Where are they now: Sir Neville Trotter

 

Paul Linford

 

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Paul Linford reveals the wonderfully named Conservative MP who served the monarch after representing Tynemouth for 23 years

 

 

 

 

In a parliamentary career spanning 23 years, Trotter gained a reputation as a solid backbench figure with a special expertise in defence matters, without ever quite managing to set the Thames on fire.

 

But since leaving the Commons at the 1997 election, the erstwhile member for Tynemouth has acquired almost as many jobs as that other distinguished former North East parliamentarian, Peter Mandelson.

 

As well as serving as the high sheriff of Tyne and Wear, he has been variously honorary president of Northern Defence Industries, chairman of the British-American Chamber of Commerce North-East, vice president of the British Marine Council and an adviser to House of Lords Defence Select Committee.

 

Born in 1932, Neville Trotter graduated from Newcastle University 20 years later and initially pursued a career in accountancy.

 

He became a senior partner with Grant Thornton and continued to act as a consultant to the firm after his election to Parliament.

 

First elected as MP for Tynemouth in February 1974, Trotter initially had something of a tough act to follow, having succeeded the redoubtable Dame Irene Ward who, at 79, was then the oldest member of the House.

 

Dame Irene is still remembered by retired lobby correspondents of a certain vintage for threatening to "poke" Harold Wilson until she got an answer during a stormy session of PMQs in the mid 1960s session.

 

As for Trotter, he is recalled by some unkind souls by his nickname, Evil Rotter, but this epithet was hardly apt.

 

Although nominally on the right of the Tory Party, he did not really fit the mould of the young, thrusting Thatcherite types that were taking over the party at the time and, overlooked for government office, he settled into the life of a backbench committeeman.

 

With the then Swan Hunter shipyard and other big defence-related employers in or around his constituency,  defence was always his main area of interest, and he served on the defence select committee for many years.

 

But despite much behind-the-scenes lobbying, he was unable to persuade his own ministerial colleagues to award a vital contract to Swans in 1994 which could have ensured its longer-term survival.

 

Perhaps Neville Trotter's biggest achievement was to hold onto Tynemouth for so long in a region where Tory MPs have always been thin on the ground.

 

His majority was reduced to a few hundred in 1992, the year after the infamous Meadow Well riots in his  constituency, but the seat did not turn Labour until after he retired at the following election.

 

Knighted in John Major's resignation honours list in 1997, his annus mirabilis came when he served as High Sheriff in 2004-2005, representing the Queen at official functions in the region.

 

He continues his work as an adviser to the Lords defence committee, and regularly visits RAF stations in the Northern counties.

 

 

 

Paul Linford is a political blogger and former parliamentary lobby journalist. He is editor of holdthefrontpage.co.uk