Tam Dalyell 1932 - 2017

In the dedication of his autobiography The Importance of Being Awkward Tam Dalyell wrote:

"To the men and women of West Lothian – Labour, SNP, Conservative, Liberal, Communist – who, whatever their political opinions, were kind to me in all sorts of ways over 43 years as their representative in the House of Commons."

As one of those Liberals in West Lothian who in the latter years would have been included in that tribute I can know why the people of all political persuasions were kind to him. It was because he was always kind to them. In today's politics where pro-Independence and RemaIN Scots are at loggerheads and Brexiteers and Remainers similarly it says something that the MP for one area for 43 years was so universally respected.

That respect went well beyond just Tam and indeed before the recent rise of the SNP in the last decade and the call for independence it was still thus in West Lothian politics. Sometimes you would see three poster teams all at the same location and the ladders would stay put when the climbers moved between them. At counts and hustings there would be a camaraderie between all of those who were involved in politics of whatever hue.

Tam and I would have disagreed on a number of policy issues. But we both agreed on the importance of scientific evidence and factual evidence to base our policy on, even if the end results were different. It was something that I did write in a letter that I had in my pocket at my first Westminster count in 2005, the election that would for the first time in over 4 decades not see Tam Dalyell on the ballot. I wrote that while we disagreed on policy in a number of way I respected the way he had represented the people of West Lothian for all those years. I added that whoever filled his shoes would have a hard task, but if they put the people first as he had done they would earn the same respect that he himself had done.

His handwritten response (once I deciphered his scrawl) is still one of my greatest possessions. He wrote that he thought I had a bright future in politics, something that has been echoed by other Labour representatives in that area. But there are other comments in that that show why the people of West Lothian of all political hues respected him. He respected them, put them first and stood up for them whoever they may be, whoever they had voted for.

By all accounts he enjoyed his decade away from the daily hustle and bustle of Westminster of politics. The former Guardsman, hereditary Baronet with a famous ancestor of the same name, was first and foremost always just Tam to everyone whose life he impacted on.

Rest in Peace Tam.

Initial thoughts on 'The Importance of being awkward'

Sometimes looking forward to reading a book for so long can sometimes disappoint. Thankfully that is not the case with Tam Dalyell's autobiography The Importance of Being Awkward.

Now you may ask how I as a Liberal Democrat could have been looking forward to a book by such a Labour stalwart. Well of course in 2005 I stood for the seat of Linlithgow and Falkirk East which took the majority of the retiring Father of the House's seat within its boundaries. As I wrote in a letter to Tam, which I intended to give to him on election night* if he were there, I hoped his beekeeping wouldn't keep him from telling his own tale. Finally over 6 years later here it is.

I'm still in the chapters of his early life but already I know this book will be inimitable Tam. Here are just a couple of extracts.

During the Second World War along with other six-to-eight year old at Edinburgh Academy Preparatory School Tam was evacuated to Grantown-on-Spey.

Alas my time at school came to an end when I suddenly got searing pains in my tummy. It was my appendix and the situation was urgent, the local surgeons having gone off to the British Expeditionary Force in France. What to do? my mother was out of contact. Mercifully, the local vet was available and willing to deal with my perforated organ. Had the vet not taken rapid and decisive action, and the teachers accepted responsibility, there would surely have been no me to tell this tale.

The second is the tale of the guides for the House of the Binns, the first country house in the Scottish National Trust gift and the ancestral home of the Dalyells. After a sucession of military guides things changed in 1953.

When my father died in 1953, my mother, alone in the house as I was at university, decided that she would rather have seasonal students. The first of these students was the sun, then at Edinburgh University, of the minister of St. Michael's in Linlithgow and a distinguished future moderator. The guide was therefor the future leader of the Liberal party, the first Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament and much else, Lord Steel of Aikwood.

David became a great favourite of my mother's and was extremely kind to her. He accepted the wearing of the specially measured black uniform with its silver buttons  with aplomb but understandably forgot to tske the baton with him when showing parties of visitors round the house. The baton was 'de trop' to a younger generation and remains on show beneath my father's portrait.

