Obituary: Sir Cyril Smith, politician

Published on Friday 3 September 2010 22:39

Sir Cyril Smith, politician. Born: 28 June, 1928, in Rochdale. Died: 3 September, 2010, in Rochdale, aged 82.

IN every aspect Cyril Smith was larger than life. At 29 stone he was the heaviest MP and his personality matched his stature. It made him easily recognisable either on the platform or the television studio.

In the House of Commons he was a commanding figure delivering forthright and blunt speeches with commitment and passion.

One of his greatest achievements for the Liberal Party was that by winning Rochdale in 1972 he made the Liberals realise they could win urban seats. Up until then they had concentrated on rural communities such as the Scottish Borders and the West Country.

Smith was a proud and resolute Lancastrian and even prouder of Rochdale. He spoke on its behalf whenever possible and had on his first election poster: "I fight as a Rochdale man for Rochdale."

He proved to be a flamboyant ambassador for the town all his life. His only real rival was "Our Grace", the singer Gracie Fields.

Cyril Smith was educated at Rochdale Grammar School and then joined the Inland Revenue. In the 1945 general election Smith, aged 16, delivered a speech in support of the Liberal candidate Charles Harvey.

Smith was told by his boss at the Revenue to choose between the civil service and politics.

Smith resigned and got a job as a clerk with a firm owned by Charles Harvey – though Smith never let on.

As if to underline his Liberal credentials Smith that year joined the party and served on the National Executive Committee of the Young Liberals. Smith continued to work for the local Liberal candidates but after their poor showing in the elections of 1950 and 1951 he decided that to further his career in politics he had to join the Labour Party.

In 1952 he became a Rochdale councillor and by the end of the decade he held important posts on the council.

In 1966 he was appointed mayor – with his mother as his mayoress. But he ended up at loggerheads with Labour when it refused to increase council house rents.

He became an Independent for four years and amidst some local controversy Smith made it known that he would be standing as a Liberal in the next general election.

In 1970, he did not win the seat but came a good second. In the by-election in 1972 he won Rochdale with a majority of more than 5,000.

It was a reflection of the admiration the town had – and was to retain – for Smith until he stood down in 1992.

In 1975, Smith was appointed chief whip and from the outset had to cope with the mounting scandal of the personal life of the leader, Jeremy Thorpe.

Smith was always to prove something of a maverick and never fitted with ease into the party hierarchy. Perhaps that was his principal attraction.

At party conferences his speeches were greeted with rapturous enthusiasm; at one he trumpeted to a cheering audience: "There is no good in my going back to Rochdale talking about pious hopes. I want conference to take radical action… now."

Liz Lynne, MEP for the West Midlands, knew Smith for many years. She said: "Cyril and I disagreed about many things but he was always very honest and his own man. Forthright too. But he was a straightforward man and always excellent company." He was not always a reliable colleague. In 1978 he had talks with the Prime Minister Edward Heath about forming what he described as a centre party.

In 1981, he floated the idea in the media of "a party with a new image" and when the SDP was founded in 1981 Smith voiced considerable reservations.

But Smith – he liked his nickname of "Big Cyril" in the House, and used it as the title of his autobiography – was a character and one of the more charismatic personalities at Westminster.

He described Parliament as "the longest running farce in the West End" and remained independent of thought and mind.

He spoke from the hip and retained the powerful Rochdale brogue all his life. He never flinched from clashes across the political divide or even within his own party; he differed with his party over issues such as capital punishment, nuclear weapons and abortion.

But he was a Liberal and did much to hold the party together after the Thorpe debacle and when the two Davids – Steel and Owen – were knitting together the Liberal Democrats.

Lord (David) Steel said of his former colleague yesterday: "Cyril was an out-and-out Liberal. When the talks were in progress between the Liberals and the SDP Cyril said, typically, that the talks 'should be strangled at birth'.

"But he quickly came round and campaigned vehemently for the merger and the party."

Sir Cyril Smith was knighted in 1988. He never married.