Geoffrey Robertson
The former Labour MP for Hampstead, north London, Ben Whitaker, who
has died aged 79, was the embodiment of the liberal values associated
with the area. At the 1966 election he won the Hampstead seat, for 81
years a Tory fiefdom, from the reactionary former home secretary Henry
Brooke, and championed the progressive social reforms of the Harold
Wilson government, in which he held a number of posts. Subsequently, as a
human rights lawyer long before this was a fashionable career, he made
distinguished contributions to civil liberties in Britain, and
especially abroad, through his leadership of the Minority Rights Group
and then of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and as a UN rapporteur.
