We have been fortunate to have had a number of very good parliamentary candidates over the years, all of whom have tried extremely hard to win our West Kent seats. Several, including Jack Straw, have gone on to play a very significant role in the party. I hope that I am not being unfair in suggesting that Maureen Colquhoun, our candidate in 1970, was perhaps one of the liveliest of those who have sought to win the seat. In 1970 the Tonbridge Division included Tunbridge Wells, its largest town, Tonbridge and Southborough, and was more urban than most Kent seats are today. However, except for the 1956 by-election, when the Tories scraped in with 52.0% of the vote to Labour’s 48.0%, the Conservatives have generally enjoyed a large majority.
In later years Maureen went on to champion access to abortion, the rights of sex workers and the need for gender balance. Unfortunately homophobia meant that she was frequently vilified in the press and the members of Northampton North, the constituency she won in 1974, decided to deselect her. She successfully appealed against deselection but lost the seat in 1979. Labour only regained the seat in 1997 and unfortunately it has been Tory since 2010.
Martin Betts, who campaigned with Maureen, has written the following tribute.
I was saddened today to hear of the death of Maureen Colquhoun, a Shoreham-by-Sea Councillor named ‘Mrs Chatterbox’, a staunch feminist, Labour Candidate for Tonbridge Constituency (then also including Tunbridge Wells) in 1970, going on to be the first openly lesbian MP.
Campaigning in my first General Election Campaign in 1970 I saw the energy and fun that Maureen injected into an election. I recall driving from Tonbridge CLP HQ, Bevan – now Thatcher – House, on Mount Ephraim, around the constituency as part of the ‘Maureen Colquhoun Motorcade’ made up of 22 vehicles.
Maureen headed up the Motorcade, microphone in hand, standing on the back of a Harold Wilson poster bedecked lorry. She spoke to and had good-humoured banter with astonished passers-by. Way down at the end of the motorcade my father drove his Austin 1100, with another loudspeaker in the boot, and George Lott (ex Southborough Councillor) announcing ‘This is the end of the Maureen Colquohoun Motorcade’…. It wasn’t the end of Maureen!
She was relentless in her campaigning despite knowing that she wouldn’t win against a liberal-leaning Tory MP and, funnily enough, the real Liberal ‘Harry Hill’. She went on to be an unsurprisingly controversial and short term MP for Northampton. Unfortunately, the 1970 election saw the Conservatives pull off a surprise victory winning a 4-year term for Edward Heath.
Angela Eagle, also a great champion of LGBT+ issues in the Labour Party, has written an excellent overview of Maureen’s life and achievements