Talk:Bob Mellish

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Mellish joined SDP

Are you sure about this? He doesn't seem to have been an SDP type to me. He was on the right of the Labour Party, but in an Old-old labour way, not a liberal way. Flagboy 23:55, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The first external link, the obit by Tam Dalyell, claims that he joined the SDP but regretted it. Mtiedemann 09:33, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A story was told in the old days about a labourer who had gone to Mellish with a work related issue. Mellish was furious, and set off immediately to give the employer, whom he knew well, a dressing down. The employer was duly abashed, and promised generous redress - in some versions, actually delivered it personally. A few weeks later they met in the street. "You know, Bob" the employer said "after you came round and it put it right for that bloke, he was very grateful". " He didn't have to be grateful", said Mellish "it was his right". "Sure enough", said the employer, "But I checked up later, out of curiousity. He doesn't work for me".Delahays (talk) 16:49, 2 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Party affiliation

The infobox had him in the Liberal Democrats from 1986 to his death, but the Lib Dems did not exist until the Liberals merged with the majority of SDP in 1988 so this is impossible. The article seems clear that he joined the SDP in 1986 so I have changed the party details in the info box to have him as a Lib Dem from 1988 and SDP 1986 to 1988. However I also noted that he ceased to be a Labour Party in 1982, not 1986 as the infobox implied. The article suggests he was an Independent when he first went to the House of Lords in 1985 and sat as a Independent in Parliament in 1982 after resigning from Labour. As he campaigned against the official Labour candidate in the 1983 Bermondsey by-election and supported the Real Bermondsey Labour candidate John O'Grady, I am assuming he would not have been readmitted to Labour prior to his joining the SDP and have therefore noted he was Labour prior 1982 and an Independent 1982-1986 as this would seem to be what the article and available evidence suggests. Dunarc (talk) 23:42, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mellish sat as an Independent Labour peer throughout his time as an active member of the Lords. He sat on the Labour benches, usually voted with them and (presumably when in a good mood) would sometimes refer to Labour peers as 'honourable friends', at least if he liked them. If he was ever a member of the SDP it can only have been during the window between his resignation as an MP and his appointment to the Lords, but it's more likely that Dalyell was confused on that point (there had certainly been speculation in the early 1980s that he might join them). Dalyell's obituaries are fantastic as character studies, but he tended to work from memory and sometimes details falter. In addition, Mellish does not appear on any of the lists in Crewe and King's book on the SDP. He was certainly never a member of the Liberal Democrats and made rude remarks at their expense on several occasions in Lords debates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.212.163.17 (talk) 00:09, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"I have never been an anti-racialist"

Is there a better source for this quote than Mark Steel? He's not exactly an unbiased source when it comes to an old-school right-wing Labour man such as Mellish, is he? Indeed he's not even a credible source. In the very next paragraph he states Mellish and John O'Grady toured Bermondsey singing an anti-Tatchell song; O'Grady certainly did, but I don't know of any evidence Mellish did. FieldOfWheat (talk) 08:05, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]