Patrick Rock: hard-nosed, influential member of Tory party establishment
A veteran Tory party adviser who has been described as a "fixer" for the prime minister, Patrick Rock,who has been arrested over allegations relating to child abuse images, is credited with coining the phrase "cows moo, dogs bark, Labour puts up taxes" in the 1970s.
The London-born graduate in Modern History from Oxford, 62, cut his political teeth working for the Conservatives in opposition and was political correspondence secretary in the government of Margaret Thatcher. He went on to operate as special adviser to various ministers, including service as a special adviser to Michael Howard in the late 1990s, when David Cameron was also advising Howard.
Rock later worked in Brussels under Chris Patten, with special responsibility for the western Balkans, before later being brought back into government in 2011 as a Downing Street special advisor, taking on the title of deputy director of policy. Cameron had last year been reportedly poised to recognise his service with a peerage.
Despite being regarded an influential member of the Conservative party's establishment, Rock had consistently failed to realise a goal of becoming an MP, despite being selected to fight a number of seats. He suffered defeats while contesting Woolwich East in 1979, Crewe and Nantwich in 1983 and a 1984 by-election in Portsmouth South, then regarded as a safe Tory seat.
Rock's most recent outing as a prospective parliamentary election candidate was in 1990, when he failed to be selected to contest the Tory seat of Devizes.
Despite his personal political failures, he had been respected for his hard-nosed strategic vision. One story has it that Rock went for a drink in the summer of 1994 with Cameron to discuss the repercussions of the death of the Labour party leader John Smith and Tony Blair's likely elevation to that role.
"We both agreed, that Blair coming meant that we [Conservatives] would be fucked," Rock is said to have later recalled.
