Bernard Ingham

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Sir Bernard Ingham (born June 21, 1932) is a journalist best known as Margaret Thatcher's former press secretary. [1]

Ingham was educated at Hebden Bridge Grammar School and joined the Hebden Bridge Times newspaper at the age of 16. He went on to work for the Yorkshire Evening Post, the Yorkshire Post, latterly as Northern Industrial Correspondent, and The Guardian. Whilst a reporter at the Yorkshire Post, Ingham was an active member of the National Union of Journalists and was vice chairman of the Leeds branch.

Ingham's father was a Labour Party councillor and he was himself a member of the Labour Party until he joined the Civil Service. He contested the safe Conservative Moortown ward of Leeds City Council in the 1965 council elections.

In 1967, he joined the Civil Service. He spent 11 years as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Chief Press Secretary in No. 10 Downing Street. In 1989-90 he was also Head of the Government Information Service. In the course of his Civil Service career he was also press secretary to Barbara Castle, Robert Carr, Maurice Macmillan, Lord Carrington, Eric Varley and Tony Benn.

Although a career civil servant as opposed to a political appointee like his successor-but-three Alastair Campbell, Ingham gained a reputation for being a highly effective propagandist for the Thatcherite cause (despite his earlier political affiliation). The phrase spin doctor did not really enter common parlance until after his retirement and the rise of New Labour, but he was nevertheless a gifted exponent in what came to be known as the "black arts" of spin. In those days, Downing Street briefings were "off the record," meaning that information given out by Ingham could be attributed only to "senior government sources." Occasionally he used this deniability to brief against the Government's own ministers, such as when he described the Leader of the House of Commons John Biffen as a "semi-detached" member of the Government. Sure enough, Biffen was dropped at the next reshuffle.

However Ingham managed to stay out of the damaging Westland helicopter crisis in 1986, correctly realising that any involvement by him would directly link Mrs Thatcher to the affair.

He was knighted on Thatcher's resignation - and retirement - in 1990. His successor as press secretary was Gus O'Donnell, who went on to become Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service in 2005.

Ingham helped Thatcher in the writing of the Yes Minister sketch, which she performed in public with Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne.^[1]

Ingham lectures in Public Relations at Middlesex University in London.

In 1999, Ingham was arrested and questioned by Police after it was alleged he kicked and damaged a car belonging to a neighbour, Barry Cripps, in a dispute over a right-of-way. He later voluntarily paid money to cover the repairs to the vehicle, and agreed to be bound over to keep the peace by local magistrates.

Sir Bernard Ingham is secretary to Supporters of Nuclear Energy (SONE), a group of individuals who seek to promote nuclear power.

He also holds the position of Vice President of 'Country Guardian', a UK based anti wind energy campaign group.

He is also a regular panelist on BBC current affairs programme Dateline London.

[edit] References

^ Cockerell, Michael (1988). Live From Number 10: The Inside Story of Prime Ministers and Television. London: Faber and Faber, 288. ISBN 0-571-14757-7. The phrase "with the help of Bernard Ingham" is a quotation from this source. Other sources give Thatcher sole credit; some give equal credit between the two.

Routledge, Paul, Bumper Book of British Lefties, 2003, Politicos (ISBN 1-84275-064-X) - provides further information on Ingham's early involvement with the Labour Party

[edit] Bibliography

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