the Henley Festival from 1992 to 1994. Politics After the 1964 general election, Montague said in an open letter to the press that he "deplored the way the Conservatives had attacked the newly elected Labour government as bad for British business, given that as a businessman I have suffered from the results of bad economic management of the past few years". A good friend of Labour party leader John Smith and Peter Mandelson, Montague was a member of the Millennium Commission from February 1994 until May 1997 Continuing his friendship of the Labour party via Mandelson with new leader Tony Blair, he was created a life peer on 1 November 1997 taking the title Baron Montague of Oxford, of Oxford in the County of Oxfordshire. It later emerged that this was after he had made a donation of £5,000 to the Labour party. Montague collapsed while attending the House of Lords on 5 November 1999. He was pronounced dead in the ambulance on the way to St Thomas' Hospital. After death In February 2000, openly gay Lord Alli raised the issue of Montague's Japanese partner of 35 years, Takashi Suzuki, having to sell their home in Dorchester-on-Thames to pay the Inheritance tax. At the time, Inheritance tax was charged at 40 per cent on the excess value of estates valued at £231,000 and above, but there was an exemption for estates inherited by the surviving partner of a married couple. It was part of Alli's campaign that resulted in the laws which created Civil partnerships in the United Kingdom. Arms References External links Obituary at The Independent People educated at the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe People educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford British LGBT businesspeople People associated with Oxford Brookes University Gay politicians Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Labour Party (UK) life peers Life peers created by Elizabeth II 1932 births 1999 deaths English LGBT politicians LGBT life peers 20th-century English businesspeople