This is just a taster as I only started to read the book yesterday as a birthday gift from my brother but I shall share more later on, I trust.


*As it was it got posted to the House of the Binns and I still have the kind response from the man in pride of place.

Former West Lothian Candidate Dies

When I first moved to West Lothian there were two names outwith my own party that the political activists held in awe. One result may have determined the paths of their political careers, but both were held high.

For Labour there was Tam Dalyell for the SNP there was Billy Wolfe. The two went head to head when this was just one West Lothian seat, before there was 'The Question', in the 1962 by election that was the start of the former Father of the House's career. The latter a former leader of the SNP has passed away aged 86 in the final weeks before the next General Election. They were to face each other another 6 times in the contest the closest being in 1974.

The Watsonian* (who had earlier also attended Bathgate Academy on Marjoribanks Street) was still held in high esteem with local SNP activists, even appearing on a recent leaflet from my opponent Tam Smith. That other West Lothian Nat Alex Salmond has paid tribute saying:

"Billy Wolfe blazed the trail in the professionalisation and organisation of the SNP, and he more than anyone transformed it into a modern political party."

It was in the year of my birth that Billy became leader of the SNP after 3 years from 1966 as Deputy leader and he stood down in 1980. He'd led the party to their largest Westminster tally in February 1974 and the first devolution referendum (which sparked 'The Question') in 1979.

Away from politics he ran an Chieftain Forge, a spade and shovel forge manufacturing agricultural machinery, which may well have been used on my family farm in Donegal. But when politics took over he closed the business.

He may have moved just over the boundary in South Lanarkshire but my thoughts go out to his widow Mary, his children David, Sheila, Ilene and Patrick, Tam Smith and all the SNP team in West Lothian.

Read Also: The First SNP blog to pass tribute is Calum Cashley's personal tribute.

*Former pupil of George Watson College, Edinburgh.

Deeper Reckonings: Mark's MP Meme II (The Political Geek Cut)

After I posted my response to Mark Thompson's meme listing all my MPs through life I read some of the others including Caron's, the political geek in me got interested. Caron had given a brief pen-picture of each and her own connection if any to others. North Down my home constituency is known for being an eccentric or unusual or trend-defying Northern Irish constituency and as for the others I knew there were tales to tell. Here are those tales.

September 1969 - February 1970 George Currie (Ulster Unionist) North Down: George was first elected in 1955 in succession to Northern Ireland's first female MP* Patricia Ford who had succeeded her father Sir Walter Smiles who was a victim of the MV Princess Victoria disaster in Great Storm of 1953 (Sir Walter's great-grandson, Patricia’s grandson may have relished the challenge of surviving that storm he is Bear Grylls). But I digress.

George Currie was first elected in 1955 as I said with a 96.9% share of the vote. This would have had more to do with the only challenger being Sinn Féin's Joseph Campbell actually achieving that party's highest ever box count in North Down than due to Communist era electoral rigging. Four years later he was returned with a largest numeric and percentage majority of 98%. He had already announced his intention to stand down by the time I was born. He died in 1978 hence I never got to meet him in the flesh.

February 1970- September 1988 Sir James Kilfedder (Ulster Unionist-1977; Independent Unionist-1980; Ulster Popular Unionist-1995): Kilfedder was first elected to Westminster for West Belfast in 1964 but lost out to another Northern Irish celebrity politician Gerry Fitt the founding leader of the SDLP in 1966. West Belfast's lost became North Down's gain as Kilfedder served from 1970 to his death in 1995 as the MP for North Down. He also elected for the 1973 Assembly for North Down, in 1975 for the Constitutional Convention, and the 1982 Assembly where he served as speaker to 1986 (earning at the time more than the Prime Minister for his dual roles).

On 20 March 1995 the Belfast Telegraph ran with a story that an Ulster MP was one of 20 MPs targeted by LBGT group Outrage!, led by Peter Tatchell, to come out in an open letter. Kilfedder was died of a heart attack the same day on his train in to Westminster from Gatwick Airport. A 2005 article in the same paper carried a story alluding to Kilfedder's past pointing to being that MP.

