Bill Walker

16 OBITUARIES

Conservative MP

his love of flying with an eclectic career as a salesman, driver, general manager, company director and furniture expert, a job that also led to part-time work as an ATV television presenter from 1969-75.

Politically, Mr Walker began his career as an office bearer in the Birmingham Conservative Association in the late 1960s. He came to national prominence in October 1972, telling the annual Conservative Party conference he was “no Alf Garnett”. At the October 1974 General Election Mr Walker contested the hopeless Dundee East constituency, but was selected for the winnable Perth and East Perthshire in May 1975. He survived several deselection attempts and narrowly recaptured the seat from the SNP’s Douglas Henderson in May 1979.

In Parliament, Mr Walker was, according to the journalist Peter Riddell, one of the “few prize idiots who have got themselves into the class of the permanently unpromotable”.

In 1980 he joined a rebellion against the Employment Secretary Jim Prior, demanding a compulsory ballot before industrial action if endorsed by 15 per cent of a workforce.

He did so as a former trade union shop steward, branch secretary and executive committee member.

Mr Walker was also unflinching when it came to left-wingers. In 1980 he criticised “dishevelled and scruffy” striking teachers and described Lothian Labour councillors who refused to take part in a civil defence exercise as “either fools, fellow travellers or outright Quislings”. In 1981, when a Labour-led local authority twinned Dundee with Nablus on the West Bank, Mr Walker accused councillors of encouraging anti-Semitism and serving as an instrument of the PLO.

A devoted Commons man, Mr Walker introduced several (ultimately unsuccessful) bills, including one to encourage broadcasts in Gaelic, another to end “unfair” rating of Scottish caravans. However, he was successful with a number too, including the Term And Quarter Days Act, which affected farm leasing arrangements, and the Scotch Whisky Act, which helped support the whisky industry, and the Protection Of Animals Act, which increased the potential penalties for those guilty of cruelty to domestic and captive animals.

Throughout the 1980s he continued to rebel, while advocating the death penalty, criticising the EEC and defending the nuclear industry. At the 1983 General Election Mr Walker was elected to represent the new Tayside North constituency.

As well as sitting on the Scottish Affairs Select Committee, Mr Walker was also a Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and served on various party committees, including the Tory MPs’ Aviation Committee. He was also the Scottish party’s defence spokesman from 1982 as well as vice-chairman of the Campaign for Defence and Multilateral Disarmament.

A fierce opponent of devolution (despite having penned a supportive paper in 1975), Mr Walker published Scotland And Unionism – The Way Forward, a Conservative Monday Club policy paper, in 1988. In 1990 he proposed a “Scottish Senate” and executive provosts in a rather eccentric effort to satisfy demands for a Scottish Parliament.

At the 1997 General Election Mr Walker lost his seat to the SNP’s John Swinney. He was appointed OBE the following year, and had a second lease of political life when he was elected deputy chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party in June 2000 (which also entitled Mr Walker to a place on the UK party’s executive), and again in 2006 – when he defeated the party’s preferred candidate – serving until 2008.

A blond teetotaller of military bearing, Mr Walker enjoyed gliding, caravanning, walking, youth work and, above all, serving his party; resplendent in his kilt, he was an annual fixture at the Scottish Tory conference.

He survived by his wife Mavis, their three daughters Clova, Fiona and Justine, and six grandchildren.