Born. 13 February, 1922, in Bedfordshire.
Died: 7 March, 2008, in Bedfordshire, aged 86. FRANCIS Pym never quite fitted Margaret Thatcher's hard-boiled Conservative Party. He had a patrician, rather aloof, air about him that Mr
s Thatcher wanted to drum out of the party. But he advanced to high office and was her foreign secretary during the Falklands War, a post he filled with a canny commitment. After that, Mrs Thatcher branded him as "not one of us" and when, in 1985, he launched a group called Conservative Centre Forward, which furthered one-nation Toryism, he was labelled a wet. He had not helped his cause by suggesting that it would be good for democracy if the Conservatives did not win the 1983 election with too large a majority. Such an opinion was foreign to Mrs Thatcher and he was summarily sacked from the Cabinet when she won – with a large majority.
Francis Leslie Pym was born into a landed family with a tradition going back several generations of service in the Commons. He attended Eton and Magdalene College, Cambridge and served with the 9th Lancers in the Second World War.
Pym fought in north Africa, and in the advance through Italy was mentioned in dispatches and awarded the Military Cross in 1945 for his gallantry in the fighting in the Po Valley.
On being demobbed, Pym managed the family estate and worked in the City before fighting a Labour stronghold in Wales in 1959. He won a by-election in Cambridgeshire in 1961 and was a deputy chief whip (to his close friend Willie Whitelaw) when Edward Heath was leader of the opposition.
In government, Mr Heath faced many industrial and financial problems. Pym's astute handling of recalcitrant back-benchers (especially during the debate over joining Europe) was deemed enthusiastic, bordering on the hardline. But he guided controversial administration through the Commons and was rewarded with the Northern Ireland office.
After the Tories lost the 1974 election Pym covered agriculture for Mrs Thatcher before, in 1976, acting as shadow leader of the house.
One of his responsibilities was as the party's spokesman on devolution for Scotland and Wales. It was not an easy assignment as he shared the post with Sir Teddy Taylor (the former MP for Glasgow, Cathcart), an uncompromising opponent of Scottish devolution. "It was not an easy time," said Sir Teddy . "I had strong reservations over the expense and the benefits of devolution for Scotland. Francis represented the party line and was totally loyal to the party. I simply disagreed with much of his actions but he was always the perfect gentleman. Francis was a good listener and was much liked by everyone. We agreed much more over Europe. Francis was a gentleman politician."
When the devolution bill was rejected, Pym was briefly shadow foreign secretary, but when Mrs Thatcher won the 1979 election, Lord Carrington went to the Foreign Office and Pym to the Ministry of Defence. There were many disagreements about the defence budget and Pym was moved sideways to be leader of the house. However, matters took a dramatic turn when Carrington resigned in 1982 in the run-up to the Falklands War and Pym was rushed back to the Foreign Office.
It was, of course, a dramatic time, and Pym carried out his duties with a seasoned commitment. Indeed, many maintain that he and General Haig (the US go-between) had hammered out a settlement but this was rejected by the Cabinet. Then, in the general election, Pym made the unwise comments about the majority and he went to the Lords in 1987 after retiring as an MP.
Many colleagues in the house consider that Pym was not given his due credit during the Falklands conflict. He gained invaluable international support for the invasion of the Falklands. Pym also brokered peace proposals that failed at the last hurdle.
As another of Mrs Thatcher's Cabinet ministers, Cecil Parkinson, wrote in his autobiography: "Francis commanded the respect of the Commons and was the right man to rally and reassure the badly shaken Conservative parliamentary party and to unite the opposition behind the government's proposals. He played a key role in steadying the Commons at a difficult time."
Pym married Valerie Dalglish in 1949. She and their two sons and two daughters survive him.
The full article contains 726 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
