Alan Clark

Alan Kenneth Mackenzie Clark (13 April 1928 – 5 September 1999) was a British Conservative Member of Parliament (MP), author and diarist. He served as a junior minister in Margaret Thatcher's governments at the Departments of Employment, Trade and Defence. He became a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 1991. He was the author of several books of military history, including his controversial work The Donkeys (1961), which inspired the musical satire Oh, What a Lovely War! Clark became known for his flamboyance, wit, irreverence and keen support of animal rights. Norman Lamont called him "the most politically incorrect, outspoken, iconoclastic and reckless politician of our times". Clark is particularly remembered for his three-volume Alan Clark Diaries, which contains a candid account of political life under Thatcher and a moving description of the weeks preceding his death, when he continued to write until he could no longer focus on the page.