Colourful Tory who praised Pinochet but failed to win a seat, dies aged 69
FOR a time he was one of the most colourful figures in politics – a Tory who favoured axing unemployment benefit and shipping the elderly to Africa.
Now Peter Clarke, the Scotlandbased former journalist and special adviser to senior figures in the Conservative Party, has died at the age of 69.
Never an MP despite his best efforts, Mr Clarke was nevertheless a high profile figure in his party – sometimes through misadventure, other times through a talent for controversy.
He famously declared that rightwinger Enoch Powell was the ‘greatest Welshman of all time’ and in 1986 told his party’s annual conference that ‘General Pinochet must be our inspiration’. The brutal Chilean dictator had thousands of his own countrymen executed.
Mr Clarke’s second wife Teresa Gorman was another larger-than-life character on the party’s right. Sixteen years his senior, she had placed a singles advert in Private Eye which read: ‘Old trout seeks old goat. No golfers. Must have own balls.’ She died in 2015.
Mr Clarke was born in Venice. His mother, Denholm Pearson, was from Glasgow while his father, Derek, was a major in the Royal Signals.
After prep school in Scotland, he went to Loughborough Grammar School in Leicester before studying at Bradford, Leeds and Oxford universities.
He became political secretary to Powell in 1972 and the following year was briefly the Tory candidate for Houghton-le-Spring in County Durham, but did not fight the 1974 General Election.
He became an economic correspondent for the BBC and, in 1975, married Gillian Strickland, one of ITN’s first female reporters.
Strickland won the 16thcentury Powrie Castle in Dundee in a competition run by the National Trust for Scotland. She died in 2005.
By then, all hope of becoming an MP had vanished for Mr Clarke. That was largely down to an incident in 1986 when he donated £200 to the Federation of Conservative Students towards a pamphlet.
Unknown to him, it advocated bringing English and Scottish laws over sexual relationships into line. As a result he was later, wrongly, accused of supporting a relaxation of incest laws and stepped down as parliamentary candidate for East Lothian.
He won £20,000 when he sued The Independent for repeating the claim in 1989 but said he was left with debts of £600,000.
To fund the legal action, he had to sell his home, the Old Manse at Kirkton Manor, near Peebles. He also endured a whispering campaign in which it was alleged he was having affairs with four Tory ladies.
One of those said to have shared his bed was former Tory minister Edwina Currie. Indeed, it was claimed she had an affair with him at the same time as her relationship with John Major.
She was said to have seduced Mr Clarke by saying: ‘Would you like to see my Peak District?’
For her part, Mrs Currie denied having met him.
His last tilt at parliament was in Newport West in 1997. It was then that he unveiled his astonishing policy for tackling pensioner poverty – ship them to Eritrea where they ‘could afford the best mud hut in the village’.
Nine years later, he reflected: ‘I am still crushed by a matter the Tory party could have resolved in ten minutes’ diligence.’
Mr Clarke defected from the Conservatives before the last election, memorably telling Channel 4 News: ‘My buttocks are smooth, my mind is clear, vote Ukip.’
He died on January 24 of suspected heart failure.
‘Like to see my Peak District?’