There's a great article by Simon Heffer in the Daily Telegraph arguing the case for some radicalism in Conservative party economic policy. Remarking on the death of Alan Walters (economics adviser to Margaret Thatcher and guru of monetary policy) Heffer laments the lack of a modern-day equivalent within the Cameron team, and he puts a compelling case for appointing one. Cameron, he claims, su...

This has been a year of profound cultural and political shift in Britain, the most significant since 1979, when Margaret Thatcher launched her counter-revolution against the quasi-socialist consensus politics of the long postwar period. For decades to come, historians will analyse and debate the causes and consequences of a financial crisis of unprecedented complexity. But already, even before the...

Who says politics and sport don't mix? England's cricket captain, Kevin Pietersen, quits after a power struggle and bitter feud with the coach, Peter Moores, who then also quits. All this as the obituaries and eulogies are still being written (Simon Heffer in today's Daily Telegraph, for example) to Margaret Thatcher's economic guru, Sir Alan Walters, who died at the weekend. I...

  Daniel Cowdrill                         Yesterday Dan O’Doherty sent me a link to this contemporary piece by Richard Stone of Margaret Thatcher. Impeccable, upright, and with a glare that conceals the pent-up rage of middle England. This is Thatcher after her defeat of General Galtieri, in her Gloriana Imperatrix days. Thatch...

PROFESSOR Sir Alan Walters, the former economics adviser to Margaret Thatcher whose controversial role led to the resignation of Nigel Lawson, has died at the age of 82.

Sir Alan Walters, who has died aged 82, achieved fame as an economic adviser, sometimes official, sometimes unofficial, to Margaret Thatcher when she was Conservative prime minister. In 1989, Nigel Lawson resigned as chancellor of the exchequer when she refused to dismiss the economist. Walters himself resigned shortly afterwards. But these moments of political turmoil were just interruptions to a...

Sir Alan Walters, whose role as Margaret Thatcher's personal economic adviser provoked turmoil in her government, has died at the age of 82.

Sir Alan Walters, Margaret Thatcher’s economics guru who was the subject of her famous “advisers advise, ministers decide” quote, has died at the age of 82.

Margaret Thatcher's economics adviser, Sir Alan Walters, dies, aged 82.

Professor Sir Alan Walters, Margaret Thatcher's controversial economic adviser, has died at the age of 82. Knighted for his services to the former prime minister, the monetary theorist, whose strong support of a floating exchange rate precipitated Nigel Lawson's resignation as chancellor of the exchequer in 1989, had been suffering from Parkinson's disease. Walters's wife, Padd...