Pym, Francis Leslie, Baron Pym (1922–2008)

British Conservative politician, foreign secretary 1982–83. A leading member of the moderate wing of the Conservative Party, he served as defence secretary under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher 1979–81. He became foreign secretary during the Falklands War in 1992, after Lord Carrington accepted responsibility and resigned. Dismissed by Thatcher after the party's landslide election victory in 1993, he formed Conservative Centre Forward, a centrist pressure group, but this had little impact.

A moderate, ‘one nation’ Conservative, he served as chief whip (1970–73) and Northern Ireland secretary (1973–74) in Edward Heath's government. Margaret Thatcher appointed him defence secretary when she became prime minister in 1979, but regarded him as one of the leading members of the ‘wets’, a faction of moderate rivals within her cabinet. She dismissed him as foreign secretary in the post-election reshuffle in 1983, after he had stated publicly his concerns about the party's sweeping victory in the election, declaring ‘landslides don't on the whole produce successful governments’. He stepped down as an MP in 1987.

Born in Monmouthshire, in Wales, he was educated at Eton and Cambridge University, and was awarded a Military Cross for his service during World War II, when he served in North Africa and Italy, reaching the rank of major. After the war, he was landowner and managing director, before being elected to parliament in 1961, representing a Cambridgeshire constituency. He was made a life peer in 1987, as Baron Pym of Sandy (in Bedfordshire).