The Tory peer and former Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, has died at the age of 75. His family has confirmed that he died last night in his house after a long battle with cancer.
Brittan was the youngest Home Secretary since Winston Churchill, having been appointed to the post by Margaret Thatcher in 1983. He served in the role for two years. During his time as a minister, he was a fierce critic of the NUM during the miners’ strikes, and is also remembered for leading the government response to the shooting of the policewoman Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embasssy while both the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, Geoffrey Howe, were away.
He was first elected as an MP in 1974, when he represented Cleveland and Whitby. He was later elected for Richmond in Yorkshire in 1983. After heading up the Home Office, he was made Trade and Industry Secretary in 1985, but resigned a year later over the Westland Affair.
Brittan also served as EU Commissioner from 1989, and is the man thought to have first spotted Nick Clegg’s potential, giving the now Deputy Prime Minister a job in Brussels.
His name has recently been making headlines due to allegations about his involvement in the case of a dossier lost in Whitehall concerning claims of a Westminster paedophile network.
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