Michael Winstanley, Baron Winstanley

Michael Winstanley

Michael Platt Winstanley, Baron Winstanley (27 August 1918 – 18 July 1993) was the Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Cheadle from 1966 to 1970 and, after boundary changes, MP for Hazel Grove - a newly created seat broadly comprising half of his former seat - from February to October 1974.

Winstanley was born in Nantwich, Cheshire. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and the University of Manchester where he was President of the University Union and captain of cricket.^[1] He graduated in medicine and served in the RAMC before becoming a general practitioner in Urmston. He became a noted media personality as a television and radio doctor in the 1960s. Between 1972 and 1986 he presented Granada Television's This Is Your Right, an early-evening, five-minute consumer advice and legal rights bulletin which ultimately credited him as 'Lord Michael Winstanley'.

Following his return to the House of Commons in 1974, Winstanley discovered that he held a post which would disqualify him from being a member of the House of Commons - a post of sessional medical officer at a Royal Ordnance Factory that amounted to employment in the Civil Service of the Crown. On 3 April 1974, the Commons passed a motion under section 6 of the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1957 to override the disqualification and allow Winstanley to sit.^[2]

Winstanley was created a life peer on 23 January 1976 with the title of Baron Winstanley, of Urmston in Greater Manchester,^[3] during Harold Wilson's second term as Prime Minister.

References

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Michael Winstanley
• Obituary in The Independent