Conservative Party grandee Lord McAlpine (71) dies

British prime minister David Cameron has led tributes to former Conservative Party deputy chairman Lord McAlpine, whose death was confirmed today

He was a "dedicated supporter of Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party", Mr Cameron said today.

Tory grandee and former party treasurer Alistair McAlpine died at his home in Italy, his family confirmed last night. He was 71.

Colleagues described him as a “towering figure” who made “a huge contribution to public life”.

The former aide to British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, was more recently wrongly implicated in a child abuse scandal.

In a statement, the family of Lord McAlpine, Baron of West Green, said: “It is with great sadness that the family of Lord McAlpine announce his peaceful death last night at his home in Italy.”

A former political adviser and businessman, Lord McAlpine was more recently in the news when he received damages from a string of internet users — including Sally Bercow, wife of commons speaker John Bercow, and comedian Alan Davies — as a result of libellous messages on Twitter.

Ms Bercow agreed to pay Lord McAlpine £15,000 (€18,000) in damages for her infamous “innocent face” tweet, which was posted at the height of the allegations into child sex allegations and the Tory peer.

Actor Davies also paid damages after he re-tweeted a Twitter post which linked Lord McAlpine’s name to a television report about a “senior political figure who is a paedophile”.

Lord McAlpine was wrongly implicated in a child abuse scandal when allegations about a senior Tory were the subject of a BBC Newsnight investigation.

The BBC was later forced to apologise and issued a statement after abuse victim Steve Messham admitted that the man who abused him in a North Wales children’s home in the 1970s and 1980s was not the peer.

Solicitors for Lord McAlpine indicated that they were preparing to sue for defamation, saying their client’s reputation had been left in “tatters” as a result of the programme.

An investigation into the programme by the BBC Trust later said members of the team failed to follow the corporation’s own editorial guidelines.

The allegations forced the corporation’s then-director general, George Entwistle, to quit the role in November 2012 less than two months into taking it, saying that as editor-in chief he had to take ”ultimate responsibility” for a Newsnight investigation that had led to Lord McAlpine being wrongly accused of child abuse.

His libel actions thrust him back into the spotlight after a colourful political career.

He was a convivial, irreverent figure, with a venomous line in invective — and probably the best party-giver the Tories ever had.

This political soulmate of Margaret Thatcher was a highly successful fundraiser for the party.

Over the years, his spellbinding charm and his lavish lunches probably amassed as much as £100 million for the Tory Party coffers.

But this once amiable fellow, with the shabby corduroy suits and the inevitable salmon and cucumber Garrick Club tie, once the bubbling life and soul of every Tory gathering, appeared to change his entire demeanour once Margaret Thatcher had been replaced by John Major.

He trained his vitriol, in the most savage way imaginable, on the new prime minister, accusing him of “stuffing up a great party”, of running away from every issue, of living in a fantasy world, and cruelly labelling him “distasteful”.

John Major shrugged off these barbs, once pointedly telling the Commons: “I understand that Lord McAlpine is promoting a book which is a work of fiction.”

He stunned Westminster in 1996 by defecting to the Referendum Party, although he later returned to the Tory fold.

In 2010 he stood down from the House of Lords to hold on to his non-dom tax status. In his heyday, the parties he threw at Tory conferences made Lord Archer’s Krug and shepherd’s pie thrashes look positively meagre by comparison.

All the Cabinet used to troop up to McAlpine’s hotel suite to sup the best champagne and to relish the finest lobster. If you were on his guest list you had “arrived” in the Conservative Party. Cordiality might have been his middle name.

Robert Alistair McAlpine, who had three daughters, spent his final years living in Italy with third wife Athena, whether they ran a bed and breakfast in a converted convent near Puglia.

He was a member of the family controlling the giant McAlpine building company. He left Stowe public school at 16 with three O levels and worked for the family firm on building sites, spending his evenings drinking Guinness with Irish labourers.

He joined the board of McAlpine before leaving to earn money for himself from property deals in Australia and selling antiques.

He was also, in his time, a zoo-keeper, ornithologist, explorer and jewellery maker. Life was never dull in the company of this garrulous, witty, bon viveur, who thrived on political intrigue and gossip and whose cheerful indiscretions often sent reporters sprinting to the telephone. ends

PA