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John Winston Lennon (b 21 October 1940)
Lennon was seemingly destined for a musical career in his late teens and early 20s before becoming part of the British cultural revolution of the 1960s. While his friends Paul McCartney and George Harrison opted for music and drama respectively, Lennon went into politics and joined the Labour Party.
He was active in the anti-war movement in the late 60s and was injured at Red Lion Square.
He became a Councillor in Speke and in 1973 was selected by Liverpool Garston Labour Party to take on the seat held by the Conservatives. At the February 1974 election, Lennon became an MP winning Garston by 3,000 votes. It would become his political home for the next four decades.
In 1978, he backed Union leaders against the Labour Government of Jim Callaghan and in the 1979 election saw his majority cut to just 109 votes. He supported Michael Foot in the 1981 Labour leadership battle and became a junior spokesman for education in the Shadow Cabinet. Despite the Conservative landslide in June 1983, Lennon increased his majority in Garston to 3.760 votes thanks to boundary changes.
Lennon backed Tony Benn in the 1983 Labour leadership election won by Kinnock and was a strong supporter of Derek Hatton's Liverpool City Council. He launched a strong personal attack on Neil Kinnock following the latter's speech denouncing Hatton and Militant and he was never offered any advancement under Kinnock or John Smith.
At the 1992 election, Lennon saw his majority go up to 20,000 but he underwent what some described as an almost damascene conversion - he later commented "I was sick and tired of losing, sick and tired of seeing the Tories win. Did I believe in Tony Blair? Not for a moment but I knew he could and would win and that was the way to get real Labour policies".
Lennon publicly backed Blair in the 1994 Labour leadership election following the death of John Smith and in 1997 the Labour landslide which saw Blair elected with a majority of nearly 200 saw Lennon returned with a majority of 28,000.
Lennon split publicly and finally with Blair over Iraq and in April 2003 stunned Labour by defecting to Charles Kennedy's Liberal Democrats. At the 2005 election, Lennon saw his majority in Garston cut to 5,000 but before long he had fallen out with the Liberal Democrats. He had no love for Nick Clegg or the Orange Bookers - he said "as soon as they chose Clegg, it was over. I'd have stayed if they had chosen Simon Hughes - he was like me, an MP for an inner city seat. I respected his Christianity and his hard work."
Lennon announced his retirement before the 2010 election and for a while slipped into political obscurity writing his memoirs. However, in 2015, he rejoined Labour and backed Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership. Lennon had admired Corbyn as a backbencher and when Corbyn won the 2017 election, Lennon found himself an adviser to the new Government on culture and music. In that capacity, he re-started the Liverpool Festival and performed with his former associates from the Quarrymen nearly 60 years on.
In late 2021, Lennon suffered a mild stroke and retired from public life to live quietly in Formby.
