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Interview: Lord Thurso

Posted by GCTeam

Tuesday 9th March 2010

Category: Interviews

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Interview: Lord Thurso

Chris Beardshaw Interviews Lord Thurso, Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross, Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

Lord Thurso was born in 1953, the eldest son of Robin Sinclair, 2nd Viscount Thurso, and Margaret Robertson. He is the grandson of the 1st Viscount Thurso, better known as Sir Archibald Sinclair, the wartime Liberal leader and Secretary of State for Air.

Educated at Summerfields, Oxford and Eton College, John Thurso joined the Savoy company in 1971 as a management trainee. He worked in all the company’s hotels, except the Connaught, and in each of the principal departments. In 1981 he was appointed General Manager of the Hotel Lancaster, Paris.

In 1985 he left the Savoy company, and France, to return to England as Founder General Manager and Operations Director of Cliveden, Britain’s highest rated hotel.

Following the passage of the House of Lords Bill, Lord Thurso made a small piece of constitutional history in 2001 when he became the first hereditary peer to be elected to the House of Commons, having previously sat in the House of Lords.

Previously, as Viscount Thurso, he had been a front bench spokesman in the House of Lords, but voted for his own expulsion and refused a life peerage. He joined the Liberal Democrat Front Bench as spokesman for Tourism from 1997-1999 and Food 1999.

Lord Thurso was a Highland list candidate for the Scottish Parliament in 1999. In June 2001, he was elected to Westminster as the MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross and in October 2001, joined the Liberal Democrat Shadow Cabinet as Spokesman on Scotland.

He lives in his estate in Caithness which has been owned by his family since the 1680s and also became a Trustee of Queen Elizabeth’s Castle of Mey. When not in London working in the cut and thrust of politics – Lord Thurso enjoys nothing more than tending his vegetables in his newly created veg’ plot.

Chris Beardshaw met up with him in London recently and interviewed him exclusively for gardenersclick

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Comments

Message from titch

Posted on 15th March 2010 Report Abuse

Thank you for the interview with Lord Thurso A true gentleman, and through your questions a man who loves his garden. He reminds me of the 'one nation' politicians I knew when growing up as a young man in Gloucestershire. They are worth their weight in gold, whatever theirvpolitical allegiance. They love their gardens, their family and their country. God Bless them

Fr John (Scotland West Lothian)