John Leslie (politician)
John Robert Leslie, MP (3 November 1873 – 12 January 1955) was a Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom.
He was born in Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland to John Leslie and Clementina Hunter. Leslie and his wife had 3 sons, John, William and Robert, and two daughters, Clementina and Alice. He moved to London from Edinburgh, where his first son was born, in 1912.
He was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield in County Durham at the 1935 general election, defeating the Conservative Party MP Roland Jennings, who had been elected in 1931. When discussing the 1938 Hire Purchase Act, Leslie made anti-Semitic accusations over the apparent involvement of Jewish people in extortionate hire-purchase agreements: ‘I do not want to raise racial prejudices, but hon. Members can guess his nationality'.[1] John Leslie held the seat until he retired from the House of Commons at the 1950 general election.
References
[edit]- Specific
- ^ Peter Scott, ‘The Twilight World of Interwar British Hire Purchase’, P&P 2002, p.220
External links
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- 1873 births
- 1955 deaths
- General Secretaries of the National Amalgamated Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen and Clerks
- Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
- Members of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress
- National Amalgamated Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen and Clerks-sponsored MPs
- UK MPs 1935–1945
- UK MPs 1945–1950
- Labour MP for England stubs