Joe Ashton

Joseph "Joe" William Aston , OBE (born October 9, 1933 in Sheffield - † March 30, 2020 ) was a British Labor Party politician who represented the Bassetlaw constituency as a member of the House of Commons for almost 33 years .

Life

Local politician and member of the House of Commons

Ashton grew up in poverty in the Sheffielder slums of Attercliffe. After attending High Storrs Grammar School and Rotherham Technical College , he worked as a mechanic. He began his political career in local politics when he was elected a member of Sheffield City Council in 1962, to which he was a member until 1968. Most recently he was parliamentary director (Chief Whip ) of the Labor Party parliamentary group .

After the death of the former war minister and long-time Labor lower house deputies Frederick Bellenger , who was controversial within his party and faction because of his dissenting in part opinion and its voting behavior on May 11, 1968 Aston was at a by-election (by-election) on the 31st First elected MP to the House of Commons in October 1968 as a Labor Party candidate in the Bassetlaw constituency. He was able to prevail with 21,394 votes with a narrow majority of 740 votes against his opponent from the Conservative Party , Jim Lester , who received 20,654 votes. He represented the constituency of Bassetlaw until he decided not to run again in the general election on June 7, 2001 , when he was last re-elected with 61.1 percent of the vote.

Parliamentary private secretary, whip and opposition spokesman

In the following period he served briefly between 1969 and 1970 as Parliamentary Private Secretary of a minister in the government of Prime Minister Harold Wilson .

After the Labor Party won the February 28, 1974 elections and Wilson took office again as Prime Minister, Ashton was again Parliamentary Private Secretary between 1974 and 1976, to Tony Benn , who was Minister of Industry and then Minister of Energy between March 1974 and June 1975 Wilson's second cabinet was. In 1976 Ashton became one of the parliamentary directors (Whip) of the Labor Group, but gave up this function again in 1977.

After the Labor Party's defeat in the May 3, 1979 elections , Ashton served as the opposition spokesman for energy between 1979 and 1981 . Later he was a member of various Standing Committees (Select Committee) of the House of Commons, between 1987 and 1992 for trade and industry and at the same time from 1989 to 1992 for home affairs. He was then a member of the Standing Committee on National Heritage from 1992 to 1997 and the Standing Committee on Reform of the House of Commons between 1997 and 1998. In addition, he was chairman of the non-partisan football committee from 1992 until he left the lower house in 2001.

In 2007 he became Officer of the Order of the British Empire .

Ashton died on March 30, 2020 after suffering from dementia for a long time . He leaves behind a daughter and two grandchildren. He was married to his wife Maggie, who had died before him, for 57 years.

Web links

• Joe Ashton at Hansard (English)
• The House of Commons Constituencies. Leigh Rayment Peerage, October 13, 2014, accessed January 17, 2015 (English, entry on the Bassetlaw constituency). 
• Ashton, Joe (b.1933). The History of Parliament, accessed January 17, 2015 . 

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} Lucy Ashton: Former Sheffield councillor and long-serving Bassetlaw MP dies. In: Worksop Guardian. March 30, 2020, accessed on March 30, 2020 .