Sir Philip Goodhart obituary

The vast range of political interests espoused by the former Conservative MP Philip Goodhart, who has died aged 89, could partly be ascribed to his early career as a journalist and foreign correspondent and also to his antecedents in a distinguished American family. Added to that was a highly developed sense of public service, an unquenchable curiosity and a now somewhat dated belief that the main duty of an elected politician is to represent the interests of his constituency. It was a combination that meant that he was popular both in the House of Commons and his suburban Kent seat of Beckenham, which he represented for 35 years, but he was inevitably destined by his independent spirit to serve only briefly on his party’s frontbench.

Reflecting his lifelong interest in military matters, in 1964 he was appointed as a shadow defence spokesman by Sir Alec Douglas-Home, but after backing Reg inald Maudling as the next Tory leader the following year was then sacked by the successful Edward Heath. When Margaret Thatcher became prime minister in 1979 she appointed Goodhart as a junior minister in Northern Ireland, and then moved him to defence in 1981. However, his criticism of policy within the department brought about his dismissal within months, albeit with a compensatory knighthood. “I hope that a proper determination to stick to financial targets will not inhibit the development of sensible policies,” he told Thatcher pointedly in his letter of resignation.

Yet despite his short-lived ministerial career, Goodhart exerted a profound influence on the history of the parliamentary party as the joint secretary of the backbench 1922 Committee for a record 19 years from 1960. It meant that he was an inside player in the leadership elections of both Heath and Thatcher and a repository of a great many of the party’s secrets. His many books included a history, The 1922, published in 1973, but his loyalty was such that it was characteristically discreet. An enthusiastic skier, he chaired the parliamentary Ski Club.

His independent-mindedness sometimes confounded political opinion. He was initially regarded as a rightwinger within the party, being in favour of both the restoration of capital punishment and a restrictive immigration policy. He was also sceptical about race relations legislation and a strong supporter of the Unionist cause in Northern Ireland.

Yet he was a member of the party’s One Nation group and was clearly in the Tory liberal mainstream with his views on employment and the environment. He was classified as a “wet” (as Thatcher’s opponents within her party had come to be known) when he published a pamphlet advocating government action to tackle unemployment. He also became a vehement opponent of the poll tax. He stood up for what he believed and he had a far-sighted view that was often light years ahead of public opinion.

An early advocate of consumers’ rights and a Consumers’ Association council member for many years, he campaigned particularly against inertia selling. In 1960 he was instrumental in securing the abolition of a maximum wage for footballers and he supported the introduction of pay TV, which he saw as a means of empowering professional sport. His concern about road traffic in his constituency led him to persuade ministers to introduce bus lanes and road humps, and he fought for tax relief on pensioners’ health insurance.

In 1975 he tried to get support for using the technology behind identity cards as a means to counter terrorist activity. And it was his deep-rooted belief in local democracy that informed one of his longest campaigns, in favour of holding referendums, particularly in the early 1970s when the UK was negotiating to join the then Common Market. He held a referendum in his own constituency in 1971: just over 10% voted, and were narrowly in favour of joining. Some of his Eurosceptic MP ccolleagues believed that he cared more about the referendum issue – he wrote two books on the subject – than about Europe. They were almost certainly correct.

His other main interests were defence and foreign affairs. He made his maiden speech on army equipment and later on in life became involved in the preservation of warships, to which he devoted much time and about which he also published books. In the 60s he was a member of the Council of Europe and the Western European Union, and of the British delegation to the UN. He was a member of the North Atlantic Assembly for 24 years. He became particularly involved with Vietnam and with the problems of refugees and the “boat people” when the Vietnamese war ended.

Goodhart’s interest in politics was well established when he arrived in the House of Commons, the victor of a byelection in 1957, for which one of the unsuccessful Tory applicants had been Thatcher. “Unfortunately for her, there was a majority of women on the selection committee,” he would later write, “and many of the Beckenham Conservative selectors thought that she would not be able to combine being an active MP with the care of her two-year-old twins.”

He was the eldest son of the American-born Arthur Lehman Goodhart, who went to Britain to study law at Trinity College, Cambridge, although expected to join the family banking business, and his wife Cecily (nee Carter). Arthur’s father was a millionaire stockbroker and an earlier generation of the family had founded the Lehman Brothers bank. Arthur was professor of jurisprudence at Oxford and became master of University College. Philip was born in London, but attended Hotchkiss school in Connecticut, where his father had been a pupil.

After returning to Britain and serving for four years in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps and the Parachute Regiment, in 1947 Philip again followed his father and went to Trinity, where he became editor of Varsity. In 1950, he fought the safe Labour seat of Consett Co Durham, in the general election, shortly before graduating, then joined the Daily Telegraph and married Valerie Winant, the niece of John Gilbert Winant, a US ambassador to London. He spent four years on the Daily Telegraph before briefly becoming deputy editor of Time and Tide and then joining the Sunday Times until his election to the Commons, which he left in 1992.

Valerie died last year. He is survived by their three sons and four daughters and his brothers, William, the Liberal Democrat peer, and Charles, emeritus professor of banking at the LSE.