Alexander Chancellor, former Spectator and Guardian journalist, dies aged 77 Alexander Chancellor to edit The Oldie after walkout by Richard Ingrams

Alexander Chancellor

Alexander Chancellor, the former Spectator editor, has died at the age of 77.

Chancellor, who was editor of the magazine between 1975 and 1984, died suddenly at his home in Northamptonshire. He had suffered a stroke the previous year.

Educated at Eton College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he started his journalistic career with Reuters before a friend bought the Spectator and offered him the editorship.

Chancellor grasped the opportunity, bringing in writers such as Auberon Waugh and Ferdinand Mount, as well as the cartoonist Nick Garland, to create a magazine that blended wit with acute political analysis.

In later years he spent a short period at the New Yorker magazine, editing its Talk of the Town column, and then became a regular columnist for the Guardian Weekend supplement.

In 2012 Chancellor returned to the Spectator as a columnist before taking over the editorship of The Oldie after Richard Ingrams resigned in 2014.

In his final Spectator Long Life column, Chancellor wrote that Donald Trump was “unworthy” to be president and that his “days were numbered”.