Alexander Ward Lyon (15 October 1931 – 30 September 1993) 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.

Early life

Lyon was educated at West Leeds High School and

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. He became a barrister, called to the Bar at

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in 1954. He was a member of the

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and of the

Fabian Society The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. T ...

. He was also a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

local preacher and secretary of

Leeds North West Leeds North West is a constituency in the City of Leeds which has been represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2017 by Alex Sobel, of Labour Co-op. Boundaries 1950–1955: The County Borough of Leeds wards of Far He ...

Constituency Labour Party __NOTOC__ A constituency Labour Party (CLP) is an organisation of members of the British Labour Party who live in a particular parliamentary constituency. In England and Wales, CLP boundaries coincide with those for UK parliamentary constituenc ...

Political career

Lyon was elected

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 ...

for the marginal

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in 1966, having first fought the seat in 1964. He was

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at the Home Office, March 1974 – April 1976, but, as a radical, was sacked by

Jim Callaghan Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, ( ; 27 March 191226 March 2005), commonly known as Jim Callaghan, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980. Callaghan is ...

. In 1971 Lyon introduced the United Reformed Church Bill, which became the act which created the

United Reformed Church The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Protestant Christian church in the United Kingdom. As of 2022 it has approximately 40,000 members in 1,284 congregations with 334 stipendiary ministers. Origins and history The United Reformed Church resulte ...

from a union of

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

and Congregationalist churches in England and Wales. In a debate on 4 August 1980 he became the first MP to use the phrase "chuntering from a sedentary position", later used by many MPs, and a catchphrase of former Speaker of the House of Commons

John Bercow John Simon Bercow (; born 19 January 1963) is a British former politician who was Speaker of the House of Commons from 2009 to 2019, and Member of Parliament (MP) for Buckingham between 1997 and 2019. A member of the Conservative Party prior t ...

. In 1981 he tried to amend a

Finance Bill A government budget is a document prepared by the government and/or other political entity presenting its anticipated tax revenues (Inheritance tax, income tax, corporation tax, import taxes) and proposed spending/expenditure (Healthcare, Educat ...

to allow those with a "conscientious objection to paying for expenditure on defence" to pay the military part of their taxes to the then

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. He was defeated in the 1983 General Election by the

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

Conal Gregory Conal Robert Gregory (born 11 March 1947) was Conservative Party (UK) Member of Parliament for York from 1983 to 1992,‘GREGORY, Conal Robert’, Who's Who 2013, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2013; online edn, Oxford Un ...

Personal life

In 1981, Lyon married

Clare Short Clare Short (born 15 February 1946) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for International Development under Prime Minister Tony Blair from 1997 to 2003. Short was the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Ladywood from 1983 t ...

, a civil servant who he had worked with whilst at the Home Office. Short herself later became a Labour MP and cabinet minister, winning

Birmingham Ladywood Birmingham Ladywood is a constituency of part of the city of Birmingham, represented in the House of Commons since 2010 by Shabana Mahmood of the Labour Party. Members of Parliament Clare Short, elected as a Labour MP from the 1983 gener ...

for the first time on the same day Lyon lost his seat. In 1993, Clare Short was called away from the Labour party conference to say her husband was very ill and likely to die. In her book ''An Honourable Deception'', she described how "after losing his parliamentary seat, he moved from being a senior Labour MP to running my constituency office where he gave me enormous support as well as bringing great experience to the task. Later he decided to return to the Bar, but after a time got himself into various difficulties and I began to suspect that either he was suffering a deep depression or mental deterioration. The next few years were very difficult as he engaged in strange, inexplicable behaviour. He gradually fell out with family and friends and stayed home with our St Bernard called Fred and would deal with no one but Fred and me." He died in Milton KeynesDeaths England and Wales 1984-2006
/ref> in 1993 from Alzheimer's disease, aged 61. He had two sons, Marcus and Adrian, and a daughter, Rebecca, from a previous marriage. From September 1960 to October 1961 Alex and his first wife Hilda were foster parents to John Hemsworth (Lyon) born 6 December 1952.

References

External links

*
Obituary
in ''The Independent'' 1 October 1993 {{DEFAULTSORT:Lyon, Alex 1931 births 1993 deaths Deaths from dementia in England Deaths from Alzheimer's disease English Methodists Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Members of the Fabian Society UK MPs 1966–1970 UK MPs 1970–1974 UK MPs 1974 UK MPs 1974–1979 UK MPs 1979–1983