Lord Lexden is the title taken by Alistair Cooke, who was appointed a Conservative working peer in November 2010. On 10th January 2011 Alistair Lexden OBE took his seat in the House of Lords.
He is a political historian who spent most of his career in the central organisation of the Conservative Party. A graduate of Peterhouse, Cambridge, he taught and researched modern British and Irish history at Queen's University, Belfast, before becoming political adviser to Airey Neave, Conservative Spokesman on Northern Ireland, from 1977 to 1979.
He was first Assistant, and then Deputy, Director of the Conservative Research Department from 1983 to 1997 and Director of the Conservative Political Centre, the Party's educational wing responsible for co-ordinating political discussion in constituencies, from 1988 to 1997.
Between 1997 and 2004 he was General Secretary of the Independent Schools Council. From 2004 until 2010 he was consultant to the Conservative Research Department, resuming responsibility for editing its written work which he had first undertaken before 1997. He has been the Party's official historian since 2009.
Alistair Lexden has written quite extensively (though by no means exclusively) about the history of the Conservative Party, and edited a vast amount of material - manifestos, policy documents, pamphlets and seven volumes in the Research Department's series of Campaign Guides - for the Party over the last twenty-five years.
He launched his most recent book, A Gift from the Churchills: The Primrose League 1883-2004, at the Carlton Club at the end of July 2010. He published Tory Policy-Making: The Conservative Research Department 1929-2009 in November 2009. He is the author of A Party of Change: A Brief History of the Conservatives and Tory Heroine: Dorothy Brant and the Rise of Conservative Women, both of which were published in 2008. They followed a history of the Carlton Club (2007) which led to his appointment as the Club's official historian and archivist. He is historical consultant to the Conservative Party Archive. He is also President of the Northern Ireland Schools Debating Competition.
He has reviewed history books for The Daily Telegraph, for the Northern Ireland magazine Fortnight, and for academic journals. He is an obituarist for a number of national newspapers. His letters, usually on historical subjects, appear frequently in the national press.
Alistair Cooke lives in a large library in Pimlico, London surrounded by royal and political memorabilia.
Other Publications relating to the Conservative Party
As Author
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(with John Vincent) The Governing Passion: Cabinet Government and Party Politics in Britain 1885-86
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(with others) Making Unionism Positive
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Ulster: The Origins of the Problem
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Ulster: The Unionist Options
As Editor of Historical Studies
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(with Anthony Malcomson) The Ashbourne Papers 1869-1913
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The Conservative Party: Seven Historical Studies 1680 to the 1990s
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A Conservative Party Leader in Ulster: Sir Stafford Northcote's Diary of a Visit to the Province, October 1883
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The Conservative Research Department 1929-2004
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Ireland and Party Politics, 1885-87: An Unpublished Conservative Memoir
As Editor of Party Publications
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The Campaign Guide, Seven Volumes, 1987-2005
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Collected Speeches: Margaret Thatcher, John Major and David Cameron
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Conservative Political Centre: 120 pamphlets, 1988-97
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Politics Today, published twelve times a year by the Research Department, 1986-97