Joseph Kevin McNamaraKCSG (5 September 1934 – 6 August 2017) was a British Labour politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for almost 40 years.[1]
McNamara retained his seat at the 1966 general election, and at subsequent elections until the constituency was abolished for the February 1974 general election, when he transferred to the new Kingston upon Hull Central constituency. When that constituency was abolished for the 1983 election, McNamara was re-elected for the re-created Kingston upon Hull North constituency.[3]
During the 2005 general election campaign McNamara claimed some of the policies regarding illegal travellers' sites of the leader of the Conservative Party, Michael Howard had a "whiff of the gas chambers" about them.[4] Howard's grandmother was murdered at Auschwitz.[5]
After Tony Blair became Labour leader, he replaced McNamara as Northern Ireland spokesman with Mo Mowlam.[8] In 1997, he helped persuade the newly elected Labour government to donate £5,000 (thereby matching the contribution of the Irish government) for the erection of a memorial in Liverpool to the victims of the Great Irish Famine.[9]
In 2006, McNamara received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Hull in recognition of his long service in politics.[13] He graduated with a PhD from the University of Liverpool in 2007 having completed a thesis on the MacBride Principles[14] at the Institute of Irish Studies, where he gave the 2008 John Kennedy Lecture in Irish Studies, Perhaps It Will All Go Away – Aspects of British Labour Policy Towards Northern Ireland, 1964 – 1970.[15]
Illness and death
In 2017, McNamara was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer while on holiday in Spain. On 6 August, it was reported that he had died at his home in Formby, Merseyside, aged 82.[16]