September 1988- July 1991 Richard Tracey (Conservative) Surbiton: Moving to Kingston for at the time the Polytechnic I found the third lawyer turned MP Richard Tracey as my MP. In the land of Tom and Barbara Good though he served merely as a JP and followed a career in journalist and Radio and TV current affairs before his election.

He's now a Member of the London Assembly elected in 2008. In 1997 he stayed (see later) to fight for the Kingston and Surbiton seat after boundary changes losing out by just 56 votes to our own Ed Davey. Although I first ran into Tracey on my return to the area in the Surbiton club, I was there playing for Surbiton Chess Club, I'd abstained on the vote to move to such a Conservative hotbed.

I enjoyed the summer all over the place before:

September 1991 - April 1992 Dave Nellist (Labour) Coventry South East: Another character of an MP, many Scottish socialists will find his mantra 'a worker's MP for a worker's wage' very familiar. For yeah in the height of Militant I found myself in the constituency of a Trotskyite Labour deselected Member of Parliament who was the next target of Kinnock's cohorts.

In 1983 when he was first elected it was initially allocated to share an office with the newly elected MP for Sedgefield. But the differing views of the two soon meant that the later was swiftly moved in with another of that year’s intake the member for Dunfermline East so possibly Nellist had something to do with the Blair-Brown pact.

I got to vote in my first election in 1992 Nellist stood as Independent Labour gathered 10,551 votes, trailing the Tory Martine Hyams on 10,591 and my next MP Jim Cunningham on 11,902. Nellist went on to form the Socialist Party (not to be confused with the Socialist Party of Great Britain. In 1998 he was elected to Coventry City Council, 12 years after he had last been a Labour Councillor for Coventry on West Midlands County Council.

April - August 1992 Jim Cunningham (Labour) Coventry South East: As said above Jim won my first Westminster election I could vote in, without my vote, and still represents Coventry South today. For the first time I was represented by a Scottish-born MP as Cunningham hail from just out West at Coatbridge. He has in the past called for the Queen to pay Income Tax as well as serving as PPS to Harriet Harman and Mike O'Brien while they were Solicitors General.

August 1992 - May 1996 Norman Lamont (Conservative) Kingston Upon Thames: Returning to complete my Economics degree I found accommodation in the constituency of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and another Scottish born: did I not see the trend starting? Shortly after he became my MP and just before I resumed studies of course Norman presided over Black Wednesday and I had to reassure new landlord when he walked back in through the door that his mortgage was no longer effectively 50% more expensive but back where it was where he stared the day.

A word of warning though for Darling Lamont starting to see the 'green shoots of recovery' in 1993 during the Newbury by election. After the Government lost that seat to the Lib Dem's David Rendel Lamont was sacked.

I have another chess anecdote about Norman, one evening I overheard the following conversation at the Surbiton club "Norman's seen the figures he's heading for a safer seat.", "Where?", "Harrogate." Of course that safe Conservative seat added to my joy on Election Night 1997 as while SW London went yellow through Twickenham, Richmond Park, Kingston & Subiton, Sutton & Cheam and Carshalton & Wallington. The look on the former Chancellor's face as Phil Willis accepted the people's decision to elect a Lib Dem to serve Harrogate and Knaresborough.

May 1996 - April 2001 Robert McCartney (United Kingdom Unionist) North Down: McCartney was originally an Ulster Unionist like Kilfedder. In 1987 the Unionist Party's agreed in a pact not to stand against each other just a year after all the Unionist MPs had stood down in protest at the Anglo-Irish agreement losing a couple of their number in marginals in the process. Of course North Down was not really in any danger of turning Nationalist but Bob refused to stand down. He was expelled from the party and stood as a Real Unionist. The resulting election proved the narrowest of Kilfedder's 25 year career in North Down in all elections.

He didn't contest the 1992 General Election which saw the Conservatives as the closest challengers to Kilfedder. But in 1995 following Kilfedder's death he was returned with 37% of the vote in an 8 challenger contest, the Tories losing all but 583 of their vote 3 years earlier.

