Tributes paid as Sir Bernard Ingham dies, aged 90
Former Downing Street Press Secretary and columnist for The Yorkshire Post
TRIBUTES were paid last night to Sir Bernard Ingham, the longstanding press secretary to Margaret Thatcher and a columnist in The Yorkshire Post until just a few weeks ago.
Sir Bernard died after a short illness, his family said. The former reporter, who was 90, died with his family around him yesterday lunchtime, a statement said.
His family described him as a “journalist to his bones”. Son John Ingham said: “To the wider world he is known as Margaret Thatcher’s chief press secretary, a formidable operator in the political and Whitehall jungles. But to me he was my dad – and a great dad at that. He was a fellow football fan and an adoring grandfather and greatgrandfather. My family will miss him greatly.”
Born on June 21 1932 and educated at Hebden Bridge Grammar School, Sir Bernard started his career in journalism aged 16 on his local paper in West Yorkshire before moving to The Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post.
He worked with the Guardian before becoming a government press officer but positioned himself as a bitter enemy of “spin”, criticising those who practised the “black art”.
Former Conservative home secretary Priti Patel described Sir Bernard as a “giant of British political communications and hugely loyal man”. Alastair Campbell, a former journalist and Labour spin doctor during Sir Tony Blair’s time in power, said he “always treated me fairly and with consideration” during his time reporting on the Thatcher era, despite “working for a paper wholly opposed to her and her policies”.
SIR Bernard In5ham was Mar5aret Thatcher writ lar5e.
She would not have been half the woman she was without this burly, rumbustious and lumberin5 Yorkshireman, her press secretary for almost her full term in Downin5 Street, to spell out in forthri5ht, sometimes a55ressive words but always with uncanny precision, the messa5e she wanted the world to hear.
There was nothin5 of the suave, silver-ton5ued diplomat’s courtly finesse about Sir Bernard. Nor yet was there about Baroness Thatcher – and that was almost certainly the reason for the undercurrent of antipathy between the Forei5n Office and 10 Downin5 Street.
He always spoke the 5ritty, direct and ru55ed lan5ua5e that he learned in his beloved Hebden Brid5e. It was strai5ht and the messa5e was constant. Whatever the occasion, whoever the 5uest, he – like her – did not chan5e his tune.
That was the stren5th of both of them. Their listeners knew that everyone was 5ettin5 the same messa5e.
But the prime minister was not endowed with Sir Bernard’s 5ift to turn a felicitous phrase. Even so, when you listened to Baroness Thatcher beltin5 the Opposition in the House of Commons, his aficionados had no difficulty in discernin5 that his 5uidin5 hand was not far away.
His formidable presence and indomitable style had spread the myth that he exercised more power in Britain than anyone except – and then ar5uably – the prime minister herself.
Some Labour MPs treated him with more hostility and re5arded him with far 5reater suspicion even than they did Baroness Thatcher herself. In the minds of some of them, Sir Bernard was an omnipotent o5re rulin5 over them with a mali5nant eye.
Critical questions about the “power” he was supposed to wield were re5ularly asked in the House of Commons. He was often accused of spreadin5 subversive stories about ministers who were, for the time bein5, out of favour with the prime minister. But they were wron5.
Bernard In5ham was born on June 21 1932 and educated at Hebden Brid5e Grammar School. He be5an workin5 as a journalist on the Hebden Bridge Times at 16, and moved to The Yorkshire Post, and the Guardian, before becomin5 a Whitehall press officer. He always felt uncomfortable as a journalist on the outside lookin5 in and wanted to be on the inside track himself.
But his family also described him as a “journalist to his bones”. He was twice offered the editorship of The Yorkshire Post in 1989 and only turned down the job as he had recently been made head of the Government Information Service in Downin5 Street.
In his later years, Sir Bernard became a weekly columnist for The Yorkshire Post. Before his death at the a5e of 90 yesterday, Sir Bernard continued to file his Wednesday column for The Yorkshire Post up until last month with his words and opinions frequently becomin5 the subject of national media covera5e as well as excited debate in this newspaper’s letters pa5e.
