he was a Tory for 30 odd years before leaving for professional reasons, that'll do me. He was as I recall also the first Speaker to permit discussion of challenges to EU membership but even the most ardent Brexiteer won't mention it.
It's a disgrace that he won't be allowed to join the likes of Baron Johnson of Marylebone, Baron Lebedev of Hampton in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and of Siberia in the Russian Federation, and Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare at the summit of British society.