Lord Pym, the former foreign secretary who has died at the age of 86, was an old-style, patrician, one-nation Tory whose career ultimately foundered on the unyielding radicalism of Thatcherism.

Francis Pym and prime minister Margaret Thatcher constantly disagreed, sometimes in spectacular fashion. She believed she would have had to resign after only three years in power if he had won a passionate argument over the Falklands war.