Gerald Kaufman, RIP

[Obelix]

The Father of the House has passed on it would appear. I knew he was getting on but I didn't think he was that elderly.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39099489

[Harrystottle]

He put in a long shift; he's been around since the 70's I think.

 

RIP.

[alchresearch]

I remember his spitting image puppet:

 

 

RIP

[petemcewan]

RIP Mr K,

 

I remember him well from a meeting at Ancoats Labour Club Manchester -a thoroughly

decent man.

[little malc]

An MP who was honourable and served his constituents well. The big test now is the inevitable local election to replace him, Labour is not the most popular party at the moment!

[blake]

He put in a long shift; he's been around since the 70's I think.

 

RIP.

 

he'd been around for longer than that. As a press officer he was one of Wilson's 'Kitchen Cabinet', and in fact it is arguable that in the late 1960s he was more influential than at any point in his future career. Being a trusted confidant of an actual Prime Minister, even if you are not yet an MP, is a lot more consequential than being a Shadow Minister even a Shadow Foreign Secretary, which is the biggest job Kaufman ever had. Had Labour won the 1992 election he would have been Foreign Secretary. But by 1997, he was too old for office, so Blair passed him over.

 

he should have stood down from his Manchester seat for the 2015 election, he was far too old by that time to have carried on and was in fact the oldest MP in modern times although his successor as Father of the House, Peter Tapsell, may well overtake him. They'll be a by-election however that Gorton seat is so safe that even Corbyn's Labour will find it totally impossible to lose it. It is one of only two seats, where Labour got over 50% of the vote in 2015. In the 1980s, when Labour were losing elections, they still had many seats, where they were still getting over 50%. Even before Corbyn, the country had fallen so out of love with Labour that they had, and still have, hardly any seats like that left any more. In the next election, whatever happens, and whoever is leader, Corbyn or somebody else, it is unlikely that Labour will carry even a single seat where they get over 50% of the vote. And when that does happen, it will be a seminal moment.

 

Kaufman had a number of bees in his bonnet but the trenchancy of his anti-Israeli opinions was quite extreme and they were long-standing too, going way back into the 70s and 80s so in a way it was very surprising that even Kinnock was willing to give him the Shadow Foreign Secretary brief. Blair would never have considered it.

[beefface]

http://raedwald.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/who-will-get-taxpayers-grapefruit-bowls.html?m=1

[Obelix]

Tapsell has already stood down though in 2015, when he did Kaufman became Father of the House. I think the current Father is Ken Clarke, and the next in line with be Dennis Skinner.

[blake]

I stand corrected about Tapsell. Now Kaufman has gone, Clarke and Skinner are I think the last two MP's still there, from the 1970 intake. They both got elected on the same day, the criteria of Father of the House when there's two or more of them, is that the one that got sworn in as an MP first gets the title, that must have been Clarke, but Skinner is a full eight years older than Clarke. Surely he deserves the title more.

 

it's an amazing illustration about how long Kaufman was around, that he first stood as a Labour candidate and lost in a hopelessly safe Tory seat, in 1955.

Edited March 5, 2017 by blake

[Jeffrey Shaw]

He had a gigantic majority, too. There's few seats where the MP is supported by > 50% of votes cast (an absolute majority).