If my friend Oliver Stutchbury, who has died aged 84, had had less integrity he would have achieved greater success in politics ? success that he hankered after, and that his abilities merited. But his integrity was non-negotiable. He believed people should say what they mean and mean what they say, as he did. He passionately believed people should live by their principles, eschewing expediency, as he did. His integrity moved him to support causes which were inconsistent and this, too, undermined his political career. But his inconsistencies were embedded in his moral principles, which he pursued with relentless logic. His PhD thesis, published as Use of Principle (1973), argued that all lying is unethical. This forced him to shun all "white lies" ? an obvious stumbling block in politics.
Oliver was born and brought up in the family home in rural Sussex where, aged 11, he saw his father ? a successful engineer ? die after being stung by a bee. Despite the financial difficulties his father's death must have engendered, he was sent to Radley college and went on to King's College, Cambridge. There he read philosophy and as a mature student gained his PhD.
In politics, he started out as a Tory, and stood as a parliamentary candidate for the unwinnable Rhondda seat in the 1951 general election. But his moral convictions soon compelled him to leave the Tories and join the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. A City high flyer, he became chief executive of Save and Prosper, then the largest unit trust group in Britain, and, in 1964, he wrote a leading textbook, The Management of Unit Trusts. But when he decided investment management was more luck than judgment, he quit the job.
Having joined the Labour party in the 1960s, before long he concluded Britain's highly centralised government was catastrophic, and later encapsulated his views in Too Much Government? A Political Aeneid (1977). By now a passionate champion of local government, in 1973 he became an alderman on the Greater London council ? only to decide after three years that the GLC was incompetent beyond repair. So he left and launched his own political party, simply named "Abolish the GLC".
Just about everyone who met Oliver was charmed although he was almost excessively blunt. He lacked, or could not be bothered with, guile. But he was never sombre or solemn. Limitlessly hospitable and immensely convivial, he had a subtle palate and enjoyed every kind of fine drink. (He once told me the happiest day of his life was the day he realised he had become rich enough to drink whatever he wished in whatever quantity he wanted. I think he was joking.) Above all he was a terrific conversationalist: clever, creative, controversial ? and unalloyed fun.
He married Helen Beloe in 1955, and they had four children: Emma, Catherine, Rosalind and Wycliffe. They all survive him.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/feb/28/oliver-stutchbury-obituary
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