Joseph William Ashton was a British Labour Party politician who was the MP for Bassetlaw from 1968 to 2001.
12 Facts About Joe Ashton
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Joe Ashton was an engineer, and entered electoral politics when he was elected to Sheffield City Council in 1962.
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Joe Ashton was first elected as the Member of Parliament for Bassetlaw in a by-election in 1968, when he struggled to hold the seat at a time when the government of Harold Wilson was unpopular.
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Joe Ashton had just been awarded the Freedom of Worksop two days before his death.
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Joe Ashton argued that the Labour government's approach, which included redundancy payments to miners over the age of 55, was better than the terms of the Conservatives when they were in power.
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Joe Ashton was associated with the party's left early in his career, but gradually moved away over time.
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In 1977, Joe Ashton published Grass Roots, a novel about a tough steelworker who becomes a rebellious Labour MP.
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Harold Wilson 8.
Joe Ashton was interviewed voluntarily and not accused of committing any offence.
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Joe Ashton was interviewed in 2012 as part of The History of Parliament's oral history project.
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Joe Ashton published two volumes of memoirs in 2010 and 2014.
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In 1957, Joe Ashton married Maggie Lee; they were married until her death in 2015, and had one daughter.
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Joe Ashton died from dementia at a care home in Sheffield on 30 March 2020, at the age of 86.