Ted Graham, Baron Graham of Edmonton

Thomas Edward Graham, Baron Graham of Edmonton, PC (born 26 March 1925) is an English Labour Co-operative politician.

Career

Graham was educated at the Co-operative College and held several positions in the co-operative movement from 1939, becoming National Secretary for the Co-operative Party. During the Second World War he saw active service in the British Army and was seriously injured by enemy fire. Graham was a councillor on Enfield Borough Council from 1961, joining the new London Borough of Enfield in 1964 and becoming its leader for ten years.

In 1966 he contested Enfield West at that year's general election. He was Member of Parliament for Edmonton from February 1974, serving as a Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection from 1974 to 1976, then as a government whip from 1976 to 1979, with the title of Lord Commissioner of the Treasury. He was an opposition spokesman on the environment from 1980 to 1983, when he lost his seat in the House of Commons to Ian Twinn as part of Labour's landslide election defeat of that year.

On 12 September 1983, after losing his seat, Graham was created a life peer as Baron Graham of Edmonton, of Edmonton in Greater London.^[1] He was Labour Chief Whip 1990-97. He has been chairman of the Co-operative Council and served as President of the 1987 Co-operative Congress.^[2] He is President of the Institute of Meat and Patron of the Ancient Order of Foresters and of the Edmonton Constituency Labour Party. Graham is a supporter of the British Humanist Association and lives at Loughton. His cousin, Oona King, also became a Labour Member of Parliament.

Political career

On 18 December 1986, Graham was the only Peer in the House of Lords to speak against Lord Halsbury's Local Government Act 1986 (Amendment) Bill, which sought to prohibit the promotion of homosexuality by local authorities. This bill subsequently became law as Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, when it was reintroduced by David Wilshire MP in the Commons.

Styles of address

• 1925–1974: Mr Thomas Edward Graham
• 1974–1983: Mr Thomas Edward Graham MP
• 1983: Mr Thomas Edward Graham
• 1983–1998: The Right Honourable The Lord Graham of Edmonton
• 1998–: The Right Honourable The Lord Graham of Edmonton PC

References

Memoir - From Tyne To Thames. Published by The Memoir Club

Sources

• Times Guide to the House of Commons, 1966 & 1983
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Edward Graham