Critchley, Julian Michael Gordon (1930–2000)

UK Conservative Party politician and political journalist. Despite being an MP for over 30 years, he never obtained political office. This was because his liberal, pro-European ‘one nation’ brand of conservatism was out of tune with the conservatism of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, who held power 1979–97.

A long-time friend and political ally of Michael Heseltine, he was a leading party rebel and witty political journalist. He was expelled from the Conservative Party in 1999 for backing the pro-euro Conservative Party in the 1999 European Parliament election.

He was educated at Shrewsbury School, where he first met Michael Heseltine, and at Oxford University. He suffered from polio as a teenager and later in his life. He became a Conservative MP for Rochester and Chatham in 1959, but was defeated at the 1964 general election. He returned to Parliament as an MP for Aldershot in 1970, which he represented until he retired in 1997. He was knighted in 1995 and died from prostate cancer in 2000.