Alistair Cooke, Baron Lexden

Alistair Basil Cooke, Baron Lexden, OBE, ( born April 20, 1945 in Colchester, Essex ) is a British historian and politician of the Conservative Party.

Life

Cooke is the second son of Basil and Nancy Irene Cooke (nee Neal ). From 1966, he studied history at Cambridge, Edinburgh and Belfast. From 1971 he worked in Belfast as a lecturer and tutor in Modern British History, where he received his doctorate in 1979.

From 1977 until his death in 1979, he was political adviser to the Shadow Minister for Northern Ireland, Airey Neave. During this time and thereafter until 1997 he was employed by the Conservative Research Department from 1988 to 1997 he was director of the Conservative Political Centre. In 1988 he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire. Since 2007 he is the official historian of the Carlton Club and since 2009 also the official historian of the Conservative Party.

In December 2010 he was appointed on a proposal from David Cameron for Life Peer and bares the official title Baron Lexden, Lexden of in the County of Essex and of Strangford in the County of Down.