High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Douglas Richard Hurd, Baron Hurd of Westwell, CH, CBE, PC (born 8 March 1930), is a British Conservative politician and novelist, who served in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major between 1979 and his retirement in 1995. Viewed as one of the Conservative Party's senior elder statesmen, he is a patron of the Tory Reform Group, and remains an active figure in public life.