Duffy was born in Wigan, Lancashire on 17 June 1920, to Irish Catholic immigrant parents James and Margaret Duffy, who were both from the village of Raith, near Aghamore in County Mayo.[3] James and his father, who was also named Patrick, moved to England as migrant agricultural workers in the late 19th and early 20th century. James worked as a miner in Wigan's Maypole pit, before moving with his family to the mining village of Rossington near Doncaster in South Yorkshire in 1925. As of 2024[update], the younger Patrick still lives in Doncaster.[4]
Duffy served in the Fleet Air Arm in World War II.[5] After his plane crashed near Scapa Flow in Orkney, Duffy, still in his early 20s, was given the last rites by a priest; however, despite being registered as 100% disabled, he was successfully treated by the pioneering surgion Harold Gillies and left the forces in 1946 with the rank of Commanding Officer at the Naval School of Air Radar.[4][6][7]
Duffy first contested the Parliamentary seat of Tiverton in 1950, when he was completing his studies at the LSE, before he took students – including his future Labour colleague Shirley Catlin, who went on to become Baroness Williams – to Columbia University in New York.[9] Despite Tiverton being a safe seat for the Conservative Party, Duffy contested it twice more, in 1951 and 1955, before moving to the more promising seat of Colne Valley, which he won at a by-election in 1963. He held Colne Valley until the 1966 general election, when he was defeated by the LiberalRichard Wainwright, despite the national swing to Labour.[10][11]
Duffy was selected to stand for Sheffield Attercliffe (which had been a safe seat for the Labour Party) at the 1970 general election following a close selection contest with George Caborn, father of future Sheffield MP Richard Caborn.[12] He was consequently elected to represent the constituency in the House of Commons at that general election; Duffy held onto the seat with five-figure majorities at each of the subsequent contests he fought there.[13][14][15][16][17]
Duffy was a "moderate" on the right of the Labour Party, being a staunch pro-European and opponent of unilateral nuclear disarmament. He voted for John Silkin in the 1980 leadership election, rather than Michael Foot, the successful candidate from the party's soft left. During this period, there was an attempt to deselect Duffy, which failed by just five votes.[8] Politically, he has said that he was close to Callaghan, Roy Hattersley, John Smith, and the young Gordon Brown. Despite his earlier pro-European views, Duffy supported the 2016 vote in favour of Britain's departure from the European Union, commenting, "Lifelong Labour supporters, like me, wanted Brexit. Reluctantly and regretfully for me, and I was a Common Marketeer in the 1970s, the creation of the Eurozone made the European Union no longer a practical venture."[7]
Following the death in May 1981 of IRA's Bobby Sands, one of the Irish hunger strikers who starved himself to death in prison, Duffy was the sole member of the British House of Commons to condemn Margaret Thatcher, according to The New York Times.[20] In comments directed at Thatcher, amidst heckles from the Conservative benches (and frowns from his own side, whose official line was to support the Prime Minister's stance), he remarked:
By appearing hard and unfeeling, or firm and determined, you have spectacularly illuminated for growing bodies of opinion in neighbouring and allied countries, whose comments are flowing in hourly, your government's moral bankruptcy and the colossal and criminal incompetence of Conservative governments of all times in their dealings in Ireland.[21]
These comments caused outrage, but led to Duffy receiving 600 letters in support from around the world. Despite this, however, Thatcher later invited Duffy for tea when he was appointed President of the NATO Assembly and the two became friends.[4] "We got on so well that her officials were starting to get nervous that our meeting would never finish," he commented in 2020.[22][7]
Duffy stood down from Parliament at the 1992 general election. In a 2020 interview with Catholic magazine The Tablet, Duffy was quoted ("half in jest", according to the interviewer) on his career as an MP: "I spent 19 and a half of my 25 years in opposition. If I'd known that was how it was going to be at the beginning, I'd never have gone in for it". As of 2020[update], he remains president of the Labour Life Group, in keeping with his pro-life views on abortion. He had hoped to go to the House of Lords upon his retirement, but, according to The Tablet, the then-Leader of the Labour PartyNeil Kinnock was "not a fan" of his.[7]
Outside Parliament
Duffy was president of the North Atlantic Assembly (the parliamentary arm of NATO) during the first-time delegations from the Warsaw Pact nations. In 1991, he served as leader of the first Western parliamentary delegation to the Kremlin, and that year, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, in recognition of his NATO role, becoming entitled to be known as Sir Patrick Duffy for his contribution to the Western Alliance. In 2014, he said "After the Catholic Church and the International Post Office and the International Labour Organisation in Geneva, I don't believe a more impressive international organisation has emerged other than Nato." He was president of the NATO Assembly at a time when the Cold War came to an end in the late 1980s and early 1990s; it was in this capacity that he also had a private audience with Pope John Paul II, on 9 October 1989. It was said that Duffy was a "major force" in bringing the Cold War to an end.[5][6] In 1993, he was made an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by the Dominican University, Illinois.[1]
Duffy also functioned as Deputy Chair of the Atlantic Council of the UK. As of 2017, he served as a member of the Advisory Boards of the Centre of Defence and International Security Studies at Hull University, and the Universities of Lancaster and York Defence Research Institute. He also served as an associate of the Centre for Defence and International Security Studies at Lancaster University, the International Business Institute and Azusa Pacific University, where he served as a guest lecturer during the autumn semester of 2007, and was keynote speaker for Azusa Pacific University's Economic Summit.[6]
Speaking in 2020, Duffy stated that "I've never left Labour and I never will". Aged 100, he was said to be "intrigued" by "the ongoing battle between [Prime Minister] Boris Johnson and [Labour Party leader] Keir Starmer", remarking of the latter that he was "infinitely better than Jeremy Corbyn", Starmer's predecessor as party leader.[7] In 2024, when asked if he was still a Labour supporter, he replied: "Oh yes! More than ever!".[4]
Personal life
In 2014, Duffy published his autobiography, Growing Up Irish in Britain, British in Ireland and in Washington, Moscow, Rome and Sydney.[23] In 2024, he published a second volume, From Wigan to Westminster: Hot Wars, Cold Wars and the Carrier Strike Groups.[24]
A practising Catholic, Duffy completed the El Camino Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage (known as the Way of St. James in English) for six years running whilst in his 80s, which involved him walking 25 km a day for 35 days.[22] He was invested as a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great (KCSG) at the age of 96 in 2017.[25][22] He has never married, though according to Yorkshire Live, "he says he was not short of attractive female company during his many years in office."[26]
Duffy turned 100 on 17 June 2020, and celebrated his birthday at home in Doncaster; he also has a home in County Roscommon in Ireland, where he has spent much of his time.[27] When asked for the secret to his longevity, he said "I never smoked, I never used my ministerial car when I could walk – I never used any such transport when I could avoid doing so – and I read".[28] In December 2020, following the death of his old Parliamentary Labour Party colleague Ronald Atkins, he became the oldest living former MP.[8][2]
