Joe Ashton

Joseph Ashton
Member of Parliament
for Bassetlaw
In office
31 October 1968 – 7 June 2001
Preceded by Fred Bellenger
Succeeded by John Mann
Personal details
Born 9 October 1933 (1933-10-09) (age 78)
Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Nationality British
Political party Labour

Joseph William Ashton OBE (born 9 October 1933), usually known as Joe Ashton, is a British Labour Party politician who was known for his defence of the rights of Labour Members of Parliament (MPs) against the demands of the left-wing of the party to subject them to mandatory reselection.

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Early career

Ashton was born and brought up in Sheffield. He was first elected as the Member of Parliament for Bassetlaw in a by-election in 1968, when he did well to hold the constituency at a time when the Harold Wilson government was highly unpopular and the previous MP (Fred Bellenger) had held a substantial personal vote.

1970s

In 1974, when corruption allegations about MPs were widely circulating, Ashton gave an interview to the Labour Party newspaper Labour Weekly. Seeking to defend MPs in general, Ashton insisted that the number who were guilty of corruption "could be counted on the fingers of one hand". This statement backfired, as newspapers demanded that he name the guilty five MPs.

In the late 1970s Ashton served as a junior minister in the government of James Callaghan. After the Labour Party went into opposition he wrote a column for the Daily Star and made regular TV appearances in connection with his football club, Sheffield Wednesday, of which he was a director.

Conference speech

Ashton saw himself as the 'shop steward' for the Parliamentary Labour Party. When left-wing Labour Party activists demanded that sitting MPs submit themselves to their local parties for approval in each Parliament, he made a strong speech at the Labour Party conference in which he said he was pleading to save the jobs of the MPs. He referred to the large number of Labour MPs who had died of stress-related illnesses and linked that to pressure brought on them by their local parties.

Police raids on two massage parlours in Northampton resulted in the discovery of Joe Ashton, then Labour MP for Bassetlaw, in the Siam Sauna . Two years before he stood down, he faced allegations about his presence with a 21-year-old Thai woman at a 'Thai massage parlour' in Kingsley Park Terrace, Northampton during a police raid in November 1998.[1][2] Following his retirement, he was succeeded by John Mann.

In 2007, Ashton was awarded an OBE.[3]

References

External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Fred Bellenger
Member of Parliament for Bassetlaw
19682001
Succeeded by
John Mann