Tribute to Lord Maxton: 'A man always destined for Parliament'
Lord Maxton: 5 May 1936 – 20 November 2025 | Image courtesy of UK Parliament
4 min read
Skilful trade union negotiator, Labour MP for Glasgow Cathcart, and later a peer, John Maxton put his talents to good use
In his political life, John was keen to follow in the radical footsteps of his uncle, the prominent ‘Red Clydesider’, pacifist and home-ruler, Jimmy Maxton.
Some people actually assumed Jimmy was his father, but his real father – also John – was an Oxford academic, which was why John was educated first at Lord Williams’ Grammar School in Oxfordshire and then at Oxford University where he was a contemporary of Robin Butler who went on to become cabinet secretary.
Robin recalls John fondly – not from the lecture hall but from the many muddy weekends he spent behind him in the rugby scrum.
Uninhibited by his English accent, John entered Scottish Labour politics while simultaneously working as a teacher, first at secondary school and then at Hamilton College, where he became secretary of the lecturers’ trade union, the Association of Lecturers of Colleges of Education in Scotland (ALCES).
It was then that we first met, when I chaired the body dealing with the salaries and conditions of service of teachers. He was an excellent negotiator, and it was immediately clear to me that he was destined for the debating Chamber in Westminster.
His political break eventually came when in 1976 he entered and won the Labour selection contest to fight Glasgow Cathcart, the seat of the Conservative MP Teddy Taylor, then-shadow secretary of state for Scotland.
The selection was hard fought and John only narrowly defeated another left-winger, Bob Gillespie, whose son is Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream fame.
Even then it was expected that Teddy, a doughty campaigner, would hang on, but a brilliant campaign run by John’s agent, Gordon Craig, resulted in a Labour majority of 1,600. This was the only Scottish Labour gain from the Tories at that election, depriving Teddy of becoming the substantive secretary of state.
So, John and I went together to Westminster, where we shared an office, although not the same regime or views.
John was a fitness fanatic, running regularly and working out in the Commons gym every day. He joined the Tribune Group and, with his long unkempt hair, was described as “the wild man of the left”.
During those 18 long years of opposition he worked equally hard in Parliament, first as a Labour whip, where working on the finance bill he shadowed – and became good friends with – John Major.
But his main role came when he became deputy to Donald Dewar, then shadow secretary of state for Scotland.
As a strong devolutionist and a competent chair of committees at Westminster, John had hoped to go to Holyrood as presiding officer, but Dewar ended up cutting a deal with the Liberal Democrats to give it to David Steel, frustrating this ambition.
John was, in the end, one of the many Labour shadow ministers who never became an actual minister, described by Jim Callaghan as “the lost generation”.
Nonetheless, he was a pioneer in many ways. He was one of the first MPs to get a mobile phone, and later would always have a small iPad in his pocket to answer our queries, leading to one waitress affectionately nicknaming him “Mr Google”.
He was also a strong advocate of ID cards, particularly to ease voter identification, and nearly 20 years ago was arguing for a new Parliament building, with Westminster converted into a museum of democracy. If only he had succeeded, we would be in it now.
When he retired from the Commons in 2001, it was a couple of years before he received the merited elevation to the Lords where he continued to use his specialist knowledge and skills serving on the BBC Charter Renewal, Communications and Digital, and Science and Technology committees.
He will be greatly missed – and by none more so than his devoted wife Christine, his sons Jamie, a business executive, Michael, a horticulturalist and Richard, a secondary school deputy head, and his three grandchildren.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock is a Labour and Co-operative peer
