Sir Peter Hugh Morrison PC (2 June 1944 – 13 July 1995) was a British Conservative politician, MP for Chester from 1974 to 1992, and Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
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Morrison was educated at Eton College and at Keble College at the University of Oxford, where he studied Law.
He was first elected to the House of Commons in the general election of February 1974 for Chester. He had been one of the first back-bench MPs to urge Margaret Thatcher to stand for the Party leadership in 1975.
Morrison was Deputy Conservative Party Chairman under Norman Tebbit, having been previously a Parliamentary Undersecretary of State and Minister of State in the Department of Employment. In 1987 he was Minister of State for Energy.[1]
He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Margaret Thatcher in 1990 and was the leader of her campaign team in the Conservative leadership election of the same year. He was relaxed about Thatcher's prospects and predicted an easy win for her. Alan Clark went to visit Morrison one afternoon during the campaign and found him asleep in his office. Morrison claimed he had enough MPs down as Thatcher supporters to ensure she would win. After the first ballot among Conservative MPs had shown that Thatcher did not have enough votes to win outright, Morrison suggested to her that she should consult the Cabinet one-by-one to gauge support. He said to her: "Prime Minister, if you haven't won then there are a lot of Tory MPs who are lying".[2]
Morrison stood down at the 1992 general election, being succeeded as MP for Chester by Gyles Brandreth.
According to journalist Simon Heffer, Morrison was gay and went cruising in Sussex Gardens.[3] Fellow Conservative MP Michael Brown, himself openly gay, has described Morrison as gay in a column published in The Independent.[4]
His brother was Sir Charles Morrison, Conservative MP for Devizes from 1964 to 1992 and their father was John Morrison, 1st Baron Margadale.
He died of a heart attack early in the morning of 13 July 1995.
Morrison was portrayed by Nicholas Jones in the 2004 BBC production of The Alan Clark Diaries, and by Rupert Vansittart in the 2009 BBC production of Margaret.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by John Temple |
Member of Parliament for the City of Chester Feb 1974–1992 |
Succeeded by Gyles Brandreth |