The several careers of Norris McWhirter grew out of one another in an intriguing way. He and his twin, Ross, were fascinated by figures and facts, and both were good sportsmen. After a brief career as an international sprinter, in which he represented Scotland and Great Britain in the early 1950s, Norris became a sports journalist, then a television commentator. The twins were great sources of reference and became natural compilers of The Guinness Book of Records, of which they were the founder editors, and which they oversaw together from 1955, Norris continuing until 1985.

Individual freedom was their obsession, and after Ross’s murder by the IRA in 1975, Norris launched the Freedom Association, campaigning for the strictest possible rule of law, which he believed to be the only basis for a free society.

Norris Dewar McWhirter was born in 1925, 20 minutes before his twin. Their father, William McWhirter, was Editor of the Daily Mail and then managing director of Associated Newspapers, and he instilled in them a love of accuracy. When they were given a copy of Whitaker‘s Almanack at the age of 10, they were hooked. Statistics and precision were forever their passion.

After Marlborough and Oxford, the brothers served in the the Navy, 1943-46. They were drafted to different ships — which at one point collided off Malta.

In 1951 the twins set up a reference agency to provide information for yearbooks and newspapers. This was to be the germ of The Guinness Book of Records, which began when the brewers turned to the brothers to compile a book to settle arguments in pubs. They were quizzed about all kinds of matters by the company’s chairman to determine their suitability, and, according to Norris, clinched the deal when they were able to name the language with the fewest irregular verbs: Turkish, with just one.

The Guinness Book was first published in 1955 and has appeared annually ever since. It became a record-breaker in its own right, was translated into 37 languages and at one time sold more copies annually than the Bible. The McWhirters also worked on the children’s television programme Record Breakers with Roy Castle (the world’s fastest tap-dancer).

For nine years the twins also wrote a sports column in The Observer, which closely investigated the politics of sport. In 1966 Norris guessed correctly why four famous Russian athletes were not taking part in the women’s events. Despite denials by Tass, it was because an international panel had been introduced to determine the sex of competitors in the female events. Less momentously, the McWhirters reported on the disqualification of Swedish competitors in the world frog-jumping championships, when all six were found to be toads.

After working as a BBC commentator at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, Norris predicted that the Tokyo Games of 1964 would be broadcast live by satellite. He was right, and the pictures came over clearly — but the land-line transmitting the sound failed, and McWhirter was called in by the BBC to commentate live on the silent pictures. He continued to commentate on the Olympics until 1972.

Meanwhile, the McWhirters were becoming politically active. In 1961, they brought an action against the Home Secretary, Rab Butler, alleging that they had been deprived of the right to vote in local government elections. The judge found that the action was misconceived and that the Home Secretary could not be held responsible for a local canvassing. Both twins were subsequently Conservative candidates, Norris standing for Orpington in 1964 and 1966.

In 1958 Norris visited Aldermaston to oppose the anti-nuclear marchers, and was attacked and punched for his trouble. For many years afterwards he insistently investigated the Labour Party to discover whether its policy really was to surrender all British nuclear weapons while the Soviet Union still held them.

In 1969 the McWhirters tried to block the Government’s programme for the comprehensivisation of schools. They headed a legal campaign by the parents of Enfield, arguing that the new merged and streamless institutions failed to satisfy the legal obligation to provide education according to age, aptitude and ability. McWhirter continued to resist the bureaucratising and standardising of schools, becoming vice-chairman of the Parental Alliance for Choice in Education.

Ross McWhirter was murdered on his doorstep by the IRA in November 1975, after he had offered a £50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a bomber or gunman. Norris described the experience as not a bereavement but an amputation, and reacted by launching the Freedom Association, along with Viscount De L’Isle and some Conservative MPs. The association at first attracted a membership in tens of thousands, and it was in tune with much right-wing thinking in the late 1970s. Margaret Thatcher’s Government certainly took action against three of the four threats that were identified at its first press conference: collectivism, inflation, the extra-parliamentary power of the unions and the growth of the machinery of the State. Perhaps because of this mainstream campaign, the Freedom Association membership declined.

For much of the 1980s it campaigned against compulsory membership of student unions, which was imposed surreptitiously by adding the subs to tuition fees. It also protested against the closed shop in the workplace after three men were dismissed by British Rail for not being union members. This struggle continued for five years, but was eventually won in the European Court of Human Rights, helping to loosen the grip of the trade unions.

In the mid-1980s, McWhirter became involved in curious litigation against the Independent Broadcasting Authority, over a split-second image in the satirical show Spitting Image. In 1970 Ross had begun an action against the Labour Party, which had included a subliminal message in a party political broadcast. This kind of mental conditioning was judged to be detrimental and dangerous, and assurances were given that it would not be permitted in future. Then in 1984 Spitting Image broadcast the momentary message “scriptwriters are marvellous in bed”, and Norris Mcwhirter complained to the IBA. The programme took revenge by showing a montage of his head on top of a busty nude for a split second. The judges ruled against him, though Lord Denning had ruled earlier that such tricks were unlawful.

In 1989 he led a campaign to outlaw the International Cricket Conference’s ban on all players with South African connections, which he argued infringed their freedom to work wherever they legally chose. During the 1980s and 1990s, McWhirter and the Freedom Association were among the most vociferous of Eurosceptics. McWhirter scoured the treaties of Rome and Maastricht to discover what powers and prerogatives successive governments had signed away, and what new obligations they had subscribed to. His findings were startling, but rarely believed. Pro-Europeans argued that the nominal commitments — such as transfer of the assets of the Bank of England after establishment of a monetary union, or the establishment of a single tax system — would never be forced through in practice.

But McWhirter was always ready with chapter, verse, fire and brimstone. The European Union, he argued, had already compelled British governments to do many things they had never intended.

He was centrally concerned about the erosion of the power of the people and their ancient liberties by the growth of an unelected European bureaucracy. For him it was a matter not of pragmatism, but of principle. In 1993 he gave his name to a doomed attempt to arraign the Foreign Secretary of the day, Douglas Hurd, for treason, for having signed the European Treaty of Union, in breach of statutes including Magna Carta and the 1953 Coronation Oath.

In every controversy, a letter could be expected from him in one newspaper or another, and he was an indefatigable backstage plotter and fixer, launching campaigns, lobby groups and factions without end — or, often, much result. Bernard Levin called him “a bonny scrapper”, though in person he was always a diffident man. He was appointed CBE in 1980.

Norris McWhirter married Carole Eckert in 1957. She died in 1987 and in 1991 he married Tessa, daughter of Joseph Pocock. He is survived by her and a daughter and a son from the first marriage.

Norris McWhirter, CBE, author and broadcaster, was born on August 12, 1925. He died after a heart attack on April 20, 2004, aged 78.