Obituary: Joe Ashton, MP and author

He won Bassetlaw in a by-election in 1968 with a 740 majority. It had been a Labour seat since the 1920s and remained so under Ashton, but when he took it over, the unpopularity of Harold Wilson had reduced it to a marginal.

In Ashton’s last election, four years before his retirement in 2001, his majority was 17,460.

His childhood was tough and poverty-stricken, but he passed his 11-plus and gained a place at High Storrs Grammar. After national service with the RAF, he became an engineer with the Sheffield firm, Davy United.

In 1962, before moving on to the national political stage, he became a Sheffield councillor, but by the late 1970s he was a junior minister in the government of James Callaghan. He had also become a lifelong friend of Tony Benn after becoming his aide – or “minder” as Joe called it.

Alongside his parliamentary career, he wrote three books. His first, Grass Roots, was published in 1977 and two years later he joined the Daily Star as a regular contributor and was named columnist of the year in Granada TV’s What the Papers Say awards.

The title of his twice-weekly column, Voice of the People, stuck with him through his career and he was well known for his Northern bluntness and ability to explain politics in an engaging and concise way.

His play, A Majority Of One, premiered at the Nottingham Playhouse in 1980 and was an inspiration for the recent stage play, This House.

In the 1980s he was a regular on the breakfast television station TV-AM and was happy to take the early 6.30am slot, believing that it was when his constituents were most likely to be up and watching.

Meanwhile, his lifelong passion for Sheffield Wednesday saw him serve for nine years as a director.

On his 30th anniversary in Parliament he was given the honour of speaking in the Commons after the Queen’s Speech.

He referenced the opening scene of the film The Full Monty, set in a canal. “That scene was shot at Bacon Lane bridge in Attercliffe, 200 yards from where I was born and 300 yards from where I started work at the age of 15,” he said.

In 2007 he received an OBE for setting up the Association of Former MPs with parliamentary backing.

He and his late wife, Maggie, were married for 57 years and they leave a daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren.