IFF Founder Lord McIntosh Dies Aged 77

IFF Research founder and former Market Research Society Chairman Lord McIntosh of Haringey died on Friday at the age of 77, after a battle with cancer.

Andrew Robert McIntosh was born on 30 April 1933, and educated at Haberdasher's Aske's, Hampstead, High Wycombe Royal Grammar School and Jesus College, Oxford, before taking a fellowship in Economics at Ohio State University.

He returned to the UK in 1957, where he began his market research career with Gallup, before setting up IFF Research (then short for Industrial Facts and Forecasting) in 1965 as a B2B agency pioneering the use of telephone research techniques.

During this time, he served as Journal Editor of the Market Research Society (1963-7), where he later became Chairman (1972-3), President (1995-8), and an Honorary Fellow.

He remained with IFF for 32 years - as Chairman from 1981, and then as Deputy Chairman from 1988. From 1983 to 1992 he was also Chairman of strategic information specialist SVP United Kingdom.

McIntosh began his political career in local government, and won a seat in 1963 on Hornsey borough council, and the following year was elected to Haringey to become Chairman of its Development Control Committee.

In 1973, he took up the post of GLC (Greater London Council) member for Tottenham, and in 1977 he became Labour's Planning and Transport spokesman. In May 1981 he was the moderate leader of the Labour party group which won control of the GLC in a hard-fought election, but was deposed by supporters of left-winger Ken Livingstone the following day, leading to four years of confrontation with the government of Margaret Thatcher and the Council's subsequent abolition by the Local Government Act of 1985.

McIntosh was created a life peer in 1982, and from 1985-97, he was opposition spokesperson for Education and Science, the Environment, and Home Affairs. From 1992-97, he served as Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords, and after the 1997 election, he became Deputy Chief Whip.

In 2003, at the age of 70, he was appointed Minister for Heritage and the Media, under Tessa Jowell. After two years, he stood down and became President of the gambling charity Gamcare.

McIntosh, who was married to Naomi Sargant until her death in 2006, is survived by two sons, Francis and Philip.