McCartney was elected to the May 1998 Assembly Election and carried 3 other MLAs into Stormont with his former One Man Party. However, by December he'd fallen out Cedric Wilson in Strangford, Patrick Roche in Lagan Valley, Norman Boyd in South Antrim and Roger Hutchinson East Antrim, to remain a one man band in the Assembly getting re-elected in 2003. However, his demise came in 2007 when he lost out on the last seat for North Down to Brian Wilson (not the Beach Boy) the first Green to be elected at that level in Northern Ireland.

May - November 2001 Robin Cook (Labour) Livingston: Having had a Chancellor, Speaker (Northern Irish) I racked up my next high office MP with the Foreign Secretary just before the 2001 General Election. Robin was first elected to Edinburgh Central in 1974. But in 1983 like Lamont was in Kingston was worried that boundary changes might cost him his seat so moved to Livingston a new constituency.

Of course Robin famously took a call at Heathrow, en route to holiday, from Alistair Campbell shortly after becoming Foreign Secretary asking him to choose between his then wife Margaret or his then mistress, later second wife, Gaynor before the press announced the affair. He chose to tell his wife it was over and made the announcement via a press statement in the departure lounge.

He also resigned as Leader of the House on principle over the decision to go to war with Iraq in 2003. After winning the election in 2005 I last saw him at the start of the Make Poverty History March in Edinburgh the date of birth of this blog. Within weeks he was dying whilst walking down Ben Stack on 6 August. His gravestone bears the epitaph 'I may not have succeeded in halting the war, but I did secure the right of parliament to decide on war.'

November 2001 - November 2004 Sir Tam Dalyell Bt. (Labour) Linlithgow: Moving less than two miles from Stoneyburn to Whitburn found me in a new constituency.

Tam is, although he never uses the title, 11th Baronet Dalyell of the Binns. He is named after his famous ancestor General "Sir Tam" Dalyell (1615–1685) who was a military commander for both Charles I and Charles II in the Civil War.

Tam first was elected in 1963 for West Lothian and of course leading up the devolution debate in the 1970s asked the famous and so far thus unsatisfactorily answered West Lothian Question about the role of Scottish and English MPs post devolution. The former having votes over English matters while the latter had no say over devolved issues the other way around. In 1963 the seat was split into two and Tam chose to represent the Northern Linlithgow section in which the Binns, a National Trust of Scotland property is located.

Following the 2001 election succeeded former Prime Minister Ted Heath to the honourific position of Father of the House, whose only recognised role is to chair the vote to appoint a new Speaker, which is bestowed on the longest serving member of the House. In 2004 he announced he was standing down at the next General Election to spend more times with his bees and to write his autobiography. The bees must be very demanding and the autobiography has yet to appear.

November 2004 -August 2005 Robin Cook again see above.

September 2005 - March 2006 Jim Devine (Labour) Livingston: Devine served as Robin's agent for decades and is a former, and rumours have it, future psychiatric nurse. I first heard Jim Devine speak at a hustings for the 2005 General Election in Loganlea, Robin couldn't make it and the agent stepped in and quickly took over proceedings something that the candidate would never have done. Of course recent events do not need going over but yet another character in my list of MPs who will go down in history as an MP who never faced a General Election vote despite not dying in office following an by election in peace time.

March 2006 - Present Michael Connarty (Labour) Linlithgow and Falkirk East: Former leader of Stirling Council, former Economics teacher (there were three Economics graduates on the 2005 ballot for L&FE).

Of course Michael and I first crossed swords thanks to the Boundary Commission. Before the current boundaries although Bo'ness and few others where historically West Lothian they had been part of Falkirk Council since the end of Lothian District Council, and Grangemouth had never been with West Lothian before. This is also the closest I have ever lived to a MPs office. It is literally only about 90 seconds walk away from where I'm typing this in my lounge.

Although I have letters from 5 of my previous MPs (6 if you count the election 'letter' from Jim Devine) this is the MP I have had most interaction with. Partly because I've stood in direct opposition, partly because of the ease of email, which has once led to a response within 10 minutes.

