Alan Clark

Alan Kenneth Mackenzie Clark (April 13, 1928 – September 5, 1999) was a British Conservative politician, historian and diarist. The son of art historian Kenneth Clark, he read modern history at Oxford and qualified as a Barrister, but never practiced. His book "The Donkeys" (1961) argued that British troops were poorly led in the First World War. Clark became Conservative Member of Parliament for Plymouth Sutton in 1974, and served in the government of Margaret Thatcher. After standing down from Parliament in 1992, he published his diaries the next year which became an instant classic for their combination of political intrigue, high living, and Clark's many sexual exploits with women.

Sourced

• You cannot come here because you are not white.
  • Quoted in his obituary in The Guardian, September 8, 1999.
  • In 1971 Clark said this should be the message given to refugees expelled by Idi Amin from Uganda who held residence rights in the UK.

• John Pilger: I read that you were a vegetarian and you are seriously concerned about the way animals are killed.
  Alan Clark: Yeah.
  John Pilger: Doesn’t that concern extend to the way humans, albeit foreigners, are killed?
  Alan Clark: Curiously not.
  • Interviewed by John Pilger in the documentary Death of a Nation, broadcast on ITV February 22, 1994.
  • The interview was transcribed in New Statesman and Society, February 18, 1994.

• The only solution for dealing with the IRA is to kill 600 people in one night.
  • Spoken at a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party Conference, October 7, 1997. Reported in The Guardian, October 8, 1997

• I am not a fascist. Fascists are shopkeepers, I am a Nazi.
  • William Donaldson (ed.), Brewer's Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics (London 2002), p. 152
  • Letter to the Guardian.

Diaries: In Power (1993)

Originally published without sub-title as Diaries, they cover the years 1983 to 1991. ISBN 1857991427.

• So what does it matter where it was when it was hit? We could have sunk it if it'd been tied up on the quayside in a neutral port and everyone would still have been delighted.
  • May 15, 1983; page 5.
  • On the sinking of the ARA General Belgrano during the Falklands War.

• I only can properly enjoy carol services if I am having an illicit affair with someone in the congregation. Why is this? Perhaps because they are essentially pagan, not Christian, celebrations.
  • December 17, 1985; page 125.

• I fell into conversation with Douglas. His is a split personality. À deux he is delightful; clever, funny, observant, drily cynical. But get him anywhere near "display mode", particularly if there are officials around, and he might as well have a corncob up his arse. Pompous, trite, high-sounding, cautiously guarded.
  • January 29, 1988; page 198.

• I want to fire the whole lot. Instantly. Out, out. No "District" commands, no golden bowlers, nothing. Out ... If I could, I'd do what Stalin did to Tukhachevsky.
  • April 3, 1990; page 291.
  • On reform of the General Staff, while he was Minister of Defence Procurement.

• I am confirmed in my opinion that it is hopeless here. All we can do is arm the Orangemen – to the teeth – and get out.
  • January 30, 1991; page 395.
  • On the Troubles in Northern Ireland.