Aidan Merivale Crawley, MBE (10 April 1908 Benenden, Kent - 3 November 1993 Banbury, Oxfordshire) was a British journalist, television executive and editor, and politician who was elected to the House of Commons as a Labour Party candidate 1945-1951and as a Conservative party politician between 1962 and 1967.
Educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Oxford, he played cricket for Oxford University and Kent, even playing for the latter whilst an MP in 1947. He was also a prisoner of war.
He was Labour Member of Parliament for Buckingham from 1945 to 1951, when he lost to the Conservative candidate Frank Markham, himself an ex-Labour MP.
In 1955, he was the first editor-in-chief of Independent Television News and was responsible for introducing American-style newscasters to British media and pledged to transform television's attitudes to politicians. He left ITN after a row when the company tried to trim down the news operations and rejoined the BBC.
In 1962, he was elected to Parliament as a Conservative, winning the by-election in West Derbyshire. He held the seat through two general elections, before resigning in 1967 to become Chairman of London Weekend Television where he remained until 1973.
Crawley authored several books, including biographies of Konrad Adenauer and Charles De Gaulle.
Aidan Crawley was a former Under-Secretary of State for Air in Clement Attlee's Labour Government; in the 1960s he was Conservative MP for West Derbyshire, and finally, from 1969 to 1973, chairman of London Weekend Television
