John Thompson (UK politician)

John Thompson DL (27 August 1928 – 21 July 2011), known as Jack Thompson, was a British Labour Party politician - the Member of Parliament for Wansbeck from 1983 to 1997. Thompson had a lasting achievement to thwart a plan for a nuclear power station on the long and sandy Druridge Bay, east of Widdrington in the county, one of the leading beaches of Northumberland.

Jack Thompson was the son of a clerk. After leaving Bothal School he worked at a local coal mine, completing his education at Ashington Mining College. He became an electrical engineer, and shift charge engineer at Ellington Colliery.

Thompson was an undemonstrative leftwinger, described by one of the Conservative candidates he defeated as an “absolute gentleman” and became a party whip for seven years.

He joined the Labour Party in 1960, and from 1965 was secretary/agent in his constituency. He was elected to Newbiggin council in 1970, and Wansbeck Council which incorporated it in 1974; the same year he became a county councillor. In 1978 he was elected leader of Northumberland County Council Labour group, and when the party took control in 1981 he became council leader, implementing many changes and increasing its effectiveness.

Thompson saw the Druridge Bay project as a threat to the environment as well as to the coal industry, and was alarmed that a pressurised water reactor — which he considered unsafe — was under consideration by the Central Electricity Generating Board. He therefore persuaded the council to campaign against PWRs as such. It was 1987 before he secured a promise from Lord Marshall, chairman of the CEGB, that there would not be a PWR at Druridge Bay; even then he was unconvinced.

When the Wansbeck constituency was created at the 1983 election George Grant, MP for Morpeth, had a better claim as Morpeth forms its largest town, but stood down through ill health: this prompted Thompson to a successful nomination, upon which he planned to resign as council leader if elected the new MP. He accomplished this on being elected with 47% of local support in a three-party contest, bolstered by sponsorship from the mineworkers’ union.

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