Former MP Lord Thomson dies at 87

Published on Saturday 4 October 2008 20:02

LORD George Thomson, a minister in Harold Wilson's Labour Government and former broadcasting watchdog chairman, has died at the age of 87.

Baron Thomson of Monifieth was MP for Dundee East for 20 years from 1952 and held several ministerial positions including Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs during the 1960s.

He later chaired the Independent Broadcasting Authority, which regulated commercial television in the UK, between 1981 and 1988.

Lord Thomson's family announced yesterday that he died in London's St Thomas' hospital on Friday after suffering from a viral infection.

His widow, Lady Grace Thomson, said: "He loved his time in Dundee. It was his own town and he loved the people. He only left to go to Europe, which was a very important cause to him."

He was born in Stirling but moved to Monifieth, just outside Dundee, as a two-year-old. He began his career as a journalist in Scotland and was editor of the left-wing Dundee campaigning newspaper Forward between 1946 and 1956.

At the 1950 and 1951 general elections, Thomson stood unsuccessfully in Glasgow Hillhead before being elected in a by-election in Dundee.

During his time as Commonwealth Secretary he had responsibility for trying to reach a settlement of the Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) question and for implementing sanctions against Ian Smith's racist regime there.

In 1966 he was made a privy councillor and then a life peer in 1977. He also served as British commissioner of the European Community between 1973 and 1977.

In the 80s, Lord Thomson joined the Social Democratic Party and later became a Liberal Democrat. He was the House of Lords spokesman for the party on foreign affairs and broadcasting.

Thomson was thrust into the public spotlight in 1988 when he become involved in the furore around the ITV investigative documentary Death On The Rock, which revealed that three members of the IRA had been shot dead by British special forces in Gibraltar without any prior attempt to arrest them.

The then Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, attempted to stop the programme being broadcast by appealing to the IBA.

Thomson refused to prevent transmission, noting that "the issues as we see them relate to free speech and free inquiry which underpin individual liberty in a democracy".

Because of his stance he was feted by the National Union of Journalists, but was pilloried by Tory MPs and members of the right-wing press who accused him of being "unpatriotic".

The decision was hailed as a key precedent in the struggle between free speech and state censorship in Britain.