Rupert Allason

Rupert William Simon Allason (born 8 November 1951) is a military historian and journalist and former Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Torbay in Devon, from 1987 to 1997. He writes books and articles on the subject of espionage under the pen name Nigel West.

Born in London, Allason and his brother, Julian, were raised as Roman Catholics, the faith of their Irish mother, Nuala McElveen (who acted under the name Nuala Barrie), and attended Downside School. Their father, James Allason, was also a Conservative Party MP.

Rupert Allason contested Kettering in 1979 and Battersea in 1983 before being elected as Conservative MP for Torbay in 1987.

He was opposed to ceding greater power to Brussels, in 1993 he was the only Tory who refused to vote for the Maastricht Treaty when it was made into a motion of confidence. The vote was narrowly won but Allason's abstention caused him to have the party whip withdrawn for a year. He left parliament after the landslide 1997 general election, when he lost his seat to Liberal Democrat Adrian Sanders. He is widely considered to have lost because he failed to tip a pub waitress a week before polling day. As a consequence, fourteen waiters who were going to vote for Allason switched to the Liberal Democrats. He lost by twelve votes.

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