Tony Lloyd

Sir Anthony Joseph Lloyd (25 February 1950 – 17 January 2024) was a British Labour politician. He served as a member of Parliament (MP) for 36 years, making him one of the longest-serving MPs in recent history. He served as the MP for Stretford from 1983 to 1997, Manchester Central from 1997 to 2012, and represented Rochdale from 2017 until his death in 2024. He was Greater Manchester Police and Crime Commissioner between 2012 and 2017 and served as the interim Mayor of Greater Manchester in his last two years in the role.

Born in Stretford, Lloyd served as a Trafford councillor from 1979 to 1984. In 1983 he was elected MP for Stretford, representing the constituency until it was abolished in 1997, at which time he was elected for Manchester Central. As an MP, Lloyd was an opposition spokesman between 1987 and 1997, a minister of state in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office between 1997 and 1999, and Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party from 2006 to 2012.

Lloyd continued as a constituency MP until October 2012, when he stepped down to contest the 2012 police and crime commissioner elections for the Greater Manchester Police area. but lost the nomination to Andy Burnham before being elected as MP for Rochdale in 2017.

Lloyd served as Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland between 2018 and 2020, resigning to recover from his illness of COVID-19. He was also Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland between 2019 and 2020. In 2011, the Manchester Evening News listed Lloyd among its 250 Most Influential People in Greater Manchester, describing him as "a major figure on Labour politics in Greater Manchester", and "the most powerful man in Greater Manchester" on his election as police and crime commissioner in 2012. In a directory of MPs produced by The Guardian, Andrew Roth described Lloyd as "well informed, thoughtful and realistic regionalist and internationalist".

Childhood Lloyd was born in Stretford on 25 February 1950, the fourth of five children of Sydney Lloyd and his wife, Cecily (née Boatte). He was raised in Stretford, before he progressed to Stretford Grammar School for Boys. He excelled in his studies, earning high grades and receiving several academic awards. Beyond the classroom, Lloyd was a choir boy and participated in the 17th Stretford (1st Lostock) Scout group as a Cub and St Bride’s in Old Trafford.

After graduation, Lloyd spent time in Leicester, training as a cost accountant for a shoe machinery company. In 1973, he met Judith, whom he married the following year. The couple settled in Stretford, where Lloyd pursued an MBA at Manchester Business School. He went on to become a lecturer in business administration at the University of Salford. Lloyd's breakthrough came when he was first elected to public office when he stood as a Labour Party candidate in the 1979 Trafford Council election, winning a seat on Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council representing the Clifford ward on 4May 1979 (the day Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom). The constituency previously held by Winston Churchill Jr. In his maiden speech, he highlighted the challenges facing his constituency, notably 40% unemployment in Moss Side. An independent Inquiry later exonerated Lloyd of any wrongdoing. When he unseated Clwyd, the feud between Blair and Gordon Brown was much reported and Labour advisor Jonathan Powell wrote that Lloyd was a key member of Brown's "team of henchmen on the Labour backbenches to oppose Tony [Blair]". Lloyd was a Member of the North West Regional Select Committee from 4March 2009 to 11 May 2010.

Lloyd voted for Bryan Gould and John Prescott respectively in the Labour Party leadership elections of 1992 and 1994. Although the TheyWorkForYou political activities website declares that Lloyd "hardly ever rebels",

Lloyd was strongly in favour of and voted for the reform of the House of Lords, the Identity Cards Act 2006, and the expansion of London Heathrow Airport. Lloyd supported the bid for a proposed supercasino for East Manchester, and was furious with the House of Lords and Gordon Brown for axing the scheme, adding it was "grossly unfair and outrageous" and that "those who kicked it into touch deprived a community with one of the highest levels of unemployment the opportunity to access well paid jobs and proper training". He supported the proposed Greater Manchester congestion charge, and campaigned in its favour in the 2008 referendum on the Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund, which was "overwhelmingly rejected" by voters.

Lloyd was the leader of the British delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and one of its vice-presidents, a leader of the British delegation to the Western European Union, and leader of the British delegation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). He was head of the OSCE at a time when it was monitoring the 2010 Belarusian presidential election, which it denounced as fraudulent; Lloyd said the "election failed to give Belarus the new start it needed", adding "the people of Belarus deserved better".

Lloyd contributed chapters about John Robert Clynes and George Kelley, Labour members of Parliament for Manchester elected in 1906, to Men Who Made Labour, edited by Alan Haworth and Diane Hayter, and contributed a piece on the future of the Labour Party in the 2011 book What Next for Labour? Ideas for a new generation.

