David Hart (UK political activist)

David Hart (4 February 1944 – 5 January 2011) was a British writer, businessman, and adviser to Margaret Thatcher. He also had a career in the 1960s as an avant-garde film maker. He was a controversial figure during the 1984–5 miners strike and played a leading role in organising and funding the anti-strike campaign in the coalfields.

David Hart was the elder of the two sons of Anglo-Jewish businessman Louis Albert Hart, the chairman/principal shareholder of the Henry Ansbacher merchant bank, which had been founded by Henry Ainsley né Ansbacher. Hart came from a prominent Anglo-Jewish family which has contributed to public life in the UK Other noted public figures from his family include his uncle,Ferdinand Mount as well as Professor H. L. A. Hart, a legal philosopher and his 1st cousin 1x removed, and Charles Hart, a lyricist.

Hart was educated at Eton. In the mid- to late 1960s, he made several avant garde films and was in the circle of Bruce Robinson (who made Withnail and I). On A Game Called Scruggs (1965) he worked with Raoul Coutard, regular cinematographer for Jean-Luc Godard, and was described by producer Michael Deeley as "the English Godard".

By now, Hart had begun to work in property, a field in which he became a millionaire by the late 1960s. Living extravagantly, he declared himself bankrupt in 1974, owing £960,000 by the time of the 1975 hearing, although this was discharged in 1978. A later inheritance restored his fortunes.

By the late 1970s he was involved in Conservative Party politics and the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank. He wrote speeches for Archie Hamilton MP, a friend from Eton.

In the early 1980s Thatcher involved Hart in negotiations with the Ronald Reagan US administration regarding their "Star Wars" Strategic Defence Initiative.

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