Danny Crawford; born September 2, 1920, died

June 8, 2000

FOR more than 20 years Danny Crawford played an important role in Scottish and UK politics from his position as a trade union leader of the building workers' union Ucatt. Originally a painter and decorator by trade, his tenacious, combative debating style at Labour Party conferences and trade union gatherings was effectively used to argue for pragmatic working-class values and against left-wing ideological dogma. This made him a willing standard-bearer for the democratic right throughout a period of near civil war in the Labour Party.

Danny Crawford served on the National Executive of the Labour Party between 1980 and 1982; a period described by commentators as cataclysmic for the Labour Party. He fought what he saw as extremism in the trade unions and the Labour Party, a drift which he saw result in an ineffective party, more inward-looking than reaching out to the people.

Danny Crawford's roots were in the trade union movement, the Scottish Society of Painters and Decorators, and the Labour Party. He was a former chairman of Woodside and later Maryhill constituency Labour parties. Although a signatory of the Limehouse Declaration (February 1981), he refused the urging of Shirley Williams and others to join the SDP. He remained a Labour Party member and maintained with some truth he was ''New Labour before Tony Blair was born''.

Danny Crawford was born in Anderston, Glasgow, the oldest of five children, and the poverty the family experienced helped forge his fight in later years for social justice and fairness for working people, which he pursued through the trade union movement and Labour Party.

His formal education was severely restricted because of childhood illness. Despite this most disadvantaged of backgrounds, Danny Crawford's tenacity and drive overcame the odds and his leadership qualities were recognised in various spheres.

Having jointed the TA in Yorkhill with pals to avoid conscription, Danny found himself among the first to be called up for military service in 1939. He saw action in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, ending his war service in Austria. He was wounded three times, including being blown up by a land mine.

Danny Crawford could never accept blind obedience as appropriate, even in the Army, and was promoted to sergeant four times and busted three times for indiscretions against military rules. He took pride in being given discharge papers reading ''a good soldier but prone to be independent''.

In 1949 Danny Crawford married Anne McCulloch, with whom he had 32 happy years of marriage before her untimely death. In 1983 Danny married Lily Goodwin, with whom he shared his last 16 years, travelling widely.

He is survived by his wife Lily, and his three children, Danny, David, Eleanor, and four grand-children, Joanna, Martin, Jonathan, and Rebecca.