Peter Tapsell

Sir Peter Hannay Bailey Tapsell (1 February 1930 – 17 August 2018) was a British Conservative Party politician and Member of Parliament (MP) for Louth and Horncastle. He served in the House of Commons continuously from 1966 until 2015, and was also previously an MP from 1959 to 1964. He was Father of the House between 2010 and 2015, during which time he was also the oldest sitting Member of Parliament. With a total parliamentary service of 54 years, he is one of the longest-serving MPs in British history.

Early life and education Tapsell was born in Hove, Sussex. He was educated at Tonbridge School, served in the Royal Sussex Regiment from 1948 to 1950, and continued his education at Merton College, Oxford, gaining a BA in Modern History in 1954, during which time he was also elected Librarian of the Oxford Union (a senior office). Tapsell was a member of the Oxford University Labour Club during his time at Merton. Tapsell was a long-time supporter of Keynesian economics, and opposed the monetarist policies of Margaret Thatcher's governments. In 1981, he voted against Sir Geoffrey Howe's Budget – becoming, as Peter Oborne noted, "the first Conservative since Harold Macmillan in the 1930s to vote against a Budget, a brave move which turned him into an internal political exile."

Tapsell was known for his forthright views and was sometimes controversial. In May 2001, he made headlines during the UK general election campaign when comparing German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's vision of Europe to Adolf Hitler's: "We may not have studied Hitler's Mein Kampf in time but, by heaven, there is no excuse for us not studying the Schröder plan now". Tapsell was opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and called for Tony Blair to be impeached for misleading parliament over the invasion of Iraq.

Tapsell was strongly Eurosceptic. He was in favour of Britain leaving the EU. He felt that of all his political actions the one of which he was most proud was his opposition to the Maastricht Treaty, "because everything that has gone wrong in Britain dates from us joining the European Union. One of the reasons the House of Commons has lost its prestige is because people feel we are no longer in charge of a country. So much of the legislation that affects them is imposed by Brussels." Guardian sketch writer Simon Hoggart frequently lavished praise on Tapsell, describing him as "the grandest of grandees" (July 2008) and that when in the Chamber, Tapsell rises "to speak, or rather to intone superbly" (January 2008).

In June 2011, Tapsell was appointed as a Privy Counsellor in the 2011 Birthday Honours, and he was sworn into the Council the following month. Tapsell was reported as being one of the Conservative MPs to have spoken critically of Party Co-Chairman Sayeeda Warsi at a meeting of the 1922 Committee, following Warsi's handling of Roger Helmer MEP's defection to UKIP. In March 2014, he announced his intention to step down from Parliament at the 2015 general election, and also gave an interview where he was highly critical of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, under whom he briefly served as a spokesman on economic policy when the Conservatives were still in Opposition in the 1970s. His former wife Cecilia married Tapsell's fellow Conservative politician Sir Nicholas Scott in 1979.

Tapsell lived at Roughton Hall in Roughton, Lincolnshire. He died there on 17 August 2018, aged 88.