Joe Ashton

Joseph William Ashton (9 October 1933 – 30 March 2020) was a British Labour Party politician who was the MP for Bassetlaw from 1968 to 2001. He took his seat in by-election, winning with a majority of just 1.72%; in his last election before retiring, he won it by a majority of 36.4%.

Early career The final form of his seat in the Commons (which includes Worksop and Retford), the northern quarter of Nottinghamshire near to Sheffield and Doncaster. He held it from 1968 until 2001 Ashton was born and brought up in Sheffield; he attended High Storrs Grammar School and Rotherham Technical College. He was an engineer, and entered electoral politics when he was elected to Sheffield City Council in 1962.

Parliament

Ashton was first elected as the Member of Parliament for Bassetlaw in a by-election in 1968, when he struggled to hold the seat (which had been Labour-held since 1929) at a time when the government of Harold Wilson was unpopular.

Pit closures were an important issue in a seat with a large mining sector vote. Ashton argued that the Labour government's approach, which included redundancy payments to miners over the age of 55, was better than the terms of the Conservatives when they were in power (1951–1964). Ashton was associated with the party's left early in his career, but gradually moved away over time. During his time in parliament, he regularly contributed to newspapers as a columnist. A director of Sheffield Wednesday football club since 1990, he resigned as a director shortly after his presence at the parlour was established.

Following his retirement at the 2001 general election, he was succeeded by John Mann. In 2007, Ashton was appointed an OBE.

Ashton was interviewed in 2012 as part of The History of Parliament's oral history project. His memoir, Red Rose Blues, was published in 2000. He published two volumes of memoirs in 2010 and 2014.

Ashton died from dementia at a care home in Sheffield on 30 March 2020, at the age of 86.