Uncompromising Labour MP who spoke with the authentic voice of the people she was elected to represent
The former MP for Halifax, Alice Mahon, who has died aged 85, was one of the last of a generation of Labour MPs who were proud of being socialists and who spoke with the authentic voice of the people they were elected to represent. Mahon was raised to believe in the power of democratic politics and throughout her life she never faltered in her personal commitment “to make a difference”.
It made for a difficult life at Westminster, where her refusal to compromise in the passionate pursuit of her beliefs, throughout four parliaments from 1987 to 2005, marked her out as a defiant member of the awkward squad on the Labour left. It meant that she was often in the position of opposing her own frontbench, and while she thus infuriated the party whips – and the editor of her local paper, the Halifax Evening Courier – she nevertheless engendered respect within the party for her consistency. She was not helped by being a somewhat aggressive speaker with a rather grim, humourless style, but she was already in her middle years – aged 49 – when first elected, and the crowded agenda she had brought to Westminster meant she was in far too much of a hurry to bother about such niceties.
