Neville Sandelson

Neville Devonshire Sandelson, lawyer, business consultant and politician: born Leeds 27 November 1923; called to the Bar, Inner Temple 1946; MP (Labour) for Hayes and Harlington 1971-81, (SDP) 1981-83; Co-Chairman, Radical Society 1988-90, President 1990-2002; married 1959 Nana Karlinski (one son, two daughters); died Lamalou-les-Bains, France 12 January 2002.

No man in the 20th century tried so hard to get into the House of Commons as Neville Sandelson.

He was the eternal election and by-election candidate. The pity is that, when he finally arrived, his natural tendency to combativeness made him many enemies among his colleagues and, having been a member of the Labour Party since 1939, after 40 years he deserted Labour to become a founder member of the Social Democratic Party. And then (hardly to our astonishment) he quarrelled with the Social Democrats and Liberals and became a supporter of Margaret Thatcher in 1987. In my judgement, he added greatly to the House of Commons in fearlessly expressing unpopular views and thinking nothing of his personal advancement when confronting senior colleagues.

Neville Sandelson was born in 1923, into a wealthy Jewish business family in Leeds. He went to school at Westminster, and bragged about making blood flow from the nose of his exact contemporary Tony Benn in a boxing match. After Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took an excellent degree in Law, he was called to the Inner Temple. He strongly believed that it was better to go to university after service in the forces or some work experience. Instead of going into the law, he became involved in book publishing and producing television documentary programmes.

His first attempt at election to Parliament was at Ashford in February 1950, when he lost to the new Conservative candidate Bill Deedes by 21,095 to 14,948, the Liberal gaining 4,828 votes. In 1951 he again lost to Deedes by 24,093 votes to 16,645.

Deedes remembers:

As far as I was concerned Neville was as straight as a die. He stuck it out and fought a third election against me in 1955 when I won by 23,992 to 15,685. He never did anything dirty. I suspect that he was a better lawyer then politician.

In 1974 there was a particularly nasty murder in the Ashford constituency. Neville by that time was an MP for Hayes and Harlington but we co-operated in going to the new Attorney General, Sam Silkin, and overturning a decision which Quintin Hailsham had made as Lord Chancellor. The murdered girl's father was a leading light of the Labour Party in Ashford and I can never thank Neville enough for his efforts, without any publicity, successfully to retrieve the honour of my murdered constituent and her family.

In March 1957 Sandelson was chosen to fight a by-election in the same county, in Beckenham, when he was defeated by Philip Goodhart by 29,621 to 17,445.

His reputation as a feisty by-election candidate won him the nomination for Nottinghamshire Rushcliffe in 1958, only to be defeated by Sir Martin Redmayne, later the Conservative Chief Whip, by 27,392 votes to 22,952. Again, Redmayne told me years later that he rated Sandelson highly, predicting a distinguished future in the Labour Party – but as a law officer rather than a politician.

Because of falling between two constituency stools Sandelson did not contest the 1964 general election but in March 1966 he was chosen as candidate for Heston and Isleworth, which was high on the list of winnables for the Wilson government. He was beaten by Reader Harris by 18,222 to 17,296, a majority of 926. Had it not been for an unexpectedly high Liberal vote of 5,559 he would have entered Parliament during a time that the party was in government. And, had he done so, I think Harold Wilson would have made him a junior minister and his service to the party, his having been rewarded by office, would have mellowed him.

Yet again there was to be disappointment. He was chosen to succeed Herbert Bowden, the former Labour Opposition Chief Whip and Lord President of the Council, when Wilson appointed him as Chairman of the Independent Television Authority. The electorate do not like parties who allow MPs to desert their constituencies mid-term to go off to what is perceived as a cushy number. Death is excusable. Taking a fat-cat position is punishable. So it was not Sandelson's fault – I spent days canvassing for him – that he lost Leicester South West in 1967 to Tom Boardman, later a prominent Conservative Trade Minister and industrial tycoon, by 12,897 votes to 8,958 – nearly 10,000 less than the vote given to Bowden 18 months previously.

