Alan Clark Alan Kenneth Mackenzie Clark ( 13 April 1928 – 5 September 1999 ) was a British Conservative MP , historian and diarist . He served as a junior minister in Margaret Thatcher ' s governments at the Departments of Employment , Trade and Defence , and became a privy counsellor in 1991 . He was the author of several books of military history , including his controversial work " The Donkeys " ( 1961 ) , which is considered to have inspired the musical satire , " Oh , What a Lovely War ! " Clark became known for his flamboyance , wit and irreverence . Norman Lamont called him " the most politically incorrect , outspoken , iconoclastic and reckless politician of our times " . He is particularly remembered for his three - volume diary , 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 . Clark was a passionate supporter of animal rights , joining activists in demonstrations at Dover against live export , and outside the House of Commons in support of Animal Liberation Front hunger - striker Barry Horne . When he died after radiation therapy for a brain tumour , his family said Clark wanted it to be stated that he had " gone to join Tom and the other dogs . " Early life . Clark was born at 55 Lancaster Gate , London , the elder son of art historian Kenneth Clark and his wife Elizabeth Winifred Clark née Martin . His sister and brother , fraternal twins Colette ( known as Celly ) and Colin , were born in 1932 . At the age of six he went as a day boy to Egerton House , a preparatory school in Marylebone , and from there at the age of nine went on to board at St Cyprian ' s School , Eastbourne . Clark was one of the seventy boys rescued when the school building was destroyed by fire in May 1939 , and relocated with the school to Midhurst . In September 1940 , with the Luftwaffe threatening the south - east , the Clarks moved their son to a safer location at Cheltenham College Junior School . From there he went to Eton College in January 1942 . In February 1946 while at Eton he joined the Territorial training regiment of the Household Cavalry based at Windsor , but was discharged in August when he had left Eton . He then went to Christ Church , Oxford , where he read Modern History under Hugh Trevor - Roper , obtaining a third - class honours degree . After Oxford he wrote articles for the motoring press before he went on to read for the bar . He was called to the bar in 1955 but did not practise . Instead , he became a military historian . Historical writing . Clark ' s first book , " The Donkeys " ( 1961 ) , was a revisionist history of the British Expeditionary Force ' s campaigns at the beginning of World War I . The book covers Western Front operations during 1915 , including the offensives at Neuve Chapelle , Aubers Ridge and Loos , and ending with the dismissal of Sir John French as Commander - in - Chief of the BEF , and his replacement by Douglas Haig . Clark describes the battle scenes and criticises the actions of almost all the generals involved in the heavy loss of life that occurred . However much of the book is based on the political manoeuvres behind the scenes as commanders jostled for influence , and Sir John French ' s difficulties dealing with his French allies and with Herbert Kitchener . Haig ' s own diaries are used to demonstrate how Haig positioned himself to take over command . Clark does not reflect on Haig ' s performance as Commander - in - Chief or on the battles of 1916 and 1917 . The book ' s title was drawn from the expression " Lions led by donkeys " which has been widely used to compare British soldiers with their commanders . In 1921 Princess Evelyn Blücher published her memoirs , which attributed the phrase to the German GHQ in 1918 . Clark was unable to find the origin of the expression . He prefaced the book with a supposed dialogue between two generals and attributed the dialogue to the memoirs of Falkenhayn . Clark was equivocal about the source for the dialogue for many years , but , in 2007 , a friend Euan Graham recalled a conversation in the mid sixties when Clark , on being challenged as to the dialogue ' s provenance , looked sheepish and said , " Well I invented it " . This invention has provided a major opportunity for critics of " The Donkeys " to condemn the work . Clark ' s choice of subject was strongly influenced by Lord Lee of Fareham , a family friend who had never forgotten what he saw as the shambles of the BEF . In developing his work , Clark became close friends with historian Basil Liddell Hart , who acted as his mentor . Liddell Hart read the drafts and was concerned by Clark ' s " intermittent carelessness " . He produced several lists of corrections which were incorporated , and wrote " It is a fine piece of writing , and often brilliantly penetrating " . Even before publication , Clark ' s work was coming under attack from supporters of Haig , including his son and historians John Terraine , Robert Blake and Hugh Trevor - Roper , former tutor to Clark , who was married to Haig ' s daughter . On publication , " The Donkeys " received very supportive comments from Lord Beaverbrook , who recommended the work to Winston Churchill , and " The Times " printed a positive review . However , John Terraine and A . J . P . Taylor wrote damning reviews and historian Michael Howard wrote " As history , it is worthless " , criticising its " slovenly scholarship " . Howard nonetheless commended its