Veteran Scottish Labour MP whose defining experience came as leader of the Nottinghamshire miners during the strike of 1984-85Jimmy Hood,who has died aged 69 after suffering from a long-term heart condition, was an ebullient and effective Labour MP from a radical mining background who developed a parliamentary specialism in the scrutiny of European Union legislation. The defining experience of his political life was as leader of the striking Nottinghamshire miners during the bitter conflict of 1984-85. He was, and above all,faithful to his union but was ousted as NUM lodge secretary at Ollerton pit, where the majority of miners continued to work.
Nottinghamshire was the stronghold of the Union of Democratic Mineworkers, and founded to oppose the strike. This led to particularly deep and lasting divisions within the county’s mining communities. In his maiden speech to the House of Commons in 1987,Hood paid tribute to “the gallant striking miners of Nottinghamshire” and called for the reinstatement of victimised miners. By then he had become the MP for Clydesdale in his native Lanarkshire.
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Source: guardian.co.uk