This was a wretched experience which would have deterred most men. Not Sandelson. He agreed to fight the unwinnable seat of Chichester in the 1970 election, losing to Christopher Chataway by 25,546 votes. Undeterred, Sandelson offered himself to Hayes and Harlington on the death in 1971 of the much-loved Arthur Skeffington, prominent Fabian and Chairman of the Labour Party. Sandelson romped home this time by 15,827 to 5,348.

His earliest parliamentary concern was Heathrow and noise control. On 25 November 1971 he started his maiden speech:

I am speaking for thousands of constituents who live in residential areas in close proximity to Heathrow and their families who are among the worst affected in Britain by aircraft noise and vibration, and indeed by aircraft pollution . . . I have become increasingly appalled at the social consequences of this problem in terms of human suffering and illness with the resulting loss of working hours and the total disruption of normal activity in factories, schools, churches, local courts, hospitals and, last and probably least, in my experience in the area, at by-election meetings . . . It is . . . vital that urgent and effective counter-measures are taken to contain and eventually reduce the nuisance.

None of his innumerable critics can take away from Sandelson that he brought to the notice of the Commons the Heathrow problems which have been with us ever since. Because he was a good constituency MP his majority in October 1974 soared to 9,420.

His other contribution to Parliament at this time was a rather courageous sponsorship of a Private Member's Bill, which became the Matrimonial Proceedings (Polygamous Marriages) Act of 1972. This was about giving matrimonial relief and declarations of validity in respect of polygamous marriages, so that children in such circumstances should not be disadvantaged. It would look an obvious social measure now; but hindsight is a marvellous thing and perhaps it wasn't so obvious then.

Neville Sandelson is not happily remembered by his former Labour colleagues. Even though more than 20 years have passed, many older members of the party go apoplectic at his name. The reason? Sandelson was the ringleader of seven right-wing MPs who had already made up their mind to leave the Labour Party and form the breakaway Social Democratic Party, but who kept their intentions to themselves until the leadership election between Michael Foot and Denis Healey was over.

This tightknit, secretive group voted for Foot. Had they voted the other way Healey would have become Labour leader and history might have been different. Voting for Foot out of conviction or judgement – I did – was forgivable. What was unforgivable was cynically voting for Foot in order to destroy the party of which Sandelson and his fellow conspirators were still members.

This scenario was confirmed by Sandelson himself in 1996. He described what he did as "sabotage". He said that his group was convinced that Foot's leadership would cast Labour into the political wilderness, and argued it was vital to protect British democracy from the far left and anti-democratic elements in the party:

Myself and my colleagues who voted for Foot were leaving the Labour Party and setting up a new party under the leadership of the "Gang of Four" and it was important that we finished off the job. It was very important that the Labour Party as it had become was destroyed.

No wonder Denis Healey deplored Sandelson's actions:

I always knew that Sandelson and the others had done this and they bear the responsibility of giving Thatcher two election victories which she would not otherwise have won, and condemned the country to the misery of her government.

Sandelson's defence was:

I feel totally vindicated, for after that the Labour Party went into the wilderness, which was for everybody's good, and now it has emerged from that appalling state.

He stressed that he had great respect for Michael Foot personally, but,

There were other elements running the party who would have led us straight down the road to Moscow.

Sandelson proved no more comfortable a colleague for the SDP:

It has a middle-class élite that thought by creating an apparatus in Cowley Street and creating intellectual communities, ministerial powers would follow. It was absolute rubbish.

He ended up alongside Norman Tebbit in the Radical Society after he lost his seat in 1983 to Terry Dicks, who prided himself on being a philistine. Some of my colleagues remarked that Dicks was positively left-wing compared with what Sandelson had become.

Tam Dalyell