The profession path of the previous MP Ken Eastham, who has died aged 96, was at one time within the final century typical of lots of those that sought to pursue a life in Labour politics. Had he been from Yorkshire, he might have stepped from the pages of a novel by JB Priestley, a stalwart consultant of the widespread sense of the widespread man.
He was an industrial engineer, a commerce union store steward and a Manchester Metropolis councillor earlier than arriving on the age of 51 at Westminster. There he proved to be reliably diligent within the pursuit of the pursuits of his Manchester Blackley constituents and of the English north-west, with out ever looking for public reward or caring about private recognition.
Eastham’s 18 years within the Home of Commons, following his earlier 18 years as a councillor for the Beswick space of east Manchester, coincided exactly with the tenure of the Conservative governments elected between 1979 and 1997, thus consigning him to a parliamentary life spent completely in opposition. He was however quietly relentless in his criticism of presidency coverage and in trying to ameliorate its impression on his constituents.
In his maiden speech, in the course of the debate on the primary price range of Margaret Thatcher’s administration, his expertise as chair of Manchester’s planning and schooling committees enabled him to warn of the “grave catastrophe” he foresaw from the impact of public expenditure cuts on companies supplied by native authorities. “It is a price range that may eat away the seed corn of the nation’s future,” Eastham advised the chancellor, Sir Geoffrey Howe.
He harried ministers all through his profession on points referring to the on a regular basis lives of the folks of his beloved house metropolis, and infrequently drew consideration to the excellence between the existence of these he termed “fats cats” and the lives of their staff who had made such comparative luxurious doable. He was a member of the employment choose committee from 1983, and in 1987 was appointed as Labour’s regional whip for the north-west, remaining within the whips’ workplace till the 1992 election. He was additionally vice-chair of the parliamentary Labour get together’s commerce and trade committee and commerce union group.
He introduced in 1994 that he would stand down on the subsequent normal election as he was approaching the age of 70. His final parliamentary intervention was remarkably far-sighted: with reference to hospital ready lists and the rising issues surrounding social care.
Eastham was a convivial MP, a modest man who loved an occasional pint within the Strangers’ Bar along with his buddies and colleagues from Manchester and with members of his native press, but didn’t search a nationwide profile.
He was, nonetheless, an internationalist, serving as a member of the Council of Europe from 1981 till 1983, and had the excellence in March 1983 (in keeping with analysis by Hansard) of being the primary MP to say Nelson Mandela’s title within the Home of Commons. Mandela had been reviled as a “terrorist” by many Conservative MPs within the years after his imprisonment in 1962, however his incarceration had by no means been raised within the chamber, nor his title heard, earlier than Eastham questioned the overseas secretary on what representations had been made by Britain in regards to the persevering with captivity of the person who would later be feted because the president of a democratic South Africa.
Born in Manchester, Ken was one of many two youngsters of James Eastham, a barber, and his spouse, Margaret (nee Chapman). He went to Queen Avenue major faculty, within the Bradford space of east Manchester, after which to Openshaw Technical School.
He joined the Labour get together in 1953 and was elected to the town council 9 years later. By this time he was a turbine planning engineer for GEC at Trafford Park, a put up he occupied from 1961 till his election to Westminster. On the council, he was chair of planning (1971-74) and of the schooling committee (1978-79).
He was deputy chief of the council from 1975 till 1979, when he was elected as an MP inside a month of his choice because the Labour candidate. For a similar interval he was additionally a member of the North West Financial Planning Council and a director of the Manchester Ship Canal.
An lively commerce unionist, he grew to become president of the native Amalgamated Engineering Union and was sponsored by the union as an MP. In 1989 he launched a invoice within the Commons in an try to offer shareholders and commerce union members the suitable to dam firm donations to political events.
In 1951 he married Doris Haworth. She died in 2019. He’s survived by their daughter, Beverly. A son, Paul, predeceased him.
