Nicholas Fairbairn - Political Career

Political Career

In the early 1970s, Sir Nicholas' career took off. In 1972, he was appointed a Scottish Queen's Counsel. After the former Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home announced his retirement from Parliament in between the 1974 elections, Nicholas Fairbairn was selected to succeed him. In October 1974, he won the seat with a majority of just 53 votes over the then-surging Scottish National Party.

His right-wing views endeared him to Margaret Thatcher, and when she formed her Government after winning the 1979 election, she appointed him Solicitor-General for Scotland. On one occasion he wrote that the functions of this office were "to form a second pair of hands and often a first brain for the Lord Advocate". At the time of the election of the 1979 Conservative Government, Fairbairn was the only Scottish QC in the Scottish Parliamentary Conservative Party, and it is thought that, as a senior advocate of some considerable achievement in the criminal courts, he fully expected to be appointed Lord Advocate. However, his colourful opinions and reputation are thought to have impelled the then Lord Justice General, Lord Emslie, to tell Thatcher that the Scottish judiciary and legal profession were deeply opposed to such a man as the senior law officer in Scotland. That led Thatcher to offer Fairbairn the secondary post of Solicitor-General for Scotland, and to invite the then Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, J P H Mackay QC, who was not even then a member of the Conservative Party, to become Lord Advocate, which post he accepted. (Mackay later became a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 1985 and Lord Chancellor in 1987.)

Fairbairn was well known at Parliament for his flamboyant Scottish baronial tartan dress. He always carried a miniature (but fully working) silver revolver on a chain attached to his belt, and was reputedly the only MP to use the House of Commons snuff box. He had a mistress, Pamela Milne, who attempted suicide at his London home in 1981.

Just as it seemed he had managed to survive, a major controversy emerged in Glasgow—a prosecution was dropped in a case involving the gang rape and mutilation of a young prostitute after doctors determined she was too traumatized to serve as a credible witness. One journalist telephoned the Solicitor-General to ask why, and Fairbairn told him. This was a major breach of protocol and Fairbairn had to resign. After a media campaign a private prosecution was brought by the victim in 1982 under ancient Scottish law. It was known as the Carol X case. All three of the perpetrators were convicted, with one sentenced to 12 years in prison.

In 1983, he was elected an honorary Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, and he became a Trustee of the Royal Museums of Scotland in 1987. He was also President of the Society for the Preservation of Duddingston Village (an eastern suburb of Edinburgh).

Fairbairn labelled members of Throbbing Gristle in 1976 as "wreckers of civilisation" in a row over public funding of the arts. He also criticised Scottish performers Simple Minds and Annie Lennox for taking part in the 1988 Wembley Stadium concert to celebrate Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday, describing them as "left wing scum". Fairbairn was quoted: "These so-called stars like Annie Lennox and Jim Kerr are just out to line their own pockets.... and what Annie Lennox and Jim Kerr said at Wembley came out of no love for Nelson Mandela. It came from a desire to make money." Fairbairn was knighted in 1988.

Fairbairn became a marginal political figure with the departure of Margaret Thatcher in 1990. He described her successor, John Major, as a "ventriloquist's dummy", and when asked whether he stood by the comment, said that greyness was a creeping disease in politics. He added that to call John Major "grey" would be "an insult to porridge".

In the 1992 election campaign, Sir Nicholas caused a controversy when he claimed "Under a Labour government this country would be swamped with immigrants of every colour and race on any excuse of asylum or bogus marriage or just plain deception". He further claimed that such people would be permitted to vote for the Labour-proposed Scottish Parliament, whereas people born in Scotland who happened to live in England would not. The former Deputy Prime Minister, Viscount Whitelaw, cancelled an engagement to speak in support of his candidacy in the marginal seat.