Humphrey Atkins
An affable character, Humphrey Atkins served both Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher as chief whip before taking on the Northern Ireland brief after the murder of Airey Neave by the IRA.
After a difficult two years, marred by IRA hunger strikes, he went to the Foreign Office but resigned, with boss Lord Carrington, over the withdrawal the gunboat Endurance, seen by Argentina as the green light to invade the Falklands.
As Lord Colnbrook, he was elected chairman of the Association of Conservative Peers. He died in 1996.
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