John Stokes (Conservative Politician)

Sir John Heydon Romaine Stokes (23 July 1917 – 27 June 2003) was a British Conservative politician and Member of Parliament.

Early life and career

The son of Victor Romaine Stokes, a stockjobber, Stokes was educated at Haileybury College and Queen's College, Oxford. He stood for election as president of the Oxford University Conservative Association on a platform of support for appeasement and General Franco; he was beaten by seven votes by future Prime Minister Edward Heath. He served as president of The Oxford Monarchists.

During World War II Stokes served in the Royal Fusiliers, rising to the rank of Major. He took part in the expedition to Dakar in 1940 and was wounded in North Africa in 1943. From 1944-6 he served as military assistant to Major General Edward Spears and latterly Sir Terence Shone in Beirut and Damascus.

After the war Stokes joined ICI as a personnel officer, moving to British Celanese in 1951 as personnel manager and to Courtaulds in 1957 as deputy personnel manager. He was a partner in his own firm of personnel consultants, Clive and Stokes, from 1959 to 1980.

Political career

In 1964, Stokes contested Gloucester for the Conservatives. Two years later, he contested Hitchin and was defeated by Shirley Williams. He was elected MP for Oldbury and Halesowen at the 1970 general election and for its successor seat, Halesowen and Stourbridge in February 1974, holding the latter until stepping down in 1992.

He was a very active backbencher and described as an "old-fashioned Conservative who trusted his constituents' instincts about what was right and wrong. He looked the part of the typical Conservative who graced the Commons benches in the years after (and before) the Second World War. His Conservatism seemed to belong to an earlier, simpler age. Yet the House, on the whole, loved him, and listened to him."''The Times'' Sir John Stokes - Obituary, p. 29, 3 July 2003

He had little time for professional politicians. He argued that the backbenches in parliament needed more army officers, "more squires, landowners, and country gentlemen." He attributed the decline of deference in society to the demise of the officer classes from positions of influence. He was also a firm defender of the hereditary principle in the Upper House and wrote the foreword to a Monday Club booklet by Lord Sudeley entitled ''The Preservation of the House of Lords''. In 1975 Stokes spoke against a Private Members Bill to abolish hereditary titles, which was defeated.

During the crippling strikes at British Leyland in the 1970s, Stokes suggested in the House that it might help the troubles there if a few of the ringleaders were taken out and shot. He was a staunch supporter of hanging. He believed that television generally, and the BBC
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