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Former Conservative Party deputy chairman Lord McAlpine has died at the age of 71. The
politician, who was the Tory treasurer from 1975 to 1990, was an aide to Margaret Thatcher
and remained one of her strongest supporters.
He was also a businessman and successful fundraiser for the Conservatives, and it's thought his
charm and lavish lunches amassed as much as £100 million pounds for the party. But most
recently he made headlines after being wrongly implicated in a child abuse scandal in 2012,
when allegations were the subject of a BBC Newsnight investigation. The peer found himself
at the centre of a storm of internet speculation and decided to take legal action against those
who had wrongly accused him, including Sally Bercow, wife of Commons Speaker John Bercow.
He donated any compensation, including money from Twitter users, to charity.
His family said he died peacefully at his home in Italy on Friday night.