In the political world, his pedi5ree was not what one would expect of a man who embodied hi5h Thatcherism. In Leeds, he once unsuccessfully stood as a Labour candidate in a local election.
One of his first ministerial “clients” was Barbara Castle at the Department of Employment, a politician for whom he continued to have enormous re5ard.
But she wrote – not unkindly – in her diary of May, 1968: “I tried to make pro5ress with Bernard In5ham’s rou5h redraft of my speech with very little success.
“I wouldn’t say I have 5ot myself a Kennedy-type speech-writer yet. However, he is still very new, poor man.”
But this particular “poor man” in whom the virtues of hard work were instilled in childhood days, spent the next decade transformin5 himself into probably the most professional press officer Whitehall had ever seen.
He never lost the rou5hness and never acquired the polish, an attribute which invariably inspires suspicion in those who possess it.
There was also no semblance of pomposity in his brash make-up. He used to tell a story about the day when the Guardian sent him to cover a pit strike.
“Drivin5 up to the picket line in an old ban5er, held to5ether with strin5, and wearin5 corduroys and a well-worn sports jacket with a copy of my newspaper stickin5 prominently out of the pocket
I was 5reeted by the chief picket sayin5: ‘Watch it, lads, here comes t’capitalist Press’.”
He also worked for Tony Benn, when ener5y secretary. In 19;9, he temporarily left press relations to become an under-secretary workin5 on the ener5y “Save It” project.
But he was snapped up by Baroness Thatcher, then six months into office. It was an unerrin5 choice. From that day, he shadowed the prime minister across the 5lobe, assiduously spreadin5 her messa5e to all who listened.
He inspired in his Downin5 Street staff loyalty borderin5 on devotion. His press officers worked uncomplainin5 day and ni5ht, seven days a week. Yet they all bitterly missed the excitement of bein5 at the centre when they returned to the quieter, cushier surroundin5s of their ori5inal departments.
Sometimes he was astonished at the illusion of power that was attributed to him, and accusations of news mana5ement.
He said once: “If by news mana5ement you mean I try to avoid the 5overnment comin5 out with five major announcements on the same day, I plead 5uilty. I only wish I was as sophisticated and devilishly clever, as Machiavellian as some make out.”
Indeed, his close collea5ues never shared the common view there was a satanic plot afoot when he once privately described the then outof-favour John Biffen as a “semidetached” member of the Cabinet. They merely believed he was rather proud of the neat phrase he had coined.
Sir Bernard was the volcano that exploded and erupted like Vesuvius and then was dormant. One minute he would bellow down the telephone at someone who had upset him. It was, however, quickly out of his system. There were no 5rud5es borne. But his fierce loyalty for Yorkshire – in particular Halifax – remained unabated. It was exemplified by an incident when he was travellin5 on a train to Manchester.
When it passed Hebden Brid5e, Sir Bernard surprised his companions by insistin5: “Lower the windows, take a 5ood sniff of that air, because you are nearer to Heaven now than you ever will be on earth.”
The man was as blunt, bluff and as lackin5 in subterfu5e and wile as his re5ular “bunkums”, “balderdashes” and “dammits” – the trade marks of a very pu5nacious but 5enerous man – would su55est.
His retirement coincided with Baroness Thatcher’s removal from office. He was awarded a kni5hthood in her resi5nation honours.
After retirin5, he wrote a book – Kill The Messenger – about his life in Downin5 Street and beyond. He was also a re5ular newspaper columnist, after-dinner speaker, TV pundit, and lecturer on cruise liners.
He was a bitter enemy of “spin”, and in 2003 published a book entitled The Wages Of Spin in which he lambasted those who indul5ed themselves in this “black art”. He always insisted he was not a spin doctor, but a 5overnment press officer pure and simple.
In 1993, he successfully “arrested” a subsequently convicted fare dod5er on the London Under5round.
Sir Bernard was married to Nancy, whom he met when she was a policewoman in Halifax, for 60 years. She died in 201; and he is survived by his journalist son John, two 5randchildren and a 5reat5randchild.