Police and Crime Commissioner

Lloyd was described by Andrew Roth of The Guardian as a "realistic regionalist"; Lloyd said he was willing to leave the Manchester Central constituencya Labour safe seat for the PCC role because in "all the years I have been a MP, one of the abiding issues that people raised with me was fear of crime". The resulting 2012 Manchester Central by-election was scheduled for the same November polling day. In the 2012 Police and Crime Commissioner elections, Lloyd was elected as the inaugural Greater Manchester Police and Crime Commissioner, winning with 139,437 votes, a share of 51.23% and approximately 7% of the electorate, prompting the Manchester Evening News to quip that he had become "the most powerful man in Greater Manchester". On hearing the news that Lloyd had won the election, Fahy said "one of the key roles of the PCC was negotiating and influencing the other local authorities, the health service, businesses and other organisations... We will be expecting him to fight for GMP at a national level with the Home Office over resourcing and changes to legislation".

The plan outlined Lloyd's vision "for all of us in Greater Manchester to work together to build the safest communities in Britain".

Interim Mayor for Greater Manchester Lloyd was appointed interim Mayor for Greater Manchester on 29 May 2015. He subsequently announced that he would be running to become the Labour Party's candidate for the 2017 Greater Manchester mayoral elections on 11 February 2016. Lloyd was elected with a majority of 14,819.

On 3 July 2017, Lloyd was appointed by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as a Shadow Housing Minister. On 23 March 2018, Lloyd became Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, replacing the sacked Owen Smith. Lloyd has previously campaigned as an MP against the Royal Ulster Constabulary’s use of rubber bullets. In an interview in The House magazine, Lloyd said the role was "more satisfactory" than others, remembering that "years back I was the shadow transport minister and frankly I don’t imagine that anyone remembers anything I said, including me. Whereas there is something more real about the Northern Ireland role because you can be an advocate." Upon Sir Keir Starmer's election as Labour leader in spring 2020, Lloyd was replaced in this post by Ian Murray but continued as Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Louise Haigh replaced him on an interim basis in April 2020 after he was admitted to hospital with coronavirus.

Following his discharge from Manchester Royal Infirmary Lloyd stood down from his front bench role to concentrate on his recovery from COVID-19, but vowed to continue his work as a constituency MP. Lloyd had spent 25 days in hospital, including 10 days in intensive care.

Lloyd was knighted in the 2021 Birthday Honours for public service.

His 2024 new year message in the Rochdale Observer, published four days before his death, covered events in Gaza, staff morale in the NHS, climate change and heaped praise on Rochdale’s sixth form colleges. In the last weeks before Christmas in the Commons, he spoke on arms exports to Israel, on Rwanda, and his concerns about private renting and the use of pre-payment meters. As a supporter of Manchester United, in March 2011 he tabled an early day motion in the House of Commons for their player Ryan Giggs to be knighted.

Illness and death In January 2023, Lloyd revealed that he was undergoing chemotherapy after a recent cancer diagnosis. He said he would not attend Parliament or attend face-to-face functions under medical advice to socially isolate and avoid meetings.

In January 2024, Lloyd announced that he had chosen to end hospital treatment, following his cancer developing into an "aggressive and untreatable leukaemia". On 17 January, he died in the early morning at his home in Manchester, as a result of his illness. He was 73.

Tributes Tributes were paid to Lloyd in the House of Commons on 23 January. Keir Starmer said, "always had the time for the little things that matter so much to Members of this House—a friendly word and some encouragement, with that twinkle in his eye that everybody who has ever met him knows and will remember." Rishi Sunak, then Prime Minister, said, "Tony and I of course came from different political traditions, but I deeply respected him as a man of great integrity, compassion and humour, a gentle, but fierce advocate for his constituents and his values, and a dedicated parliamentarian."

Salford MP Rebecca Long Bailey first knew Lloyd from the age of five, when her father, a trade unionist, frequently met with him. In her tribute, she recalled that Lloyd’s real and unending love was for his family. “At the age of five, in Stretford, he was my first ever MP, although I did not know that at the time,” she said. “I was running around his and his wife Judith’s house, driving everyone mad playing She-Ra: Princess of Power with his daughter Siobhan, who was my friend at school. We were usually having a row about who would be in the role of She-Ra that day, causing Tony or Judith to have to come and sort out the problem diplomatically.” She remembered a house and family full of love and warmth, and a family who often supported her own. It was only years later that she came to understand what Lloyd actually did for a living, a realisation that made a lasting impression. Long Bailey noted that, growing up, there was often a perception that MPs came from a different class and that people from backgrounds like hers could not enter politics. “But Tony was different. He was one of us, a man of the people, and a proud member and supporter of the Irish diaspora in Manchester. He gave me the courage to believe that if he had become an MP and could serve to help people, then maybe—just maybe—people like me could do it, too.”

Andrew Western, MP for Stretford and Urmston, said Lloyd "made frequent visits to the campaign trail, was often recognised by local residents and his time as an MP remembered favourably. What was all the more remarkable was the fact that he often recognised those residents too, some 25 years after he had ceased to be the MP for Stretford."

Dawn Butler recalled that Lloyd was supportive when she first came to Parliament in 2005. "He said that if I ever had any questions I could always ask him, no matter how silly those questions were, and I have passed that on to new MPs that come in. I always say, “If you have a silly question, ask me. It’s okay”, because I remember how Tony made me feel when he said that."