However, as the fifth most expensive MP (excluding transport 2nd with), who considers it 'ridiculous and tiresome' to submit all expenses to his employer for scrutiny. And who's first response to the Telegraph printing his expenses was to attack the source as stolen rather than try and explain them, maybe his days are numbered.

Of course while some of the men (sorry WLDs everywhere no gender balance) who have represented me in the past have been replaced by a Lib Dem, just not in my time. So I'd love to be in a constituency with a Lib Dem MP. However, would that outcome really lead to a Lib Dem representing me? I guess that is up to the local party and the electorate.

Update 

August 2010 - Feb 2013 Sylvia, Lady Hermon (Independent) North Down: Born Sylvia Paisley but not related to that Northern Irish political dynasty of that name she studied law at the University of Aberystwyth before lecturing in that subject at Queens, Belfast at the same time as a certain David Trimble, who would go on to become the first First Minister.

She was married to Jack Hermon as his second wife on New Years Eve 1988, who was to rise to the the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary from 1980-89. It is because of his knighthood from 1982 as Sir John Hermon that she holds the honourific title Lady Hermon. From 2004 to his death in 2008 Jack was to suffer from Alzheimers which is why Sylvia is so connected with that cause.

However, it was in 2001 that she was chosen by the North Down Ulster Unionist Branch to take on Robert McCartney (see above). The Alliance Party chose not to stand against her and she won the seat with a majority of 7,324 with 56%.


In 2005 she won again with 50.4% of the vote but was the lone Ulster Unionist returned to the House of Commons. When David Trimble resigned as leader she was considered a serious contender for the post, but because of the state of health of her husband at that point not widely known, she instead threw her support behind North Down MLA Alan McFarland.

During that parliament the overtures of the Conservative Party to the Ulster Unionists weren't to the liking of their sole MP, indeed she had often supported the Labour Government much to the disapproval of party leader Sir Reg Empey. She eventually resigned from the party on 23 February 2010 and vowed to stand in the election that year as an Independent. So like her two predecessors she parted ways with the Ulster Unionists as of yet, unlike them, she has not formed a new Unionist Party.

Ulster Conservatives and Unionists – New Force (UCUNF) the combined UUP and Conservative banner that was running candidates had selected the 2009 Alliance European candidate Ian Parsley as their candidate in North Down. But Lady Hermon secured a majority of 14,364 with 63.3% of the vote.

Feb 2013 - Present Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat) Orkney and Shetland. Finally after over 24 years association with the party I actually get to live in a held seat, although the job I doing kinda makes it a necessity as I'm working for the MP.

Born in Islay, almost as close to Northern Ireland as any Scottish islander can get, he worked as a hotel manager before completing his law degree from Aberdeen University. Although a brief period before that at Glasgow University was where he met his wife.

After graduation he stayed in the North East of Scotland working as a procurator fiscal depute in the criminal courts. For the 2001 General Election he was selected to replace Jim Wallace, who had been elected as the MSP for the Orkney seat in 1999.

He has been the Lib Shadow for the Home Office, Transport and Scotland but after the 2010 General Election became the party's chief whip and Deputy Chief Whip for the coalition government.



*See trend setting though it took 46 years to get North Down's second.

Least Bad Answer - Says Question Poser

I haven't got around to posting this yet but over 30 years after he initially posed the question the then MP for West Lothian Tam Dalyell has acknoweldged that a recent Conservative proposal is the 'least bad answer' he has seen thus far.

Ken Clarke who has carried out the democracy review and Tam are not natural bedfellows, but the former father of house says that Clarke "grasp of the difficulties of devolution" is greater than anoy of the Labour members during that time from 2001-05. Seeing as for part of that time the man charged by Labour with the task of constitutional reform was his neighbouring MP the late Robin Cook, before he resigned as leader of the house, that may be a bit unfair and Robin did have a fair grasp of a great many constitutional issues. But it may well be true of any of the Labour members then present who still sit in the House of Commons.