Sydney James Bidwell (14 January 1917 – 25 May 1997) was a British
Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
politician.
Bidwell was a railway worker on the
Great Western Railway and became a tutor and organiser for the National Council of Labour Colleges. He went on to become the London Regional Education Officer for the
TUC. Having joined the Labour Party in his youth, in the 1940s he was also a member of the
Trotskyist
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...
Revolutionary Communist Party.
[Sid Bidwell,]
National Council of Labour Colleges
, ''International Socialism'' No.12 (1963) He was a councillor on
Southall Borough Council 1951–55.
Bidwell contested
East Hertfordshire
East Hertfordshire is a local government district in Hertfordshire, England. Its council is based in Hertford, the county town of Hertfordshire. The largest town in the district is Bishop's Stortford, and the other main towns are Ware, Bunti ...
in
1959
Events January
* January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance.
* January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...
and
South West Hertfordshire in
1964
Events January
* January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved.
* January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarc ...
. He was elected as
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 o ...
(MP) for
Southall
Southall () is a large suburban county of West London, England, part of the London Borough of Ealing and is one of its seven major towns. It is situated west of Charing Cross and had a population of 69,857 as of 2011. It is generally divided ...
at the
1966 general election, and was elected for the largely similar seat of
Ealing Southall
Ealing, Southall (also Ealing Southall) is a constituency created in 1974 and represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2007 by Virendra Sharma of the Labour Party.
Constituency profile
The constituency has relatively go ...
in
1983
The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call.
Events January
* January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...
.
Whilst in Parliament, he saw through a bill to exclude
Sikhs from being forced to wear crash helmets on motorbikes.
Before the
1992 general election, Bidwell was de-selected as a candidate at the age of 75. When his appeal to the Labour
National Executive Committee National Executive Committee is the name of a leadership body in several organizations, mostly political parties:
* National Executive Committee of the African National Congress, in South Africa
* Australian Labor Party National Executive
* Nationa ...
failed, he decided to stand as a "True Labour" candidate, but finished third behind the official Labour candidate
Piara Khabra
Piara Singh Khabra (Hindi: प्यारा सिंह खाबड़ा, Punjabi: ; 20 November 1921 – 19 June 2007) was a British-Indian Labour politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Ealing Southall from 1992 until h ...
, with 9% of the vote.
References
Sources
*
Sydney Bidwell's parliamentary record: from 'Hansard*
Account of Bidwell's victory on turban-wearing
External links
*
1917 births
1997 deaths
Independent politicians in England
Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
Councillors in Greater London
Revolutionary Communist Party (UK, 1944) members
UK MPs 1966–1970
UK MPs 1970–1974
UK MPs 1974
UK MPs 1974–1979
UK MPs 1979–1983
UK MPs 1983–1987
UK MPs 1987–1992
People from Southall
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