readability and noted that descriptions of battles and battlefields are " sometimes masterly " . Field Marshal Montgomery later told Clark it was " A Dreadful Tale : You have done a good job in exposing the total failure of the generalship " . The book was considered to be the inspiration for the popular pacifist musical " Oh ! What a Lovely War " and Clark , after legal wrangles , was awarded some royalties . The book became popular with the reading public as provocative and entertaining , and reflected the public attitudes at the time . In more recent years , as the pendulum has moved in favour of Haig and the British generals , the work has been criticised by some historians for being one - sided in its treatment of World War One generals . Brian Bond , in editing a 1991 collection of essays on First World War history , expressed the collective desire of the authors to move beyond " popular stereotypes of " The Donkeys " " while also acknowledging that serious leadership mistakes were made and that the authors would do little to rehabilitate the reputations of , for instance , the senior commanders on The Somme . War Museum historian Peter Simkins complained that it was frustratingly difficult to counter Clark ' s prevailing view . Professor Richard Holmes made a similar complaint , writing that " Alan Clark ' s " The Donkeys " , for all its verve and amusing narrative , added a streak of pure deception to the writings of the First World War . Its title is based on ' Lions led by Donkeys ' . Sadly for historical accuracy , there is no evidence whatever for this ; none . Not a jot or scintilla . The real problem is that such histories have sold well and continue to do so . They reinforce historical myth by delivering to the reader exactly what they expect to read " . Clark ' s work was described as " contemptible " by the Marquess of Anglesey who regarded Clark as the most arrogant and least respectable writer of the War . In this case , there was " form " as Anglesey ' s history of the British Cavalry had been reviewed by Clark with the comments " cavalry are nearly always a disaster , a waste of space and resources . " Journalist Gary Mead , in conjunction with Professor Hew Strachan of Oxford University , and Dr . A . R Morton of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst , criticised Clark ' s use of passages written by Haig to demonstrate Haig ' s own " incompetence " in his book , " The Good Soldier " . He wrote , " Alan Clark [ ' s ] . . . own 1961 anti - Haig book , " The Donkeys " , shamelessley wrenched Haig ' s words out of context " . Graham Stewart , Clark ' s researcher for " The Tories " noted " Alan wasn ' t against quoting people selectively to make them look bad " . Bond maintained that Clark criticised British Generalship , most of all Haig , for its " obsession " with cavalry , which was obsolete in industrial warfare . Bond and John Bourne write that cavalry had rarely been used on the Western Front in the First World War , or indeed in the decade leading up to the war . By 1915 – 1916 , the Cavalry Corps was reduced from five to three divisions , and soon constituted less than three percent of the British Army . Moreover , other authors have pointed out this criticism is unjust , considering there was no other form of mobile force around ; mechanisation was still in its infancy . Haig compensated for this by increasing the firepower of cavalry units and using them frequently as dismounted infantry . Clark produced several more studies of the First World War and the Second World War , including " Barbarossa " — after Operation Barbarossa — a history of the Eastern Front in the Second World War , before becoming involved in politics . Political career . Completely opposed to the Common Market , Clark joined the Conservative Monday Club in 1968 and was soon Chairman of its Wiltshire branch . In 1971 he was blacklisted by Conservative Party Central Office for being too right - wing but after representations by him , and others , he was removed . He subsequently became MP for Plymouth Sutton at the February 1974 general election with a majority of 8 , 104 . Harold Wilson took over from Edward Heath as prime minister of a minority Labour government . At the General Election in October 1974 , when Labour gained a small overall majority , Clark ' s vote fell by 1 , 192 votes but he still had a comfortable majority with 5 , 188 . His first five years in parliament was on the Conservative opposition benches . During the subsequent Party leadership contest he was urged by Airey Neave to vote for Margaret Thatcher but he is thought to have favoured Willie Whitelaw . The following year came the free vote on the Common Market and Clark , praising Enoch Powell ' s speech , voted against . The next day he told the socialist MP Dennis Skinner that " I ' d rather live in a socialist Britain than one ruled by a lot of foreigners . " Although he was personally liked by Margaret Thatcher , for whom he had great admiration , and the columist George Hutchinson , writing in " The Times " tipped him for inclusion in the Shadow Cabinet , he was never promoted to the cabinet , remaining in mid - ranking ministerial positions during the 1980s . Clark received his first ministerial posting as a Parliamentary Under - Secretary of State at the Department of Employment in 1983 , where he was responsible for moving the approval of regulations relating