Born on 2 July 1940 in Nottingham, Kenneth Clarke entered the world just 40 days into Winston Churchill’s wartime premiership, as the Battle of Britain loomed.
A bright and quick-witted student, Clarke won a scholarship to Nottingham High School before going up to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, to read law in 1959.
He arrived at Cambridge with Labour sympathies but swiftly converted to Conservatism, finding his political home among a remarkable cohort of young men who would shape British public life for decades.
Clarke and his Cambridge contemporaries, including Norman Fowler, Michael Howard, John Gummer, Leon Brittan, Norman Lamont and Peter Lilley, all reached Cabinet under Margaret Thatcher.
Elected MP for Rushcliffe in 1970, Clarke joined the front bench in April 1972 as an assistant whip in Edward Heath’s government, beginning an extraordinary parliamentary career spanning more than four decades.
Despite not being natural ideological allies, Clarke and Thatcher forged a productive working relationship, with Clarke describing her as “the best politician I have ever witnessed.”
He served as parliamentary secretary for transport under Norman Fowler from 1979, telling Thatcher candidly that he knew nothing about the subject, yet resolving, typically, to make the best of it.
His time at transport placed him at the frontline of privatisation, one of the defining characteristics of the Thatcherite revolution, as Fowler pursued the divestment of the National Freight Corporation and the National Bus Company.
Clarke moved through health, employment and education before becoming Chancellor under John Major after Black Wednesday, overseeing a period in which interest rates, inflation and unemployment all fell.
As Chancellor, Clarke cut the basic rate of income tax, reduced public expenditure and brought down the deficit, prompting Shadow Chancellor Gordon Brown to pledge to retain the government’s spending plans for the first two years of a Labour government.
Clarke declared his personal loyalty to Major without reservation, stating that “any enemy of John Major is an enemy of mine,” even as his pro-European views made him increasingly toxic to Conservative MPs.
He contested the Conservative leadership three times, most notably in 1997 when he led after the first ballot with support from across the party, only to lose to William Hague, 90 votes to 72.
His public image was unmistakable and deliberately unpolished, defined by double-breasted suits, brown suede shoes, the Garrick Club tie, cigars, brandy and late nights at Ronnie Scott’s jazz club.
Clarke returned to Cabinet under David Cameron in 2010 as justice secretary and Lord Chancellor, though he later conceded he disagreed with almost all Conservative policies on justice, finding the experience deeply unsatisfying.
He departed government entirely in 2014 after serving two years as minister without portfolio, closing a ministerial career stretching back over 42 years to Heath’s administration.