As Margaret Thatcher’s devoted and indispensable (her words) chief press secretary for 11 years, the rumbustious Sir Bernard Ingham, who has died aged 90, was central to both the style and success of the Thatcher revolution. Acknowledged as the strongest figure to have done the job since the 1930s, Ingham moved to centralise the direction of government information, often to the discomfort of departmental ministers. This change, inevitable with the growth in electronic communications, was built on by the Blair government, although Ingham would claim that he was never involved in policymaking like Tony Blair’s director of communications and strategy, Alastair Campbell.
The clue to Ingham’s bond with Thatcher was that both saw themselves as outsiders against the establishment and, as she put it, “neither of us are smooth people”. He was well known for his choleric temperament, which could turn an already ruddy face bright red, for his almost blind loyalty to those he worked for (and to some degree those he picked to work under him) plus a capacity to undertake – and create – huge amounts of work.
