Michael Meadowcroft

Michael James Meadowcroft (born 6 March 1942) is a British author, politician and political affairs consultant.

In 1958, he left school to work as a bank clerk, and joined the Liberal Party.

He became Chairman of the Merseyside Region of the National League of Young Liberals in 1961.

Between 1962 and 1967, Meadowcroft worked for the Liberal Party and became the party's Local Government Officer.

In 1968, he was elected as a Liberal member of Leeds City Council and served until 1983.

Meadowcroft also led the Liberal Group on the council for a large part of his time as a city councillor.

He also served as a member of West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council from 1973 to 1976 and again from 1981 to 1983.

He held many roles within the party, including the chair of the Liberal Party Assembly committee responsible for organising the party's conferences.

He also authored a number of influential pamphlets championing liberal philosophy and the principles of community politics.

He stood unsuccessfully in Leeds West for the Liberals in the general elections of February 1974 and October 1974 before winning in 1983, defeating Labour MP Joseph Dean.

This victory was a shock result and has been attributed to an early form of community politics, focusing on local problems.

Before being elected, he had already been known as an opponent of the SDP–Liberal Alliance given differing policies between the two parties.

By the time of his election, the term "Meadowcroft Tendency" (a play on Labour's Militant Tendency) was being used for those in the Liberal Party who favoured alliances with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and civil rights groups above the SDP.

He served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leeds West from 1983 to 1987.

Meadowcroft was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire but moved to Southport when young as a consequence of his railwayman grandfather's promotion from signalman at Sowerby Bridge station to St Luke's railway station.

He was educated at King George V Grammar School in Southport.

His parents supported the Labour Party.

In a reshuffle of July 1985, Meadowcroft was appointed the head of the Liberals' by-election unit.

He wrote in an opinion piece in October 1986: "my seniors in the party suspect that some of my opinions are quite unorthodox: indeed, are positively heretical".

In his maiden speech, he took a familiar stand on the subject of decentralisation of power: "Already there is too much central Government power in local government, as well as the power of individual Ministers to appoint to regional bodies, such as health and water authorities. The thought of Ministers directing more services is certainly alarming. The possession of power is always dangerous. Only by spreading power can we minimise its dangerous effects. The checks and balances of local elections each year within the life of a Parliament are the best deterrents to extreme action."

In 1986, he was the Liberal Party's spokesman on community relations and opposed the introduction of visas for Commonwealth migrants.

Meadowcroft was amongst those in the Liberal Party who criticised leader David Steel's compromises with the SDP over defence policy and favoured nuclear disarmament.

He favoured a European defence policy, independent of both the United States and the Soviet Union, and without nuclear weapons.

After publishing a paper on defence, together with Archy Kirkwood and Simon Hughes, named Across the divide, shortly before the Liberal Assembly voted for an amendment to Steel's defence strategy that required a non-nuclear system, he was jeered by other Liberal MPs and Peers at the 1986 Assembly, and accused of violating collective responsibility for the Liberal front bench.

Meadowcroft said that they had been assured that the Alliance's joint report on defence would not be published around the same time as their paper and that this promise had not been kept.

He later served as party spokesman on local government and on housing.

Meadowcroft was a trustee of the Community Development Trust 1986-96 and chaired the Electoral Reform Society 1989 to 1993.

He is a member of the Society's governing council.

In one of his final speeches, in 1987, he highlighted the problems of rising housing costs: "We should reduce the immense pressure on the south-east, where house prices, or more accurately, land prices spiral upwards, way ahead of inflation. It seems to me that it is no longer possible for young people, as first-time buyers, in the south-east to have the type of housing which we, in the north, would regard as adequate or desirable. That will not do."

Meadowcroft was defeated in the 1987 general election by Labour candidate John Battle.

Some suggested that his approach had been less suited to parliamentary than to municipal politics.

Meadowcroft was on the team to discuss the Liberal Party's merger with the Social Democratic Party in 1988.

He was the first of several Liberals to walk out of the negotiations, citing the commitment to NATO in the constitutional preamble for the merged party.

He argued for a "No" vote to the merger at the special Liberal Assembly in Blackpool, but the vote went in favour of merger by 2099 votes to 385, with 23 abstentions.

He briefly stayed with the Social and Liberal Democrats (the name was later shortened to the 'Liberal Democrats') to support Alan Beith's candidacy for leader.

After Beith was defeated by Paddy Ashdown, Meadowcroft became a co-founder and the first leader of the continuing Liberal Party, which attracted some liberals disillusioned with the political and financial problems of the Social and Liberal Democrats.

Returning to local politics, he stood to be elected once again to Leeds City Council and contested Bramley ward in the 1990 and 1991 elections.

Meadowcroft stood against John Battle again in Leeds West in 1992 as the Liberal Party candidate.

He finished in fourth place, behind Battle, Paul Bartlett of the Conservative Party and Liberal Democrat candidate Viscount Morpeth.

On 5 October 2007, it was announced that Meadowcroft had joined the Liberal Democrats, citing the party's opposition to the Iraq War, its rejection of the identity cards policy and their commitment to a united Europe.