the times | Friday August 28 2020 1GM 53
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Country star known for his
fiddle duel with the Devil
Charlie Daniels
Page 54Renton in 1994. Below, with Mick
Jagger at the launch of the shortlived
National Music Day. His book, Chief
Whip, was both a memoir and a
history of the black art of whippingnumerous directorships in insurance
and banking companies. He then stood
for parliament as a Conservative candi-
date, but was defeated in the safe La-
bour seat of Sheffield Park in 1970. Se-
lected after that for the safe Tory seat of
Mid-Sussex, he saw off several notable
applicants, including Heseltine. He
won the seat in the election of February
1974 and held it for the next 23 years.
Renton was socially liberal but on the
economic right, favouring privatisation
of nationalised industries. He was keen
to curb the power of trade unions, but
did not entirely earn Thatcher’s ap-
proval by founding Conservative Trade
Unionists to promote “reasonable”
worker representation.
His first office was as PPS to John Bif-
fen at the Treasury. He resigned in 1981
after protesting at the Treasury’s deci-
sion to impose a windfall tax on bank
profits. As chancellor, Howe recalled
Renton to be his PPS in January 1983.
When Howe became foreign secretary
a few months later, he took Renton with
him.
He shared Howe’s support for the
European project and Howe was a
strong advocate of his merits, praising
his “even-tempered subtlety” as a min-Meyer, history’s favourite “stalking
horse”. Once Meyer was back in the sta-
bles, Renton found himself coping with
Tory dissenters over the poll tax.
Thatcher praised him for keeping the
number of rebels down to 31 on the
third reading of the bill in January 1990.
As arts minister under Major he
founded National Music Day with
Mick Jagger, though the project fizzled
out after a few years. He also began del-
egating the responsibilities of the Arts
Council to regional arts organisations.
Major did not reappoint him when he
formed a new cabinet in 1992, but not
before Renton had persuaded him to
include the idea of a national lottery in
the 1992 Conservative manifesto. It was
one of his proudest achievements.
In 1960 Renton had married Alice
Fergusson, daughter of Sir James Fer-
gusson, eighth Baronet of Kilkerran.
They met at the Eton v Harrow cricket
match at Lord’s in 1952. He is survived
by his wife, an author and arboricultur-
ist; their son Alex, a journalist and
author, their daughter Christian, who
worked in overseas development; Dan-
iel, who runs a rewilding NGO; and
Chelsea, an artist who was appointed
MBE for her humanitarian work in
Bosnia. Their youngest daughter, Polly,
a documentary film-maker, died in a
car accident in 2010.
The Rentons enjoyed entertaining at
their home near Lewes, East Sussex. In
1985 The Times reported that Mrs Rent-
on raised snails and served them to
guests after fattening them for a week
in upturned flowerpots.
After his retirement from the Com-
mons in 1997, Renton took a life peerage
as Baron Renton of Mount Harry, the
name of the family home, and was an
active member of the Lords. He became
a wine producer and enjoyed tennis
and, according to his Who’s Who entry,
“messing around in boats”.
Renton was chairman of the Sussex
Downs Conservation Board and wrote
two novels as well as his well-reviewed
book Chief Whip (2004), partly a his-
tory of the black art of whipping and
partly a memoir. In it, he recorded his
“growing admiration” for Thatcher’s
“extraordinary and thoughtful kind-
ness to those around her” during her
last days in office. Yet he was clear about
her failings. “Thatcher had ceased
having an open mind. She wanted to
have only her own friends round her.”
He never forgot her final, bravura
performance in the Commons on No-
vember 22, 1990, when she faced the
baying opposition benches and de-
clared imperiously: “I’m enjoying this.”
“By the time she started her reply to
the no-confidence motion, she was in
top form. She was relaxed in a way I
have hardly ever seen her at the dis-
patch box. She defended the principles
on which she had fought to change the
face of Britain over the past 11 years.”
When she sat down amid the cheers
and waving of order papers, Renton saw
something he never thought he would.
Thatcher looked across at Dennis Skin-
ner, the curmudgeonly leftwinger and
“Beast of Bolsover”, and smiled at him.Lord Renton of Mount Harry, former
chief whip, was born on May 28, 1932. He
died of cancer and dementia on August
25, 2020, aged 88ister. In 1985 Renton was promoted to
minister of state in the Foreign Office
and in 1987 began a two-year spell work-
ing with Hurd at the Home Office. His
responsibilities included broadcasting
and immigration. He helped to set up
the Broadcasting Standards Council
and, at Thatcher’s urging, denied Sinn
Fein spokesmen the “oxygen of publici-
ty” on British airwaves.Major would later say that Renton
was “too nice” to be a cabinet minister,
and as chief whip he was low-key, amia-
ble and preferred to have a quiet word
rather than make threats. His 13
months in the role were stormy. With
Thatcher losing authority in the party,
the power of the whips’ patronage was
running out. It did not help that he had
no prior experience as a whip but the
job would have been a strain for any-
one, however experienced.
