Alan Rhun Watkins (3 April 1933 – 8 May 2010)[1] was for over 50 years a British political columnist in various London-based magazines and newspapers. He also wrote about wine andrugby.
Alan Watkins was born inTycroes,Carmarthenshire, to David John Watkins (1894–1980), a teacher (sometime headmaster atLlanedi School, near Tycroes), from a mining family, and Violet, also a teacher, daughter of Dr Edwin Harris, a GP.[2][3] He was educated at Tycroes Primary School andAmman Valley Grammar School before studying law atQueens' College, Cambridge.[4] AfterNational Service, he was called to theBar.[2] In 1955, he married Ruth Howard (d. 1982); their children were a son and 2 daughters.[5]
Much of his long career as a commentator on politics was spent atThe Observer newspaper (1976–93), but he also wrote forThe Sunday Express (1959–64),[2]The Spectator (1964–67), theNew Statesman (1967–76), theSunday Mirror, and the LondonEvening Standard.
At the end of each year he wrote a piece called "Master Alan Watkins' Almanack", written in the style of a 17th-century seer and making tentative, and slightly tongue-in-cheek, predictions for the year ahead.[6][7]
He coined and popularised a number of phrases that have passed into common journalistic parlance, including "chattering classes";[6] although he fleshed out the archetypal "young fogey" inThe Spectator in 1984, Watkins noted that he had adopted the phrase from the journalistTerence Kilmartin, who had used it in reference to the academicJohn Casey, and Watkins stated that the phrase originated withDornford Yates in 1928.[8]
He was noted for coining the political phrase "the men in grey suits", indicating a delegation of senior party figures (such as the Conservative Party's1922 Committee)[9] who come to tell a party leader that it is time to go. But as he wrote in a footnote inA Conservative Coup:
The original phrase was 'the men in suits'. It was used, for example, by the present writer in theObserver, 6 May 1990. During and before the 39 hours it became transformed into 'the men in grey suits', which stuck. AsLord Whitelaw observed on television, it was an inaccurate phrase, because on the day in question, 21 November, his interviewer could see that he was wearing a blue suit. And, indeed, the typical Conservativegrandee tends to wear a dark blue or black suit, with chalk- or pin-stripes, what may be called aWhite's Club suit. The original phrase 'the men in suits' is the more accurate.[10]
Watkins was in failing health for several weeks prior to his death at his London home on 8 May 2010 fromrenal failure, aged 77. He was buried on the eastern side ofHighgate Cemetery.[11]
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