seat again in the 1955 general election but was similarly unsuccessful. With his father's death in December 1955, Grigg inherited the title of Baron Altrincham, which seemingly ended any hope of him being able to stand again as a candidate. Nonetheless, Grigg refused to apply for a writ of summons to exercise his right to a seat in the House of Lords. When Tony Benn (the Viscount Stansgate) succeeded in obtaining passage of the Peerage Act, Grigg was the second person (after Benn himself) to take advantage of the new law and disclaim his peerage. In 1997, he wrote that he was "entirely opposed to hereditary seats in Parliament" and added that at that time in 1963 he "felt honour-bound to disclaim, though it was a bore to have to change my name again". Grigg never achieved his ambition of election to the Commons, and he subsequently left the Conservative Party for the SDP in 1982. Journalism As his father's health failed during the first few years of the 1950s, Grigg assumed most of the managerial and editorial duties of the now-renamed National and English Review. By the time of his father's death in December 1955, Grigg had taken over the editorship formally, and began to edit the Review into a publication more reflective of his views. In 1956, Grigg attacked Anthony Eden's Conservative government for its handling of the Suez Crisis, and pressed for an immediate withdrawal of British forces from Port Said. He followed his father in championing reform of the House of Lords, although he added that, in lieu of reform, abolition might be the only alternative. He also advocated the introduction of women priests into the Anglican Church. "The Monarchy Today" Grigg was a committed monarchist. When talking to the journalist Robert Lacey about his public criticisms of the Royal Family, Grigg defended himself against the idea that he was an anti-monarchist: "That is like saying that an art critic is anti-art. I love the monarchy. Constitutional monarchy is Britain's greatest invention." In an August 1957 article, "The Monarchy Today", Grigg argued his opinions on the young Queen Elizabeth II and her Court. Of the Royal Family, he said: “They have to perform the seemingly impossible task of being at once ordinary and extraordinary”: Grigg was critical of the Debutantes' Parties: "... a grotesque survival from the Monarchy's 'hierarchical' past": "These Parties should certainly have been