Barry Porter

George Barrington "Barry" Porter (11 June 1939 – 3 November 1996) was a British lawyer and Conservative Party politician who was the MP for Bebington and Ellesmere Port from 1979 to 1983, and then for Wirral South from 1983 until his death.

A native of Birkenhead, Porter was educated at Birkenhead School and went on to University College, Oxford, where he earned a degree in philosophy, politics and economics.

He became a solicitor, working as a partner and later a consultant at Fanshaw Porter & Hazlehurst Solicitors in Birkenhead.

Porter married Susan James in 1965, and they had five children.

Porter was elected to the Birkenhead Borough Council in 1967, which was subsumed into the Wirral Council after 1974.

He was the Conservative candidate at a by-election for Liverpool Scotland in 1971, Newton in the February 1974 general election, and Chorley in October 1974.

He remained a councillor until 1979.

Porter contested a number of parliamentary constituencies before he found success.

Ahead of the 1979 general election, he unsuccessfully sought selection in the safe Conservative seat of Morecambe and Lonsdale.

Instead, he was elected in 1979 as the MP for Bebington and Ellesmere Port.

Porter was a member of the Transport Select Committee from 1979 to 1983.

In 1980, he was mailed a letter bomb after speaking out against the Provisional Irish Republican Army and Sinn Féin during a parliamentary debate, but it was intercepted before delivery.

After boundary changes for the 1983 election, he was returned for the new constituency of Wirral South.

The Times said about Porter's politics:

In 1985, he joined the Trade and Industry Select Committee.

His wife worked as his secretary in the Commons, which she continued to do even after they separated in 1989.

Porter believed that his role in Thatcher's downfall would end his political career, and there was an effort to deselect him ahead of the 1992 general election, but it was unsuccessful.

Porter, who was described as a heavy smoker and "sometimes hard-drink[er]", died from throat cancer in London on 3 November 1996, at the age of 57.

His death eliminated the majority of one enjoyed by the government of John Major in the House of Commons, and the consequent February 1997 by-election was won by Labour's Ben Chapman.

A caricature of Porter hangs in the lounge bar of the Cask and Glass Public House in Victoria, London.