Julian Amery dies

Julian Amery, the former Tory MP, has died, aged 77. For more than 40 years he was the archetypal "God and Empire" Conservative; before being elevated to the Lords, as Baron Amery of Lustleigh, in 1992.

Amery was elected to Parliament as MP for Preston North in 1950; he began his ministerial career at the War Office in 1957 and ended it at the Foreign Office in 1974. John Major said last night: "Julian Amery was a great parliamentarian ... He lived the most vivid and courageous life." Educated at Eton and Oxford, Lord Amery was a war correspondent in the Spanish civil war from 1938-39. He married Harold Macmillan's daughter, Lady Catherine, in 1950, and they had four children. Lady Catherine died in 1991.