42 Facts About Jack Dormand

John Donkin Dormand, Baron Dormand of Easington was a British educationist and Labour Party politician from the coal mining area of Easington in County Durham, in the north-east of England.

Jack Dormand was Member of Parliament for the Easington constituency from 1970 until his retirement in 1987.

Jack Dormand never achieved ministerial office, but as a skilled administrator he played a significant role as a government whip in the 1970s, and as Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party when the party was in opposition in the 1980s.

Jack Dormand was born near Easington in 1919 at the workingmen's club in the village of Haswell, when his father Bernard, a former miner, was steward.

Jack Dormand stayed with the NCB for only two years before returning to Durham to be Further Education organiser; from 1963 to 1970 he was Director of Education for Easington Rural District Council.

Jack Dormand was the President of the Easington branch of the National Union of Teachers.

Jack Dormand had been a member of the Labour Party since the age of 18.

Jack Dormand was elected to Haswell parish council at the age of 26, and at 30 to Easington rural district council.

Jack Dormand, who had been secretary of the Easington Constituency Labour Party throughout the 1960s and Shinwell's presumed successor, was selected as the new Labour candidate to contest the ultra-safe seat.

Jack Dormand opposed Britain's membership of the European Economic Community, and at the time of the referendum on EEC membership in 1975 he was an advocate for the United Kingdom leaving the EEC and rejoining the European Free Trade Association.

Jack Dormand later described himself as "a republican for as long as I can remember having an interest in politics" and was a long-serving secretary of the all-party Parliamentary republican group.

Jack Dormand spoke out in opposition to the monarchy, declaring in 1971 that "the whole of the royal establishment from the Queen downwards could go, lock stock and barrel tomorrow".

Jack Dormand extended his criticism to the hereditary peerage in February 1973.

Labour was returned to government at the February 1974 general election, and Jack Dormand was appointed as an assistant government whip under Bob Mellish.

The post of a Whip normally required silence in the chamber of the House of Commons, but in February 1976 Jack Dormand was involved in a difficult situation which required him to give an explanation.

Jack Dormand was appointed as one of the tellers to count the vote, but both he and his Conservative opposite number miscounted and lost the true count.

When James Callaghan succeeded Wilson as Prime Minister in 1976, Mellish resigned and was replaced by Michael Cocks, and Jack Dormand was promoted within the Whip's office to be the pairing whip, a job which involved co-ordinating agreed absences by MPs from one party with those of another so that the outcome of parliamentary votes is not affected.

The role of the pairing whip remained a crucial one as the government's slim majority turned to a minority through defeats at by-elections, and Jack Dormand was credited with a central role in helping the government stay in office, telling Wilson that he was too "bloody knackered at the end of the day" to record the events surrounding the late-night votes.

In January 1978 Jack Dormand was named in a report by the Serjeant-at-Arms as having assisted in blocking one of the Division lobbies in an attempt to prevent a vote on part of the Government's legislation to devolve power to Scotland.

In July 1977, Jack Dormand voted against the European Assembly Elections Bill which brought in direct elections to the European Parliament.

When Labour lost the 1979 general election, Jack Dormand served for two years as an opposition whip.

Jack Dormand was an active opposition frontbencher who was particularly vocal in criticising the effects of the Thatcher government's economic policy on the manufacturing industry of the Northern region: in June 1980 he said that the policies were "crucifying" the region and it was "becoming a scene of devastation".

Jack Dormand specifically called on Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Geoffrey Howe to abandon monetarism.

In October 1981, Jack Dormand stood for the vacant position of Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, supported by the centre-Right Manifesto Group of Labour MPs.

The strength of the left-wing in the Constituency Labour Parties at the time had spurred the Manifesto group to improve its organisation, and Jack Dormand defeated the main challenger, left-wing MP Ian Mikardo by 102 votes to 65, and Mikardo then withdrew.

Jack Dormand held the chairmanship until he retired from the House of Commons in 1987.

Jack Dormand had a difficult job in trying to unite a fractious Parliamentary party at a time when the Labour Party was growing unpopular.

In November 1982, amidst rumours that a majority of Labour MPs wanted to replace party leader Michael Foot, Jack Dormand gave a radio interview insisting that "I have absolutely no doubt whatever that the vast majority think that Michael Foot is the man for the job at the moment, and will take us into the next general election".

Weatherill had been an opposition whip when Jack Dormand had been working in the Government whip's office in the late 1970s, but had not been appointed to the Thatcher government; in supporting him, Jack Dormand pointed out to Labour cheers that Weatherill "is his own man" and would "ensure that the rights of backbenchers were safeguarded".

Jack Dormand accused the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of washing her hands of the dispute like "Pontius Pilate".

Labour leader Neil Kinnock was expected to ask him to be government chief whip if Labour won the 1987 general election, but Jack Dormand thought it right to retire at the age of 67.

Jack Dormand was appointed as deputy chairman of the Teesside Development Corporation, whose 12,000 acres of de-industrialised land included part of his former constituency.

Jack Dormand was a member of the select committee on committee structure of the House of Lords and its chairman at the end of 1991, and later became Labour Peer's Representative on the Shadow Cabinet.

Jack Dormand had been brought up a Christian, an allegiance which continued into adulthood, when he sat on the parochial church council.

Jack Dormand described his adoption of atheism as the result of "some years of very considerable thought", and once freed from the fear of offending religious constituents, his atheism became more outspoken in the Lords; in July 2000 he called for the disestablishment of the Church of England.

Jack Dormand helped form the All Party Humanist Group, and became vice-president of the British Humanist Association.

Jack Dormand continued to live in Easington after leaving the Commons, but moved in 1991 to Clipsham, Rutland, to be closer to the House of Lords.

Jack Dormand described the move as "traumatic", but remained active in the Lords until his death, pursuing his interests in education and continuing his opposition to the monarchy.

Jack Dormand recovered from a double heart bypass in 2001, and received an honorary doctorate of letters in July 2003 from Loughborough University.

Jack Dormand went into hospital in Peterborough four days later, and died on 18 December 2003, aged 84.

In 1963, Jack Dormand married Doris Robinson, a former teacher who survived him.

Jack Dormand had one stepson, and one stepdaughter from Doris's previous marriage.