Tom Bradley (British politician)

Thomas George Bradley (13 April 1926 – 9 September 2002) was a British politician for Labour and the SDP.

Kettering-born, Tom Bradley was educated at Kettering Central School and worked in the mines during World War II. Bradley joined the London, Midland and Scottish Railway as a junior clerk in the Goods Depot at Kettering in 1941. He became a railway clerk at Oundle and was national treasurer of the clerks' union, the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association from 1961, its president from 1964 to 1977, and was its acting General Secretary for four months in 1977 after the retirement of the previous General Secretary (David MacKenzie) on health grounds. He served as a councillor on Northamptonshire County Council from 1952 and as an alderman from 1961.

Bradley contested Rutland and Stamford as a Labour candidate in 1950, 1951 and 1955, and Preston South in 1959. He was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Leicester North East at a 1962 by-election, representing Leicester East from 1974. He served as parliamentary private secretary to the Home Secretary from 1966.

Bradley was among the Labour MPs who defected to the new Social Democratic Party in 1981.

In 1983, he stood for re-election in Leicester East but came third with 21% of the vote. This however may have had the effect of helping the Conservative candidate Peter Bruinvels beat the future Labour minister Patricia Hewitt by 933 votes. He died in Kettering aged 76.

References

• Times Guide to the House of Commons, 1950, 1966 and 1983
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Tom Bradley