Talk:Bob Mellish

This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Politics of the United Kingdom Low‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Politics of the United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Politics of the United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject Politics of the United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject Politics of the United KingdomPolitics of the United Kingdom articles

Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

More information:
/
	This article has been automatically rated by a bot or other tool because one or more other projects use this class. Please ensure the assessment is correct before removing the `\|auto=` parameter.

Biography: Peerage and Baronetage / Politics and Government

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by WikiProject Peerage and Baronetage.
	This article is supported by the politics and government work group (assessed as Low-importance).

London Low‑importance

	London portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject London, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of London on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LondonWikipedia:WikiProject LondonTemplate:WikiProject LondonLondon-related articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Mellish joined SDP[edit]

Are you sure about this? He doesn't seem to have been an SDP type to me. He was on the right of the Labour Party, but in an Old-old labour way, not a liberal way. Flagboy 23:55, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The first external link, the obit by Tam Dalyell, claims that he joined the SDP but regretted it. Mtiedemann 09:33, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A story was told in the old days about a labourer who had gone to Mellish with a work related issue. Mellish was furious, and set off immediately to give the employer, whom he knew well, a dressing down. The employer was duly abashed, and promised generous redress - in some versions, actually delivered it personally. A few weeks later they met in the street. "You know, Bob" the employer said "after you came round and it put it right for that bloke, he was very grateful". " He didn't have to be grateful", said Mellish "it was his right". "Sure enough", said the employer, "But I checked up later, out of curiousity. He doesn't work for me".Delahays (talk) 16:49, 2 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Party affiliation[edit]

The infobox had him in the Liberal Democrats from 1986 to his death, but the Lib Dems did not exist until the Liberals merged with the majority of SDP in 1988 so this is impossible. The article seems clear that he joined the SDP in 1986 so I have changed the party details in the info box to have him as a Lib Dem from 1988 and SDP 1986 to 1988. However I also noted that he ceased to be a Labour Party in 1982, not 1986 as the infobox implied. The article suggests he was an Independent when he first went to the House of Lords in 1985 and sat as a Independent in Parliament in 1982 after resigning from Labour. As he campaigned against the official Labour candidate in the 1983 Bermondsey by-election and supported the Real Bermondsey Labour candidate John O'Grady, I am assuming he would not have been readmitted to Labour prior to his joining the SDP and have therefore noted he was Labour prior 1982 and an Independent 1982-1986 as this would seem to be what the article and available evidence suggests. Dunarc (talk) 23:42, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"I have never been an anti-racialist"[edit]

Is there a better source for this quote than Mark Steel? He's not exactly an unbiased source when it comes to an old-school right-wing Labour man such as Mellish, is he? Indeed he's not even a credible source. In the very next paragraph he states Mellish and John O'Grady toured Bermondsey singing an anti-Tatchell song; O'Grady certainly did, but I don't know of any evidence Mellish did. FieldOfWheat (talk) 08:05, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]