JUDITH Chaplin, 53, Conservative MP for Newbury, and an adviser of
John Major, died yesterday.
The Prime Minister said: ''Judith was a dear friend and a trusted
adviser. She had settled into her job, into the House with great aplomb
and would have had a wonderful career there. Norma and I will miss her
very much.''
She is the first MP to die in the new Parliament and her death creates
a by-election in Newbury, where she secured a 12,357 majority at the
General Election.
Mrs Chaplin died at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, west London, from
what are understood to be complications arising from a blood clot. She
had surgery on Wednesday at the hospital.
She had worked closely alongside Mr Major for some years and appeared
likely to become one of the first back benchers of the new intake to be
given a ministerial post.
She had been Mr Major's political secretary since 1990 and before that
was his special adviser when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer.
She was head of the policy unit of the Institute of Directors from
1986 to 1988.
Mrs Chaplin was educated at Wycombe Abbey and Girton College,
Cambridge. She first worked in advertising and then founded and ran an
independent school for young children in Norfolk from 1967 to 1974.
Sir Norman Fowler, chairman of the Conservative Party, said: ''Judith
was one of the outstanding new MPs and would certainly have become a
Minister.''
She is survived by her husband and four children.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article