Sir John Nott, Conservative defense minister during the Falklands War, has died aged 92.
Sir John twice resigned after Argentina invaded the South Atlantic islands.
The British Prime Minister at the time, Mrs Thatcher, refused to accept it and he remained in office until the end of the war before stepping down to focus on his business interests.
During a political career that spanned almost two decades, he also worked in the Treasury and Trade Departments and represented the Cornwall constituency of St Ives.
However, he famously quit a TV interview in anger when broadcaster Sir Robin Day pressured him to cut defense spending, calling him a “here today, gone tomorrow politician”.
He took off the microphone, muttered “I’m sorry, I’m tired of this interview. This is ridiculous,” and left the studio.
Recalling the 2002 interview, he told the BBC that Sir Robin was “like the interviewer, just trying to cause trouble”.
“I thought about my farm, the harvests and the green fields of England, and half my brain said, ‘Why do I have to sit here and listen to all these ridiculous questions?’
“I just got bored and walked out.”
He retained a sense of humor about the incident and later titled his memoir “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow.”
Born in 1932, he attended Kings Mead Schools, Steaford, Bradfield College and Cambridge Trinity College.
He also served as a lieutenant in the Gurkha Rifles during the Malayan Emergency, a communist-inspired rebellion against British colonial authorities.
At the 1966 election he won St Ives for the National Liberal Party, which merged with the Conservatives two years later.
He slowly rose through the parliamentary ranks, and in 1981 Margaret Thatcher appointed him defense minister.
Just over a year after taking office, he and other members of the British government were stunned when the Falklands were attacked by Argentina, which claimed the territory as its own.
Sir John faced fierce criticism in the House of Commons for failing to foresee the attack, leaving the island vulnerable to invasion.
A year ago, already wounded by the debate over defense spending cuts, he begged Mrs Thatcher to step down.
Although she accepted the resignation of the then Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, she refused to let Sir John go while the British task force was still carrying out the operation to retake the islands, saying “she could not accept it”.
Sir John initially expressed doubts about Britain’s ability to regain territory, but his doubts were quickly dispelled and he later praised the deployment as “a remarkable achievement”.
In a 2002 interview with the BBC, he rejected criticism of the infamous sinking of the Belgrano in Argentina, which killed 323 sailors.
“We did not start the war – there is a large group of people trying to blame the war on us in some way. (But) we are in peace talks with the Argentines,” he said.
“It was a terrible tragedy. I was shocked when all these Argentinian soldiers died. It was really horrific.”
However, he said the Argentine navy never went to sea after the incident, adding: “It would have been much more difficult if we had not only faced off against the very brave Argentine pilots but also against the Argentine navy.”
After the British victory in June 1982, Sir John once again asked to resign, and finally got his wish in 1983.
Getty ImagesHe returned to banking, a career he had pursued before entering Congress, and became chairman of Lazard Brothers.
He continued to be involved in politics, and in 1999 the then Conservative leader William Hague put him in charge of a committee that opposed Britain’s adoption of the euro.
He quit the Conservative Party during the 2016 Brexit referendum in protest at then-prime minister David Cameron’s “fear tirade”.
Later he began to write, not only a political autobiography but also two books about “the adventures of an elderly pensioner”.
Mr. Fantastic Takes a Cruise and its sequel Mr. Fantastic Seeks Immortality detail his travels to places such as Bromley, Balham and the nightclub Spearmint Rhino.
In an interview with the Daily Mail in 2014, He said people were “very concerned” that by writing the books – which included descriptions of sexual fantasies and visits to lap dancing clubs – he had “let down his family”.
But he said that he was 82 years old. “What does it matter what I say? No one will pay blind attention anyway.”
He is survived by his wife and three children, including Sasha Swire, author of the memoir “Diary of a Congressman’s Wife.”
Swire pays tribute to his father In a social media post: “RIP John Knott, my much loved father, protector, politician, farmer and me.”
Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel said: “John Nott was an inspiring defense secretary and statesman who, along with Margaret Thatcher, stood up to the invasion.
“His unwavering determination to free British sovereign territories from tyranny is as relevant today as it was during the Falklands conflict.”
