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John Vincent Tilley (13 June 1941 — 18 December 2005) was a BritishLabour politician.
Tilley was born inDerby on 13 June 1941. He was educated atThe Bemrose School, a state grammar school, before going on to read history atTrinity Hall, Cambridge.[1] He then became a journalist at theNewcastle Journal, before moving toLondon as industrial, and later diplomatic, correspondent ofThe Scotsman.
In 1971, Tilley was elected toWandsworth Council, where he became council leader. He was selected as Labour candidate to fightKensington in theFebruary 1974 andOctober 1974 elections, with improving results but no success. The party chose him to defend at a by-election itslong-standing high majorityin Lambeth Central in 1978, which he won. The election was triggered by a caused by the death of Labour MPMarcus Lipton. In Parliament, he served on Labour's oppositionfront bench, resigning in 1982 in opposition to the Party leadership's stand on theFalklands War. AsMP for theBrixton area, he worked withLord Scarman after the1981 Brixton Riots for a better understanding of local social problems. He proposed a bill to amend theSexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1976 to make rape in marriage illegal in 1983.[2]
Tilley was a founding member of theSocialist Campaign Group in 1982, but his constituency seat was abolished for the1983 election and he was selected to fightSouthwark and Bermondsey instead. The seat had been safe Labour butSimon Hughes had won the constituency for theLiberal Party in a by-election earlier that year, and Hughes kept the seat in the general election. Tilley never returned to Parliament.
Tilley subsequently worked as chief economic adviser to theLondon Borough of Hackney and 11 years as parliamentary secretary to theCo-operative Union. From 2000 to 2002, he headed the parliamentary office of theCo-operative Group. An activeco-operator, he wroteChurchill's Favourite Socialist: A Life of AV Alexander, a biography of an earlier co-operative activist and member of parliament, created a peer for his life work,A. V. Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Hillsborough.
Tilley's first marriage ended in divorce, after a daughter, Cleo. He married again in 1982 to Kathryn Riley, a Brixton teacher and Labour activist, later professor at theInstitute of Education,University of London. They had a daughter, Jo. Tilley died of cancer on 18 December 2005.[3]
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forLambeth Central 1978 –1983 | Constituency abolished |
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