Political figure Baroness Trumpington, aged 96

Baroness Trumpington, an imposing, uninhibited and redoubtable figure, passed away on Monday aged 96.

She was a daunting, but kindly figure, the archenemy of political correctness and one of the most outspoken – some would say outrageous but never malicious – figures in Parliament.

Lady Trumpington was born Jean Alys Campbell-Harris on October 23, 1922 and educated privately in England and France. During the war she was a land girl and later served with Naval Intelligence at Bletchley Park.

Once she was caught on camera giving the twofinger gesture in the House of Lords to fellow Tory Lord King, former defence secretary, who had good-humouredly made some disobliging remark about her.

After she stopped smoking she said that passive smoking was one of the few pleasures left in life.

Lady Trumpington was a tireless campaigner for the causes she thought were worth fighting for, and, although she did not reach cabinet level, she was a lynch-pin for the Tory Government where she handled innumerable portfolios with firmness and good humour – and a very loud voice.

She tried unsuccessfully to be selected as a Conservative candidate in East Anglia. Undaunted by this rebuff, she threw herself into local government.

Eventually she became mayor of Cambridge, a magistrate and a tax commissioner.

In 1980, she was awarded a life peerage and took her title from the name of a Cambridgeshire village.

She quickly became a character in the House of Lords, as well as a forthright and controversial speaker.

She once enraged thousands of animal-lovers who sent her letters of abuse after she had suggested that Falklands sheep should be used as sacrificial mine detectors.

“My point was that sheep could be put out of their misery and eaten, whereas men could not.”

She was never an ardent feminist, but supported equal opportunity on merit.

“The problem is that strong feminists are apt to put people’s backs up by over-emphasis – just women, women, women, and you cannot have women without men,” she said.

She bowed out after 37 years as a Conservative peer in October last year, at the age of 95.