Michael Meacher

Michael Hugh Meacher (4 November 1939 – 20 October 2015) was a British politician who served as a government minister under Harold Wilson, James Callaghan and Tony Blair. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Oldham West and Royton, previously Oldham West, from 1970 until his death in 2015.

Before entering politics, Meacher was a lecturer in social administration at the University of Essex and the University of York.

Meacher was born in Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire on 4 November 1939, into a family with links to brewing and agriculture. He was the only child of (George) Hubert Meacher and his wife Doris (née Foxell). His father worked in finance, before a breakdown saw him return to the family farm. With the family having little money, his mother took in lodgers and worked for a local doctor; she had aspirations for Michael to become an Anglican priest. Hubert Meacher's first cousin was the judge Clement Bailhache.

Meacher was educated at Berkhamsted School, at the time an all-boys independent school, to which he won a scholarship. He then studied at New College, Oxford where he graduated with a first-class honours degree in classics and divinity, and at the London School of Economics, where he gained a Diploma in Social Administration.

Meacher became a researcher and lecturer in social administration at the Essex and York universities and wrote a book about elderly people's treatment in mental hospitals. He was the Labour Party candidate for Colchester at the 1966 general election, and fought the 1968 Oldham West by-election following the resignation of Labour MP Leslie Hale but lost to Conservative candidate Bruce Campbell.

Meacher was first elected to Parliament in 1970 for Oldham West, reversing his previous defeat, and served as a junior minister under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan (Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Industry, 1974–75; Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Security, 1975–79).

During Labour's time in opposition, he was in the Shadow cabinet for fourteen years, and concurrently lectured at the LSE. He was seen as a figure on the left and an ally of Tony Benn, and stood as the left's candidate against Roy Hattersley in the 1983 deputy leadership election.

Meacher was an elected member of the Shadow Cabinet from 1983 to 1997, but Tony Blair refused to appoint him to the Cabinet, and instead made him Minister of State for the Environment, first at the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1997–2001), then at the renamed Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2001–2003).