to equal pay in the House of Commons . His speech in 1983 followed a wine - tasting dinner with his friend of many years standing , Christopher Selmes . Irritated by what he regarded as a bureaucratically written civil - service speech , he galloped through the script , skipping over pages of text . The then - opposition MP Clare Short stood up on a point of order and , after acknowledging that MPs cannot formally accuse each other of being drunk in the House of Commons , accused him of being " incapable " , a euphemism for drunk . Although the Government benches were furious at the accusation , Clark later admitted in his diaries that the wine - tasting had affected him . To date , he is the only Member of Parliament to have been accused in the House of Commons of being drunk at the dispatch box . In 1986 , Clark was promoted to Minister for Trade at the Department of Trade and Industry . It was during this time that he became involved with the issue of export licences to Iraq . In 1989 , he became Minister for Defence Procurement at the Ministry of Defence . Clark left Parliament in 1992 following Margaret Thatcher ' s fall from power . His admission during the Matrix Churchill trial that he had been " economical with the " actualité " " in answer to parliamentary questions over export licences to Iraq , caused the collapse of the trial and the establishment of the Scott Inquiry , which helped undermine John Major ' s government . Clark became bored with life outside politics and returned to Parliament as member for Kensington and Chelsea in the election of 1997 . Clark was critical of NATO ' s campaign in the Balkans . Clark held strong views on British unionism , racial difference , social class , and was in support of animal rights , nationalist , protectionism and Euroscepticism . He referred to Enoch Powell as " The Prophet " . Clark once declared : " It is natural to be proud of your race and your country " , and in a departmental meeting , allegedly referred to Africa as " Bongo Bongo Land " . When called to account , however , by then Prime Minister John Major , Clark denied the comment had any racist overtones , claiming it had simply been a reference to the President of Gabon , Omar Bongo . Clark argued that the media and the government failed to pick out the racism towards white people and ignored any racist attacks on white people . He also however described the National Front chairman , John Tyndall , as " a bit of a blockhead " and disavowed his ideas . When Clark was Minister for Trade , responsible for overseeing arms sales to foreign governments , he was interviewed by journalist John Pilger who asked him : While involved in the Matrix Churchill trial he was cited in a divorce case in South Africa , in which it was revealed he had had affairs with Valerie Harkess , the wife of a South African barrister ( and part - time junior judge ) , and her daughters Josephine and Alison . After sensationalist tabloid headlines , Clark ' s wife Jane remarked upon what Clark had called " the coven " with the line : " Well , what do you expect when you sleep with below stairs types ? " , and referred to her husband as an " S , H , one , T " . Diaries . Clark published the first volume of his political and personal diaries in 1993 , which caused a minor embarrassment at the time with their candid descriptions of senior Conservative politicians such as Michael Heseltine , Douglas Hurd , and Kenneth Clarke . He quoted Michael Jopling — referring to Heseltine , deputy PM at the time – as saying " The trouble with Michael is that he had to buy all his furniture " and judged it " Snobby , but cutting " . His account of Thatcher ' s downfall in 1990 has been described as the most vivid and is now accepted by most contemporary political historians as the definitive account . Two subsequent volumes of his diaries cover the earlier and later parts of Clark ' s parliamentary career . The diaries reveal recurring worries about Japanese militarism but his real views are often not clear because he enjoyed making " tongue in cheek " remarks to the discomfiture of those he believed to be fools , as in his sympathy for a British version of National Socialism . Private life . Clark married his wife Jane in 1958 when she was 16 and he was 31 . They were married for 41 years and had two sons . Clark died in 1999 of a brain tumour which he was convinced was caused by his heavy cellular phone use . His diary account of his slow death has been lauded as moving and explicit . He is buried in the grounds of Saltwood Castle . After his death , the Kensington and Chelsea constituency was won by Michael Portillo . Shortly afterwards , it was reported in " The Tablet " that Clark was received into the Catholic Church two months before he died ( as his father had been ) but chose to keep the matter private . Clark ' s biographer Ion Trewin denied the story , saying that Clark told Westminster Cathedral ' s Father Michael Seed that he did not wish to become Catholic if his dogs could not also go to heaven . Media . In 2004 , John Hurt portrayed Clark ( and Jenny Agutter his wife Jane ) in the BBC ' s " The Alan Clark Diaries " , re - igniting some of the controversies surrounding their original publication and once again brought his name into the UK press and media . An authorised biography of Alan Clark by Ion Trewin , the editor of his diaries , was published in September 2009 .