Alistair McAlpine, Baron McAlpine of West Green

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert Alistair McAlpine, Baron McAlpine of West Green (14 May 1942– ), is often known as Alistair McAlpine.

He became a life peer in 1984 as Baron McAlpine of West Green of West Green in the County of Hampshire. In the 1990s he had a high-profile business collapse in Australia.

McAlpine was a prominent Conservative peer, close in his views to Margaret Thatcher. He had been both Treasurer and Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party. In 1996, he defected to James Goldsmith's Referendum Movement and in 1997 became its leader following Goldsmith's death. He sat as an Independent Conservative for some time in the House of Lords before rejoining the Conservatives.

A bon vivant, patron of the arts and author, he pursued these interests with considerable vigour. He founded his own publishing house in London in the 1960s, and has variously been an art dealer, collector, member of the Arts Council, zookeeper (in Broome, Western Australia), gardener and traveller.

This biography of a baron in the peerage of the United Kingdom is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.