Ian Gow

Taylor had represented Eastbourne since 1935 and did not take kindly to Gow.

Ian Reginald Edward Gow (11 February 1937 – 30 July 1990) was a British politician and solicitor.

Ian Reginald Edward Gow was born at 3 Upper Harley Street, London on Thursday 11 February 1937.

He was the son of Alexander Edward Gow, a London doctor attached to St Bartholomew's Hospital who died in September 1952.

Ian Gow was educated at Winchester College, where he was president of the debating society.

During a period of national service from 1955 to 1958 he was commissioned in the 15th/19th Hussars and served in Northern Ireland, Germany and Malaya.

After completing national service he took up a career in the law and qualified as a solicitor in 1962.

He eventually became a partner in the London practice of Joynson-Hicks and Co. He also became a Conservative Party activist.

He stood for Parliament in the Coventry East constituency for the 1964 general election, but lost to Richard Crossman.

He visited Rhodesia at the time of its Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965 and was subsequently critical of the country's white minority regime.

As an MP, Gow consistently voted against the restoration of the death penalty.

He then stood for the Clapham constituency, a Labour-held London marginal seat, in the 1966 general election.

An account in The Times of his candidature described him in the following terms: "He is a bachelor solicitor, aged 29, wearing his public school manner as prominently as his rosette. Words such as 'overpowering', 'arrogant', and 'bellicose' are used to describe him."

After failing to take Clapham, he continued his quest to find a seat.

He eventually succeeded at Eastbourne in 1972 after the local Party de-selected its sitting member, Charles Taylor.

As a member of the Conservative Party, he served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Eastbourne from 1974 until his assassination by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1990, in which a bomb under his car exploded outside his home in East Sussex.

Gow entered the House of Commons as the Member of Parliament for Eastbourne in the general election of February 1974.

In the general election of October 1974, he secured a 10% swing from Liberal to Conservative, doubling his majority.

In the 1975 Conservative leadership election, Gow voted for Margaret Thatcher in the first round ballot.

Once Thatcher had forced Edward Heath out of the contest, several new candidates appeared and Gow switched his support to Geoffrey Howe in the second round, which Thatcher won.

He subsequently served in the territorial army until 1976, attaining the rank of Major.

Gow was brought onto the Conservative front bench in 1978 to share the duties of opposition spokesman on Northern Ireland with Airey Neave.

The two men developed a Conservative policy on Northern Ireland which favoured closer ties with Great Britain in order to further integrate the region.

This approach appeared to avoid compromise with the Northern Ireland's nationalist minority and with the government of the Republic of Ireland.

Both Neave and Gow were killed by car bomb attacks in 1979 and 1990 respectively.

Irish republican paramilitaries claimed responsibility in both cases, but nobody was ever charged with causing their deaths and claims were made concerning possible involvement of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and intelligence community.

Through his association with Neave, Gow was introduced to the inner circles of the Conservative Party.

He was appointed parliamentary private secretary to Margaret Thatcher in May 1979 at the time she became Prime Minister.

While serving in this capacity between 1979 and 1983, Gow became a close friend and confidant of the Prime Minister.

After 1979 Gow shared an office with Michael Brown.

Although identified with the right-wing of his party, he took a liberal position on some issues.

From 1982, Conservative Party policy began to move towards a more flexible position on Northern Ireland.

He was deeply involved in the workings of Thatcher's private office until his departure in June 1983.

Though elevated to junior ministerial office as Minister for Housing and Construction before moving later to the Treasury, Gow was known to be disappointed by his loss of influence with the Prime Minister in his new role.

In late-1983, he developed plans with Alan Clark to reinvigorate Thatcher's private office by expanding it and its influence over policy, thereby creating a new role for himself; but these came to nothing.

As Minister of State for Housing and Construction (from 1983 to June 1985) he showed a willingness to commit public funds to housing projects that alarmed some on the right-wing of the Conservative Party.

"After taking what was perhaps too principled a stand in a complex dispute over Housing Improvement Grants, he was moved sideways to the post of minister of state at the Treasury".

In November 1985, Gow was persuaded by the speeches his cousin Nicholas Budgen made to resign as Minister of State in HM Treasury over the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

For a home in his constituency, Gow acquired a 16th-century manor house known as The Doghouse in the village of Hankham.

Eastbourne was then a safe Conservative seat, and Gow always had a majority share of the vote during his time as MP.