23 Facts About Dick Leonard

Richard Lawrence Leonard was a British writer, journalist and Labour politician who served as Member of Parliament for Romford from 1970 to 1974.

Dick Leonard was a pro-European social democrat and had been a supporter of the late Labour foreign secretary Anthony Crosland, who championed Gaitskellism.

Dick Leonard worked as a school teacher from 1953 to 1955, and from 1960 to 1968 as a journalist and broadcaster.

Dick Leonard joined the Labour Party as a teenager in 1945.

Dick Leonard was Deputy General Secretary of the Fabian Society, a Labour-affiliated think tank, from 1955 to 1960, and founded the organisation's youth wing, the Young Fabians, in 1960.

Dick Leonard became a member of the executive committee of the Fabian Society in 1972, serving until 1980.

Dick Leonard was the Society's chairman from 1977 to 1978.

Dick Leonard first stood for Parliament in 1955, when he contested Harrow West for Labour, a constituency which included his native Pinner.

Dick Leonard was a member of the Speaker's Conference on Electoral Law from 1972 to 1974.

Dick Leonard was strongly in favour of entry to the European Economic Community, and unlike Crosland he was one of 69 Labour rebels who defied the party's three-line whip to vote in favour of the Conservative Government's application to join the EEC in October 1971.

Dick Leonard stood down at the subsequent February 1974 general election, when there were major changes made to his constituency boundaries, which saw Romford gained by the Conservatives even as Labour was returned to power.

Dick Leonard was a trustee for the Association of London Housing Estates from 1973 to 1978, and from 1978 to 1981, Chairman of the Library Advisory Council.

Dick Leonard served as the Brussels and European Union correspondent in Brussels for The Observer from 1989 to 1997.

Dick Leonard was the Brussels correspondent for Europe magazine from 1992 to 2003.

Dick Leonard remained in Brussels until 2009, and wrote on Belgian politics in The Bulletin.

Dick Leonard wrote on European affairs in The Guardian, the Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement and European Voice.

Dick Leonard had contributed to Prospect magazine, and leading newspapers in the US, Canada, Japan, India, Australia and New Zealand.

Dick Leonard was a visiting professor at the Free University of Brussels from 1988 to 1996, and a Senior Adviser at the Centre for European Policy Studies from 1994 to 1999.

Dick Leonard remained a loyal right-winger within the Labour Party throughout the 1970s, an association that survived Crosland's untimely death in 1977.

Dick Leonard is a scholar of postwar German literature, and the couple had two children: Mark Leonard, an expert on foreign policy, and Miriam Leonard, a classical scholar.

Dick Leonard lived in Camden, north west London, and listed his recreations as "walking, book-reviewing, family pursuits".

Dick Leonard died in June 2021 at the age of 90 and is buried on the eastern side of Highgate Cemetery.

Dick Leonard had written or co-authored a number of books on contemporary and historical British politics, particularly focusing on Britain's prime ministers.