SO this is what former Herald writers do on their days off. To be fair, although the chap with his son on his shoulders was once employed here, it is not what he is principally known for. He is in fact Teddy Taylor, Glasgow’s last Tory MP.
Political observers say that he shrewdly never put the word Conservative on his election leaflets in Glasgow Cathcart, relying on personal support to return him to parliament.
Someone has written that this is Teddy with son John at a Third Lanark v Queen’s Park game in February, 1975, but as Third Lanark as a club disbanded in the sixties, we can assume it is not.
Although a right-winger and teetotaller, which is not the norm in Glasgow, former Glasgow High boy Teddy was very engaging and down-to-earth which is why he commanded much support locally. He was also against the EU right from the start.
He joined the Herald after university but soon afterwards was elected to parliament in the sixties where he was the youngest MP.
But even personal support has its limits, and he lost his Glasgow seat in 1979 only to return to parliament shortly afterwards when he won a by-election in Southend which he continued to represent until he retired in 2005.
Another slight claim to fame is that he was on the BBC’s first ever Question Time. I’m sure he can still make more sense in his eighties than some of the warmers that are on it these days.
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