Sir Tom McCaffrey

Sir Tom McCaffrey, who has died aged 94, was press secretary to James Callaghan at the Home Office, the Foreign Office and for three turbulent years at 10 Downing Street.

A career civil servant who briefly served Edward Heath with equal loyalty, he shared Callaghan’s distrust of the press. But he made his reputation through his flair in winning over the media as, in 1969, Callaghan scuppered Barbara Castle’s In

Place of Strife trade union reforms. Arriving at No 10, McCaffrey’s efforts at news management were not always successful, and he received proof of the suspicions he and Callaghan harboured about the media when the PM’s remarks on returning from the G7 in Guadeloupe early in 1979 at the height of the Winter of Discontent prompted the Sun headline: “Crisis? What crisis?” This was widely credited for Labour’s subsequent defeat. McCaffrey was adamant Callaghan had been misreported, but the mud stuck. Born February 20 1922, died July 8 2016