John Lee

John Michael Hubert Lee (13 August 1927 – 14 April 2020) was a Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom.

Biography Lee was born in Bagshot, Surrey, the son of a left-wing mother and "right-wing Liberal" father who worked as a sales manager in the City. As a boy he was influenced by the radical sermons of the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple. He first contested the parliamentary constituency of Reading at the 1964 general election without success, but defeated the Conservative incumbent, Peter Emery, in the 1966 election. He served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Reading until his defeat at the 1970 election. He was subsequently elected MP for Birmingham Handsworth in February 1974, but ongoing illness and a parliamentary trip to the Western Pacific in 1975 that had left him "absolutely shattered" prompted him to stand down at the 1979 election, when he was succeeded by Sheila Wright.

Lee stood broadly on the left of the Labour Party and was a member of the Tribune Group. By this time he had left the Labour Party, resigning in 2005 in protest at its treatment of Walter Wolfgang during that year's party conference.