Goodman, Arnold Abraham, Baron Goodman (1913–1995)

English lawyer and political adviser. Once described as the most powerful man in Britain, he was adviser to three prime ministers: Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, and John Major. He had the unique distinction of having been made a peer by a Labour prime minister and a Companion of Honour by a Conservative one.

A lifelong bachelor who considered women to be intellectually inferior, he held numerous offices, including chair of the Arts Council, master of an Oxford college, chair of the Observer newspaper, director of two national opera houses, cofounder of the National Theatre, government negotiator in dealings with Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia), chair of the Newspaper Publishers' Association, chair of the Housing Association, and lawyer to trade unions and popular media stars. He credited his ability to fulfil so many roles to an absence of domestic distractions.