In a memoir completed at the end of his life, the former MP and minister Alan Howarth, Lord Howarth of Newport, wrote somewhat wistfully of his regret that his political career would be inevitably primarily defined by his momentous decision, in 1995, to resign the Conservative whip and cross the floor of the House of Commons to join the Labour party, thus becoming the first MP ever to make that direct transition.
His own preference would have been to be recalled, not for the brief fame of the defection of – as he termed himself – a hitherto obscure MP, but as a diligent politician who had sought to make himself useful.
