My tribute to Michael Meacher

Two days ago, long-serving left-wing Labour MP for Oldham West (latterly Oldham West & Royton) Michael Meacher died. He had served as an MP for more than 45 years. I never met him personally; a few years ago he planned to show up to a political session I went to, but due to unforeseen circumstances he did not do so.

Michael first came to prominence in the Oldham West by-election of 1968, where Labour lost to the Conservatives as they did in several other by-elections in otherwise safe seats in the middle of Harold Wilson's second term as Prime Minister. However, he recaptured the seat in 1970 from Keith Campbell (the Conservative MP who had taken Oldham West in the 1968 by-election) and held it until 1997, when it was replaced by the Oldham West & Royton constituency he represented until his death.

Michael was notably one of the more left-wing Labour MPs, and was a supporter of such figures as Tony Benn and latterly Jeremy Corbyn, who in his final days he was pleased to be serving under. During his time, he remained resolutely on the side of the progressives, opposing the Iraq war and many aspects of Blairism, and during the last Parliament he stood on the side of other long-serving left-wingers like Dennis Skinner, Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell when large numbers of Labour MPs failed to do so. At the time of his death, he was one of the last remaining MPs first elected before Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister, and had he been sworn in just some hours earlier then Gerald Kaufman he would have been Father of the House as well.

Posted in memory of Michael Hugh Meacher, born 4 November 1939, who departed this life on 20 October 2015, aged 75 years.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My analysis of local by-elections from 22/11/18

Readers, the results of this week's British local by-elections were as follows: Enfield LBC, Bush Hill Park: Conservative 1540 (52.4%, +12.7%), Labour 828 (28.2%, -8.3%), Liberal Democrats 313 (10.7%, -0.8%), Green 127 (4.3%, -6.6%), WEP 79 (2.7%), Independent (Oyaloyu) 50 (1.7%). [UKIP did not stand] Westminster LBC, Lancaster Gate: Conservative 913 (47.2%, -1.5%), Labour 684 (35.4%, -1.0%), Liberal Democrats 275 (14.2%, -0.7%), Green 62 (3.2%). Windsor & Maidenhead UA, Datchet: Conservative 525 (56.0%, -3.1%), National Flood Prevention Party 223 (23.8%), Labour 121 (12.9%, -9.1%), Liberal Democrats 48 (5.1%,-13.8%), Green 21 (2.2%). Wirral MBC, Upton: Labour 1490 (61.3%, +3.1%), Conservative 705 (29.0%, +0.4%), Green 151 (6.2%, -0.5%), Liberal Democrats 83 (3.4%, -0.8%). [TUSC did not stand] All changes are since May. The open divisions in the Conservatives, which resulted in a failed attempt to call for a vote of no confidence in Theresa May by the European Researc...
Read more

On the 2020 Serbian election: Why a boycott will only worsen things there

First of all, I apologise for the recent hiatus; however elections are still postponed or on hold in many countries, including the UK. Serbia, however, was able to proceed with its 2020 general election amidst this crisis. Its overall result proved reminiscent of Hungarian elections under Viktor Orban's tenure (2010-present), since the leading national-conservative coalition, the SNS (Progressive Party of Serbia) coalition led by Serbian President Aleksander Vucic (Ana Brnabic is the Serbian Prime Minister, and the first woman and openly homosexual person to hold that position), polled 61.6% of the vote, giving them as many as 191 seats out of 250 and a majority of as high as 132, almost unheard of in any country with proportional representation. Press freedom has endured significant curbs since President Vucic first came into power as Serbian PM in 2012 (he became President of Serbia in 2017), as have civil liberties of Serbs in general. Nepotism and corruption in the Serbian ...
Read more

On the French local elections of 2020: Vive le surge de vert!

The French local elections finally concluded yesterday, having been originally scheduled to take place on 15 March; they were postponed due to the effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.  The most sensational story of these elections was the many triumphs by the main French Green Party, Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV). In major French cities (those with more than 100,000 people), EELV captured the mayoralties of Annecy, Besancon, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Strasbourg, and Tours. They also performed impressively in the munciipal elections for those cities as well. However, in the midst of all this triumph there was one notable setback for them: Eric Pollie, the first Green Mayor of a major French city, decided to contest the mayoral election there as an "Independent Left" (divers gauche) candidate instead. Furthermore they narrowly missed out on unseating former PS leader Martine Aubry from her post as Mayor of Lille; in the second round she held on by 227 votes, a sig...
Read more