My colleague and friend James Dickens, who has died aged 82, served as the Labour MP for Lewisham West from 1966 until 1970 and played a prominent part in the leftwing Tribune Group.
Born in a Glasgow tenement to working-class parents, he left school at 14 and took a job as a telegraph boy and then as a railway clerk. However, he worked for the Glasgow Forward newspaper and won his way through Newbattle Abbey and Ruskin College, Oxford, to St Catherine's College, Oxford, where he obtained a BA (Hons) degree in politics and history.
He then worked for the National Coal Board, becoming an industrial relations officer until his election to parliament in 1966. From 1962 to 1965 he was a Labour councillor in Westminster. In the House of Commons he joined the Tribune Group of MPs and helped to formulate its policy for economic growth, which was summarised in the pamphlet Beyond the Freeze. He took a keen interest in foreign affairs and was a very active constituency MP.
He contributed to policy documents on British entry into Europe and put forward a leftwing economic and financial policy that was an alternative to the one pursued by Roy Jenkins, chancellor of the exchequer at the time. He was opposed to so-called stop-go policies. As a fellow member of the Tribune Group, I agreed with him on most of these issues and put forward similar ideas.
After losing his seat, he became assistant director of manpower for the National Freight Corporation and thereafter assistant director, then director of manpower at the National Water Council. From 1983 to 1991, he worked as chief personnel officer to the Agricultural and Food Research Council and, in 1991, was appointed OBE.
James retained his interest in politics throughout his life and was selected, in 1978, as the Labour parliamentary candidate for Newham North East, which would have been a safe seat. However, he resigned the candidature before the election of 1979. He remained active on the left to the end, nonetheless, and served on the executive committee of Labour Action for Peace. He was also a school governor. However, he left the Labour party after the outbreak of war with Iraq.
He is survived by his second wife, Carolyn, and four stepsons.