Jimmy Hood, long-serving Labour MP for Clydesdale – obituary

Jimmy Hood, who has died aged 69, was a rumbustious NUM official in Nottinghamshire during the strike of 1984-85 who went on to serve for 28 years as Labour MP for Clydesdale (later Lanark and East Hamilton), becoming an effective and surprisingly low-key scrutineer of European legislation.

The burly Hood earned a reputation for toughness by decking a union colleague who had been drinking with his wife. But he was basically good-natured, and conscientious in representing his members and constituents. A working-class rarity in a party increasingly estranged from its roots, Hood sponsored John Prescott’s 1988 campaign against Roy Hattersley for the deputy leadership.

As a strike leader in a coalfield where most miners stayed at work, Hood was regarded as a Scargillite militant. Yet while he was deeply committed to the industry and his class, he turned out at Westminster to be devoid of envy...