Within days Renton had to cope with
the leadership challenge of Sir AnthonyHe and his wife would
serve snails, fattened up
in upturned flowerpots
Obituaries
Lord Renton of Mount Harry
Margaret Thatcher’s final chief whip whose grim report on the mood of Tory MPs helped to persuade her to stand down in 1990
DAVID CRUMP/DAILY MAIL/SHUTTERSTOCK; DAVID ROSE/THE INDEPENDENT/SHUTTERSTOCK
On the evening of November 20, 1990,
Tim Renton made a phone call that
would effectively end Margaret
Thatcher’s premiership. As the Tory
chief whip it fell to him to inform her,
via her parliamentary private secretary,
that she had fallen four votes short of
the majority she needed to be declared
the outright victor over Michael Hesel-
tine, who had challenged her in the
leadership contest held that day. The
prime minister was in Paris for an inter-
national security conference. She
marched outside and, speaking into
John Sergeant’s microphone, con-
firmed her intention to fight on.
Reports of Renton’s role up to that
moment fed the paranoia of some of
Thatcher’s supporters, who believed
she had been the victim of a plot and
that a more committed chief whip
would have found the extra four votes
(Renton himself had abstained). Yet he
had done his job in ensuring that the
whips were neutral in the contest. He
now heard from several MPs, including
some who had voted for Thatcher on
the first ballot, that they would not vote
for her again. He reported this news to
the prime minister on November 21
over a lunch of cheese and ham
sandwiches.
Thatcher wrote in her memoirs: “Tim
Renton gave a characteristically dispar-
aging assessment.” After much soul
searching, she decided to resign. Rent-
on later wrote in his memoirs about the
cabinet meeting the following morning
at 9am on November 22, 1990. “She was
pale and looked very tired, with rings
round her eyes. After a short pause, the
prime minister said quietly: ‘There is a
danger of the policies that I believe in
not being continued, and so I have con-
cluded that I.. .’ At this point she broke
down and wept. After 30 seconds or so
she recovered her composure enough
to finish her sentence: ‘I have conclud-
ed that I should not let my name go for-
ward for the second ballot.’ ”
Renton, an urbane and witty man
with a reassuring countenance, con-
tinued: “I made a note of who might not
be in the cabinet in two weeks’ time if
Heseltine won. Howard, Wakeham,
Parkinson, MacGregor were on my
question-mark list. And, of course, I
wondered about myself.”
Yet it was John Major who beat
Heseltine in the subsequent leadership
contest. Renton was
summoned to No 10 to
see the new prime min-
ister: “If I had had a
cough, I am sure he
would have asked me if
it was getting better.
Then, with all the polite-
ness that was his trade-
mark, he accepted my
offer to resign as the
chief whip and asked me
to take on the job of min-
ister for the arts.” Major
knew that Renton had
voted for Douglas Hurd
in the second leadership
ballot. Renton realised
that he was fortunate to
be offered the post, even if it was a de-
motion. His wife, Alice, consoled him
that it was one her opera-loving hus-
band would enjoy.
After several years in the middle
ministerial ranks, Renton had been a
surprise and, in some ways, an acciden-
tal choice as Thatcher’s last chief whip.
When Nigel Lawson resigned as chan-
cellor in October 1989, Thatcher was
forced into a cabinet reshuffle and
needed a new chief whip. Sir Geoffrey
Howe, the foreign secretary, recom-
mended Renton on the basis that he
was “calm under fire, balanced and
wise”. Renton was a friend of Howe. It
was feared that Howe might still join
Lawson in resigning; perhaps appoint-
ing Renton might conciliate him.
Thatcher never fully trusted Renton,
though, not least after Howe’s resigna-
tion a few weeks before
her own. Shortly before
the leadership election,
she upbraided Renton
over a pro-EU speech
made by his “master”,
Howe. Renton replied
forcefully, if not appo-
sitely: “He is not my
master. You are, if I
may so, my mistress.”
Ronald Timothy
Renton was born in
London in 1932. His
father, Ronald, was a
parliamentary lawyer
who helped to draft
government bills and
his mother was Eil-
een (née Torr). Timothy at-
tended Sunningdale School and then
Eton as a King’s Scholar. He won a
scholarship to Magdalen College, Ox-
ford, and got a first in history. Becoming
an underwriter, he gradually acquiredith t s o m Hfo
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