Tributes to Sir Tony Lloyd

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

When we have the sad duty to pay tribute to hon. or right hon. Members, it is often the case that the facts get gilded, in a sense, to help the family. There is absolutely no need to embellish the facts when it comes to Tony. Quite simply, Tony was a decent man, who dedicated his life to public service.

Tony was first elected to Trafford Council on the same day that Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister, which meant that his first 18 years as an elected representative were probably more difficult than most people’s first 18 years. He very soon, four years after he had been elected as a councillor, became the Member of Parliament for Stretford, and I want to mention two things about that. It meant that he represented Manchester United and Manchester City—both grounds were in that constituency—and Tony, who was fair with all his constituents all his life, was I suspect not completely even-handed between the Reds and the Blues at Manchester. He was delighted to go into the directors’ box at Old Trafford, and I think the last early-day motion he put down was a very good tribute to Bobby Charlton when he passed away recently. One of the sadnesses of Tony passing is that he campaigned against, and led a debate in Westminster Hall on, the Glazers’ parasitic ownership of Manchester United, and as the Glazers are on the way out, I think Tony would have been delighted to see their demise.

When Tony became the MP for Stretford, which included Moss Side, I became leader of the council shortly afterwards, and we both had to deal with many of the problems that there were in Moss Side at that time. I think it would be fair to say that Tony worked tirelessly to improve the relationships between the different communities and the public services in Moss Side, because we were still in the aftermath of the 1981 riots in Moss Side. I think it is also fair to say—he took this into his job later as police and crime commissioner—that he was not a supporter of James Anderton’s rather brutal tactics in Moss Side, and he saw it as part of his job to improve relations between the communities, not to make them worse.

Tony took a similar attitude when he moved to Manchester Central. Although he loved representing Manchester United, he was always the political realist, and he could see that there was likely to be a much larger majority in Manchester Central than there was in Stretford, so he moved to Manchester Central. Again, he had a difficult ward in Cheetham, and he dedicated his time to improving relations in that ward. He never said this to me directly, but I think it was his experience of seeing the damage that poor policing could do that motivated him to become the police and crime commissioner for Greater Manchester.

In some ways more importantly, Tony was the first non-elected mayor for Greater Manchester to use those skills of bringing communities together in bringing the 10 local authorities of Greater Manchester together. Greater Manchester has a reputation for the authorities working together, but that does not just happen on its own. Authorities are often jealous of each other, leaders of councils are jealous of Members of Parliament and they are certainly jealous of mayors, elected or not, and Tony used his skills to bring people together.

Tony was calm, which does not mean he always toed the party line: on Iraq and Trident, for instance, I was pleased to walk through the Lobby with him. He did not agree with the current Labour party policy on the middle east, but again it was done in a calm and thoughtful way. And when the war memorial in Rochdale was desecrated with pro-Palestinian, anti-British Government writing and by people chanting racist, antisemitic slogans, Tony was the first person to call it out.

This House, the people of Rochdale and the people of Greater Manchester will greatly miss Tony’s contribution to our political life.