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Thomas Edwin 'Peter' Utley CBE (1 February 1921 – 21 June 1988) was a British High Tory journalist and writer who stood unsuccessfully for election to the Parliament of the United Kingdom on one occasion.

Blind since childhood, the adopted son of Miss Anne Utley,^[1] Utley read History at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, graduating with a double first. During the Second World War he was a leader writer for The Times and then worked for The Observer and The Sunday Times. In the early 1950s, he was Assistant Editor of The Spectator and then for twenty years, he was a leader writer for The Daily Telegraph, then columnist and Chief Assistant Editor.^{[citation needed]} In 1987, he moved back to The Times, working as the Obituary Editor and as a columnist. This latter move was occasioned by a falling-out with Max Hastings, the then editor of The Telegraph, who disagreed with Utley's views on matters relating to Northern Ireland.^[2]

In the general election of February 1974, Utley stood unsuccessfully as the Ulster Unionist Party candidate for North Antrim, gaining 21.01% of the vote but losing to Ian Paisley of the Democratic Unionist Party.^[3]

Margaret Thatcher referred to him as "the most distinguished Tory thinker of our time"^[4] and sometimes called on him to assist in writing her speeches.^[5] He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1980. Utley married Brigid Viola Mary (1927-2012), daughter of Dermot Michael Macgregor Morrah, a journalist, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and Arundel Herald Extraordinary at the College of Arms.^[1][6][7] A chain smoker and heavy drinker, Utley's financial situation was often precarious.^[5]

Utley and his wife had two sons and two daughters. One son, Tom, is a columnist for the Daily Mail.^{[citation needed]}

Works

• 
  Essays in Conservatism (1949).


• 
  Modern Political Thought (1952).


• 
  The Conservatives and the Critics (1956).


• 
  Documents of Modern Political Thought (Joint editor, 1957).


• 
  Not Guilty: The Conservative Reply (1957).


• 
  Edmund Burke (1957).


• 
  Occasion for Ombudsmen (1963).


• 
  Your Money and Your Life (1964).


• 
  Enoch Powell: The Man and his Thinking (1968).


• 
  What Laws May Cure (1968).


• 
  Ulster - A Short Background Analysis (1972).


• 
  Lessons of Ulster (first edition: 1975, second edition: 1997).


• 
  Charles Moore and Simon Heffer (editors), A Tory Seer: The Selected Journalism of T. E. Utley (1989).

References

External links

• Written Statement by Mrs. Thatcher on the death of T.E. Utley (22 June 1988)


• Mrs. Thatcher's preface to A Tory Seer (17 July 1989)


• T. E. Uttley appearance on BBC TV, 1974

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