of Goring


Is frightfully, frightfully boring,

And when we come

To 20 to one

I think I’ll hear sounds of snoring”.

That shows the human nature of Peter. He need not have gone into politics. He was gifted in diplomacy, defence and business. We were very lucky to have him in the political world. He was a great public figure.