‘Tory feminist’ Baroness Howe dies at age of 90
A BARONESS whose husband’s speech led to Margaret Thatcher’s downfall has died aged 90.
Once dubbed a “Tory feminist”, Baroness Elspeth Howe of Idlicote was the widow of Lord Geoffrey Howe, a former Deputy Prime Minister and Chancellor, who died in 2015.
She died on Tuesday at her home in Warwickshire. Her family said she had fought a “brave battle with cancer”.
Lord Howe was fundamental in the making of Mrs Thatcher but his decision to quit as her deputy due to a “conflict of loyalties” in 1990 is said to have brought on her resignation three weeks later.
Lady Howe was the half-sister of the Duchess of Cornwall’s father Major Bruce Shand.
Camilla said the death of her aunt Lady Howe was “a sad time for all the family”.
Baroness Howe was memorably described as becoming “once, twice, three times a lady” as she had become a Lady through her marriage to Lord Howe, who was then Sir Geoffrey.
She retained her title when he was elevated to the Lords but she was then made a crossbench peer in her own right in 2001. She retired from politics in 2020.
From 1975 to 1979, she was deputy chairman of the Equal Opportunities Commission and then became chair of the Broadcasting Standards Commission.
In a profile of Lady Howe in 1993, she was called a “Tory feminist” and had many welldocumented clashes with Baroness Thatcher.
It led Tory grandee John Biffen to once say that the two women behaved like “wasps in a jam jar”.
In Margaret Thatcher: Power And Personality by Jonathan Aitken, Lady Howe was said to be “forthright in her opinions, feminist in her sympathies, sharptongued in her humour and fiercely supportive of her husband in his battles”.
One of the Baroness’s causes was to tackle homelessness and in 1990 she took part in a sleepout where she spent the night on the street in a cardboard box to highlight the issue. The gesture was said to have riled her sparring partner Mrs Thatcher.
Lady Howe married her husband in 1953 and they had three children, Caroline and twins Amanda and Alec.