Airey Neave's murder, 38 years on

But when Patrick Cormack switched on his car radio as he drove back from a funeral, he could scarcely believe the devastating news. His friend Airey Neave, the war-hero-turned-politician who had taken the young MP under his wing during his early years at Westminster, had been killed by a car bomb as he attempted to leave a car park in the basement of the House of Commons.

"When I heard the news, I was very upset and very shocked," says the now Lord Cormack, a former Shropshire schoolteacher who served for 40 years as an MP for Staffordshire.

"I knew Airey Neave almost from the moment I got into the House of Commons because his wife Diane was part of the Giffard family who lived at Chillington Hall in Brewood," he says.

"He and his wife were very kind to me as a young, newly elected MP, and I got to know him well. I had read his book about his escape from Colditz as a schoolboy, and he was one of my heroes, so when I arrived in Westminster and was taken aside by him, it was such an honour."

It is 38 years today since the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), a splinter group of the IRA, carried out the murder which rocked the world, and which bears a chilling resemblance to last week's attack on Parliament by Islamist terrorist Khalid Masood.

IRA atrocities had become increasingly commonplace in the 1970s – 1974 had seen the Birmingham and Guildford pub bomings, which claimed 26 lives and left 240 injured, as well as an earlier bomb at the Houses of Parliament which left 11 injured. However, the targeted assassination of a top politician in the grounds of the Palace of Westminster was seen as the most audacious attack yet.

Neave, who was awarded the Military Cross during the Second World War after becoming the first prisoner to escape the Colditz PoW camp, was weeks away from being appointed secretary of state for Northern Ireland. Two days before, prime minister Jim Callaghan had lost a vote-of-no-confidence in the House of Commons, and was forced to call a general election for May 3, which was the reason for his moment of celebration with Lord Cormack. The Conservatives, under Margaret Thatcher's leadership, had a commanding lead in the opinion polls, and as shadow Northern Ireland secretary, it was expected that Neave would be given this brief.

The bomb went off just before 3pm as Neave was driving out of the Palace of Westminster underground car park. A magnetic ball-bearing bomb, activated by a tilt mechanism, had been attached beneath the front of his blue Vauxhall Cavalier, and was detonated as he drove up the ramp out of the car park. The MP died from horrific injuries sustained during the blast.

The political machinations of the previous days were briefly suspended as leaders of all the main parties came together to condemn the attack.

Prime minister Callaghan said: "No effort will be spared to bring the murderers to justice and to rid the United Kingdom of the scourge of terrorism", although nobody has ever been convicted of the murder.

Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher was warm in her tributes, describing Neave as one of freedom's warriors.

"No one knew of the great man he was, except those nearest to him. He was staunch, brave, true, strong; but he was very gentle and kind and loyal. It's a rare combination of qualities. There's no one else who can quite fill them. I, and so many other people, owe so much to him and now we must carry on for the things he fought for and not let the people who got him triumph."

While there was little doubt about the motives of those responsible for the attack, it was more than four months before the INLA admitted it had carried out the murder.

It used the August 1979 issue of the pro-INLA newspaper, The Starry Plough, to issue a statement : "In March, retired terrorist and supporter of capital punishment, Airey Neave, got a taste of his own medicine when an INLA unit pulled off the operation of the decade and blew him to bits inside the 'impregnable' Palace of Westminster.

"The nauseous Margaret Thatcher snivelled on television that he was an 'incalculable loss'—and so he was—to the British ruling class."

According to Neave's biographer, the Daily Mirror journalist Paul Routledge, his reputation as a formidable operator had struck fear into Republican hardliners. Routledge said he had spoken to a member of the INLA's political wing, the Irish Republican Socialist Party, who had been involved in the assasination. He was said to have told Routledge that Neave "would have been very successful at that job (Northern Ireland secretary). He would have brought the armed struggle to its knees."

However, Gerry Fitt, leader of the moderate republican Social Democratic and Labour Party, had known Mr Neave for some time, and believed the terrorists had scored a spectacular own goal.

"Those responsible for his death may have killed a friend rather than an enemy," he said hours after the attack.

Mr Fitt said Mr Neave had spoken to him about his intention, if he became Northern Ireland secretary, of holding a through investigation of brutality used by the authorities against Republicans in Northern Ireland.

"The words he used were that he would hodl the most searching inquiry into these allegations, and if he found any persons were responsible they would meet the full fury of his wrath because he, as a prisoner of war, had suffered interrogation at the hands of the Gestapo.

"I will never forget his words as he said, 'Gerry, it leaves its mark on you'."

It was reported that the day before his assassination, he had confided to friends that he planned "to go very slowly in Northern Ireland, perhaps for a year, before he took any political initiative."

The attack led to Labour MP Arthur Latham to call for an urgent tightening of security at Parliament, saying there was a "glaring hole" in the procedures which allowed visiting workers to use security passes which did not include photographs.

Mr Latham said: "Anybody can get and use somebody else's pass so long as he is a temporary worker without a photograph on it. There is also complete slackness about the admission of tradespeople. It is absolutely mad to allow these people that the police do not know any way without a photographic pass."

However, Home Secretary Merlyn Rees said there was no way that Westminster could be completely secure.

"Westminster is a public place where the general public has a right to come. It is a vulnerable place because it is a public place."

Airey Neave had married Diana Giffard, from Chillington Hall, Brewood in 1942, shortly after his remarkable escape from Colditz where he disappeared through a trap door during a theatre production, and fled by train wearing a fake German officers' uniform. Shortly after his death, Diana was created Baroness Airey of Abingdon, and to this day the Neave coat of arms hangs above the entrance to House of Commons chamber. His nephew John Giffard, who was a young detective at the time of the murder, went on to become chief constable of Staffordshire Police.

Lord Cormack, who represented the Cannock, South-West Staffordshire and most recently South Staffordshire constituencies before being ennobled in 2010, remembers his friend as being an understated man with an iron will. He said the MP was instrumental in Margaret Thatcher's successful challenge for the Conservative Party leadership in 1975.

"He was a very quiet man, but he was very approachable, and very determined," says Lord Cormack, who was assistant housemaster at Wrekin College in Telford, before becoming head of history at Brewood Grammar School.

"Without Airey Neave, Margaret Thatcher wouldn't have become prime minister. He was a man with steely determination, he would have made his mark if he had been able to hold the job he was in line for."