Member of Parliament
Having been Liberal candidate in Rochdale at the 1970 general election when he took the party to second place, Smith won the seat at the 1972 by-election with a large swing from Labour to the Liberals, and a majority of 5,171. He won the seat on five further occasions. In June 1975 he was appointed the Liberals' Chief Whip and faced much pressure from the press in the wake of a scandal involving party leader Jeremy Thorpe. Smith was in hospital when Thorpe sacked him just before being forced to resign. Speaking to Granada Television in 2003, David Steel reflected on events in the 1970s with the conclusion: "Cyril was not an ideal Chief Whip because he did not handle a crisis well and had a tendency to say anything to a news camera." He was the only Liberal MP during his parliamentary career to oppose abortion and advocate the return of the death penalty.
In 1978 Smith approached former Conservative Prime Minister Ted Heath to discuss forming a new centre party. In 1981 he was involved in moves to create "a party with a new image" but, according to the Rochdale Observer, at the foundation of the SDP in 1981 he warned Liberal Party colleagues to move with caution. He was quoted as being "opposed to an alliance at any price".
In 2008 the New Statesman accused him of improper conduct in his connection with Turner and Newall (T&N), once the world's largest manufacturer of asbestos, which was based in his constituency. In the summer recess of 1981, Smith wrote to Sydney Marks, head of personnel at T&N, informing him that EEC regulations were coming up for debate in the next parliamentary session. A House of Commons speech he delivered was almost identical to one prepared for him by the company. "The public at large are not at risk" he said in his speech of a substance then long known as lethal if inhaled. A year later Smith revealed he owned 1,300 shares in the company. Interviewed in September 2008 by the BBC's local news programme, he responded to the claims he had helped cover up the dangers of asbestos as "absolute rubbish".
In November 2008 a parliamentary Early Day Motion and Kevin Maguire of the Daily Mirror called for Smith to be stripped of the knighthood he had been granted in 1988.
Read more about this topic: Cyril Smith
Famous quotes containing the words member of, member and/or parliament:
“I cannot be indifferent to the assassination of a member of my profession, We should be obliged to shut up business if we, the Kings, were to consider the assassination of Kings as of no consequence at all.”
—Edward VII (1841–1910)
“It was a maxim with Mr. Brass that the habit of paying compliments kept a man’s tongue oiled without any expense; and that, as that useful member ought never to grow rusty or creak in turning on its hinges in the case of a practitioner of the law, in whom it should be always glib and easy, he lost few opportunities of improving himself by the utterance of handsome speeches and eulogistic expressions”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“What is the historical function of Parliament in this country? It is to prevent the Government from governing.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)