Nicholas Fairbairn
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Sir Nicholas Hardwick Fairbairn, QC (December 24, 1933 – February 19, 1995) was a British Politician.
He was the Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Kinross and Western Perthshire, elected in 1974 and 1979, and Perth and Kinross, elected 1983, 1987, and 1992. He was Solicitor General for Scotland from 1979 to 1982. He was noted for his criticism of the European Union, his outspoken manner, and for his colourful dress sense.
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[edit] Early life
Nicholas Fairbairn was the third child and second son of Ronald Fairbairn, the psychoanalyst, who, according to Fairbairn's autobiography A Life is Too Short (1987) adopted the maternal role after his mother rejected him at birth. Fairbairn describes their relationship from when he could converse with his father, for the next twenty years until old age affected the father, like that of twins with his father treating him as "his equal and confidant". Fairbairn credited this relationship as enabling him to "withstand the trauma and rejection I felt... enabled me to feel secure for the rest of my life against any rejection or misfortune... made me profoundly in awe of father figures and left me with a consistent feeling... that I am still a child." Fairbairn also said be was named after Saint Nicholas as he was born on Christmas Eve.
He was educated at Loretto School and Edinburgh University, where he graduated with an MA and an LLB. At the age of 23, he was called to the Scots Bar.
In 1962 he also married into the Scottish aristocracy - his wife was the daughter of the 13th Lord Reay. They divorced in 1979. He started in Conservative politics by fighting the Edinburgh Central seat (which was a shakily-held Labour marginal in the Tory '50s) in 1964 and 1966.
Fairbairn was also indulging his interest in the arts at this time, as Chairman of the Traverse Theatre Company. He also (somewhat bizarrely) was Chairman of the Edinburgh Brook Advisory Centre.
[edit] Political career
In the early 1970s, Sir Nicholas' career took off. In 1972, he was appointed a Scottish Queen's Counsel. After the former Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home announced his retirement from Parliament in between the 1974 elections, Nicholas Fairbairn was selected to succeed him. In October 1974, he won the seat with a majority of just 53 votes over the then-surging Scottish National Party.
His right-wing views endeared him to Margaret Thatcher, and when she formed her Government after winning the 1979 election, she appointed him Solicitor-General for Scotland. On one occasion he wrote that the functions of this office were "to form a second pair of hands and often a first brain for the Lord Advocate". At the time of the election of the 1979 Conservative Government, Fairbairn was the only Scottish QC in the Scottish Parliamentary Conservative Party, and it is thought that, as a senior advocate of some considerable achievement in the criminal courts, he fully expected to be appointed Lord Advocate. However, his colourful opinions and reputation are thought to have impelled the then Lord Justice-General for Scotland, Lord Emslie, to tell Thatcher that the Scottish judiciary and legal profession were deeply opposed to such a man as the senior law officer in Scotland. That led Thatcher to offer Fairbairn the secondary post of Solicitor-General for Scotland, and to invite the then Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, J P H Mackay QC, who was not even then a member of the Conservative Party, to become Lord Advocate, which post he accepted. (Mackay later became a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 1985 and Lord Chancellor in 1987.)
Fairbairn was well known at Parliament for liking a drink (or three) and for his flamboyant Scottish baronial tartan dress. He always carried a miniature (but fully working) pistol on a chain attached to his belt, and was reputedly the only MP to use the House of Commons snuff box. He had a mistress, Pamela Milne, who attempted suicide at his London home in 1981, upon which he ran away to his home, Fordell Castle, near Dunfermline in Fife.
Just as it seemed he had managed to survive, a major controversy emerged in Glasgow - suspects in a particularly nasty rape case involving a young girl were not prosecuted. One journalist telephoned the Solicitor-General to ask why, and Fairbairn told him. This was a major breach of protocol and Fairbairn had to resign. On 21st January 1982 the case actually went to trial under an ancient Scottish Law, in accordance with which the victim is allowed to privately prosecute the accused. It was known as the Carol X case. One of the accused was eventually convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
In 1983, he was elected an honorary Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, and he became a Trustee of the Royal Museums of Scotland in 1987. He was also President of the Society for the Preservation of Duddingston Village (an eastern suburb of Edinburgh).
Despite his passion for the arts, Fairbairn labelled members of Throbbing Gristle as "wreckers of civilisation" in a row over public funding of the arts, and criticised Scottish performers Simple Minds and Annie Lennox for taking part in the 1988 Wembley Stadium concert to celebrate Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday. Fairbairn was also knighted in 1988.
Fairbairn became a marginal political figure with the departure of Margaret Thatcher in 1990. He described her successor, John Major, as a "ventriloquist's dummy", and when asked whether he stood by the comment, said that greyness was a creeping disease in politics. He added that to call John Major "grey" would be "an insult to porridge".
In the 1992 election campaign, Sir Nicholas caused a controversy when he claimed "Under a Labour government this country would be swamped with immigrants of every colour and race on any excuse of asylum or bogus marriage or just plain deception". He further claimed that such people would be permitted to vote for the Labour-proposed Scottish Parliament, whereas people born in Scotland who happened to live in England would not. The former Deputy Prime Minister, Viscount Whitelaw, cancelled an engagement to speak in support of his candidacy in the marginal seat.
The Scottish National Party were already looking with anticipation at Sir Nicholas' 5,700 majority before the furore, and after it they would have been forgiven for thinking that the seat was theirs. However, the result of the 1992 election in Scotland was more astonishing than in any other part of the United Kingdom. The BBC began by predicting that the Tories would be reduced to 3 seats in Scotland. They eventually won 11, a gain of one seat on 1987.
[edit] Opinions
Fairbairn did however have some views that might be classed as progressive. He was fiercely and personally opposed to capital punishment, after having himself appeared in 17 capital cases. He explained that "As the defending counsel, I am put on trial because, if I make a mistake, ask the wrong question or appear in the wrong way, the man may go to the trap". He was proud of obtaining two royal pardons for wrongful convictions of murder.
During 1994 debates regarding the age of consent in the House of Commons, Fairbairn had to be called to order by the Speaker after starting a drunken and vivid description of sodomy. Bizarrely, there had been some speculation in the past about Fairbairn's own sexuality. In the early 1970s, he was an Honorary Vice President of the lesbian and gay rights organisation, the Scottish Minorities Group (which later became the Scottish Homosexual Rights Group and is now OUTRIGHT[1] Scotland). Later, a journalist asked him about this and was told that Fairbairn hadn't realised what sort of 'perverted' minorities were concerned. Yet when he was Vice President the group had a very high profile and Fairbairn received all its mailings.
Outside of Parliament, Fairbairn was a keen painter (and was occasionally spotted drawing cartoons of other MPs during Committee sessions). He was also a gifted landscape gardener, and remodelled the crumbling Fordell Castle into a family home. He was also a member of the Edinburgh Festival Council and the Vice-President of the Scottish Women's Society of Artists.
[edit] Final years
He had stated that he would stand down as an MP at the next general election (which was eventually held in 1997), but the years of high living finally had taken their toll and he died in office in 1995, triggering a by-election at a bad moment for John Major's embattled Conservative administration. His seat was duly seized by Roseanna Cunningham of the Scottish National Party.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Sir Alec Douglas-Home |
Member of Parliament for Kinross and Western Perthshire 1974–1983 |
Succeeded by (constituency abolished) |
| Preceded by Bill Walker |
Member of Parliament for Perth and Kinross 1983–1995 |
Succeeded by Roseanna Cunningham |
