Leopold Raymond Fletcher (3 December 1921 – 16 March 1991) was a Labour Party politician.

Early life and military career

Fletcher served in the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

(1941–48) in East Asia, Southwest Asia and the

British Army of the Rhine There have been two formations named British Army of the Rhine (BAOR). Both were originally occupation forces in Germany, one after the First World War and the other after the Second World War. Both formations had areas of responsibility located a ...

. He subsequently worked as military advisor on

Joan Littlewood Joan Maud Littlewood (6 October 1914 – 20 September 2002) was an English theatre director who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and is best known for her work in developing the Theatre Workshop. She has been called "The Mother of M ...

's ''

Oh, What a Lovely War! ''Oh, What a Lovely War!'' is an epic musical developed by Joan Littlewood and her ensemble at the Theatre Workshop in 1963. It is a satire on World War I, and by extension on war in general. The title is derived from the "somewhat satirical" ...

''. He became a journalist, author and lecturer and wrote two plays.

Parliamentary career

Fletcher contested Wycombe in 1955. He was

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

for

Ilkeston Ilkeston is a town in the Borough of Erewash, Derbyshire, England, on the River Erewash, from which the borough takes its name, with a population at the 2011 census of 38,640. Its major industries, coal mining, iron working and lace making/texti ...

from 1964 to 1983. He was deselected by his local party in December 1981. The seat was abolished in the 1983 boundary changes.

Spy allegations

He was revealed as a spy for the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

according to the records furnished by

Vasili Mitrokhin Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin (russian: link=no, Васи́лий Ники́тич Митро́хин; March 3, 1922 – January 23, 2004) was a major and senior archivist for the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence service, the First Chief Dir ...

, who arrived in the West after the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

. The widow of the late Labour MP angrily denied the accusation that he was a Russian spy and claimed that he had, in fact, carried out missions for

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

. Catherine Fletcher maintained that not only was her husband an anti-Communist, but he had been asked to use his left-wing influence on behalf of

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...

when she was Prime Minister to persuade

Bettino Craxi Benedetto "Bettino" Craxi ( , , ; 24 February 1934 – 19 January 2000) was an Italian politician, leader of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) from 1976 to 1993, and the 45th prime minister of Italy from 1983 to 1987. He was the first PSI membe ...

to stand for the post of Italian premier.Kim Sengupta and Paul Lashmar.
Widow of MP denies he spied for Russia
" The Independent (London, England). Independent Print Ltd. 1999. HighBeam Research. 30 Jul. 2013

References

* ''Times Guide to the House of Commons'', 1955, 1966 & 1979 *

External links

* 1921 births 1991 deaths Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1964–1966 UK MPs 1966–1970 UK MPs 1970–1974 UK MPs 1974 UK MPs 1974–1979 UK MPs 1979–1983 British spies for the Soviet Union British Army personnel of World War II British people accused of spying for Czechoslovakia (1945–1989) Royal Army Ordnance Corps officers British republicans {{England-Labour-UK-MP-stub

Early life and military career

Parliamentary career

Spy allegations

See also

References

External links