Ian Gilmour, Baron Gilmour of Craigmillar

Ian Hedworth John Little Gilmour, Baron Gilmour of Craigmillar, (8 July 1926 – 21 September 2007) was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom.

Gilmour was born in London on 8 July 1926, the son of stockbroker Lieutenant Colonel Sir John Gilmour, 2nd Baronet, and his wife, Victoria, a granddaughter of the 5th Earl Cadogan.

His parents divorced in 1929, and his father married Mary, the eldest daughter of the 3rd Duke of Abercorn.

The family had land in Scotland and he inherited a substantial estate and shares in Meux's Brewery from his grandfather, Admiral of the Fleet, the Hon. Sir Hedworth Meux.

They lived in the grounds of Syon Park in London, with a house in Tuscany.

Gilmour was educated at Eton College and read history at Balliol College, Oxford.

He served with the Grenadier Guards from 1944 to 1947.

He was called to the bar at Inner Temple in 1952 and was a tenant in the chambers of Quintin Hogg for two years.

He bought The Spectator in 1954 and was its editor from 1954 to 1959.

He was elected as Member of Parliament for Central Norfolk in a by-election in 1962, winning by 220 votes.

He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Quintin Hogg from 1963.

He sold The Spectator to the businessman Harold Creighton in 1967.

The Daily Telegraph wrote that his editorship had livened up the magazine "publishing new writers such as Bernard Levin and Katharine Whitehorn and taking a strong liberal reforming stance on moral issues such as the death penalty, abortion and homosexuality; he also castigated Eden over Suez."

He had written an editorial denouncing the invasion of Suez as an "act of aggression".

He was one of the few members to vote against the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968, regarding it as racist and designed to "keep the blacks out".

Gilmour espoused the Arab cause when it was less popular in progressive circles than it later became and supported it throughout his years in the House of Commons, where his chief ally was Dennis Walters who was chairman of the Conservative Middle East Council.

He served in Edward Heath's government from 1970, holding a variety of junior positions in the Ministry of Defence under Lord Carrington: Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Army from 1970 to 1971, then Minister of State for Defence Procurement until 1972, then Minister of State for Defence.

He joined the Privy Council in 1973.

He was Secretary of State for Defence in 1974, in the government of Edward Heath.

He held this seat until 1974, when his seat was abolished due to boundary changes, and he stood for the safe Conservative seat of Chesham and Amersham, sitting as its MP from 1974 until his retirement in 1992.

In parliament, he was a social liberal, voting to abolish the death penalty, and legalise abortion and homosexuality.

He also supported the campaign to join the EEC.

He replaced Carrington in January 1974 to join Heath's Cabinet as Defence Secretary, but lost his position after Labour won the most seats in the general election at the end of February.

He was in the Shadow Cabinet after the general election in February 1974 as Shadow Defence Secretary to late 1974.

From the end of 1974 to February 1975 he was Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary.

In opposition, Gilmour became chairman of the Conservative Research Department.

With Chris Patten, he wrote the Conservative Party manifesto for the October 1974 election – a second loss, by a wider margin.

When Margaret Thatcher became the new leader of the Conservative party, she appointed Gilmour as Shadow Home Secretary in 1975, then as Shadow Defence Secretary from 1976 to 1978.

He was styled Sir Ian Gilmour, 3rd Baronet from 1977, having succeeded to his father's baronetcy, until he became a life peer in 1992.

In the government of Margaret Thatcher, he was Lord Privy Seal from 1979 to 1981.

He became Lord Privy Seal after the 1979 general election, as the chief Government spokesman in the House of Commons for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, working again under Lord Carrington, who, as Foreign Secretary, sat in the House of Lords.

He co-chaired with Carrington the Lancaster House talks, which led to the end of Ian Smith's government in Rhodesia, and the creation of an independent Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe.

He also negotiated with the EEC to reduce Britain's financial contribution.

Gilmour did not enjoy good relations with Margaret Thatcher.

He was a moderate who disagreed with her economic policies, and became the most outspoken "wet".

During a lecture at Cambridge in February 1980, Gilmour contended, "In the conservative view, economic liberalism à la Professor Hayek, because of its starkness and its failure to create a sense of community, is not a safeguard of political freedom but a threat to it."

Thatcher remarked in her autobiography, somewhat sarcastically: "Ian remained at the Foreign Office for two years. Subsequently, he was to show me the same loyalty from the back-benches as he had in government."

Gilmour survived a reshuffle in January 1981, but was sacked in September of the same year.

He announced that the government was "steering full speed ahead for the rocks", and said that he regretted that he had not resigned beforehand.

Gilmour remained on the backbenches until 1992, and opposed many Thatcherite policies, including the abolition of the Greater London Council, rate-capping and the poll tax.