John Leech (politician)

Early life

Leech grew up in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, where his father was a minister at Chorlton Methodist Church. He attended Manchester Grammar School, Loreto College and Brunel University where he studied History and Politics and also joined the Liberal Democrats. He received an Upper-Second Class Honours degree on graduating. After leaving university he worked as a trainee manager for McDonald's and part-time at the RAC in Stretford as a call centre insurance claims handler.

Political career

Leech was elected to Manchester City Council in 1998 winning the Barlow Moor ward from Labour with a 12% swing. He was re-elected in 2002, increasing his majority. In 2004, the whole council was contested due to boundary changes and Leech won a seat for Chorlton Park, which covered most of the former Barlow Moor ward area. He became the deputy leader of the council's opposition group and spokesperson for Planning and the Environment.

First term (2005–2010)

Leech was elected to parliament at the 2005 general election, defeating Keith Bradley, the incumbent Labour MP, with a swing of over 17% – the largest swing in the country that year. He was the first Liberal or Liberal Democrat to win a Manchester seat since 1929.

In 2006, Leech was the Shadow Transport Spokesperson on the Liberal Democrat frontbench team. He continued in the role under Nick Clegg. He was the first Patchwork MP of the Year for his "tireless work with minority and ethnic groups" and Brake's MP of the Year and MP of the Month twice, for work on road safety in his constituency.

In the 2009 expenses scandal, it was revealed that Leech claimed one of the lowest levels of expenses of any MP in the North of England. He completed more than 111,000 pieces of casework during his ten years in parliament.

Second term (2010–2015)

Leech was re-elected in the 2010 general election, increasing his majority by three percentage points, defeating Lucy Powell.

During his second term, Leech rebelled against the party line on several occasions. He was one of 21 Liberal Democrat MPs who voted against the increased tuition fees bill. Leech voted against the under-occupancy penalty (commonly called the bedroom tax) He voted against a pay rise for MPs in 2013. In early 2015, an article in the Manchester Evening News revealed that Leech was the second most rebellious MP in the North of England.

In early 2015, he launched his re-election campaign, with the slogan 'Make it 15'. Amid a UK-wide collapse in support for the Liberal Democrats, Leech lost his seat to Labour.

After Parliament (2015–present)

After losing the seat, Leech said he would stand in the Manchester City Council elections in May 2016. He endorsed Tim Farron for the 2015 Liberal Democrats leadership election.

Leech stood in Didsbury West and won the seat from Labour with a 16% swing, picking up 53% of the vote. Didsbury West was the most contested seat in the city with a high turnout of 45%. The Manchester Evening News described the result as "historic", signifying the first gain for any party in Manchester other than Labour for the first time in six years and provided the city with its first opposition for two years. Tim Farron, hailed Leech's win, saying that "Nobody fought harder this year and nobody deserves to celebrate more today than John Leech and his team." He is the only opposition member of the 2016–18 council, with Labour holding 95 of the 96 seats.

On 23 April he announced his candidacy for Manchester Withington in the 2017 General Election.

Campaigns

In 2005 Leech campaigned for the Metrolink tram system to come through his constituency. In 2012 it began running through south Manchester, ending at East Didsbury.

Leech campaigned to reduce the stake on fixed odds betting terminals (FOBTs) from £100 to £2. The issue received cross-party support and was supported by campaign groups including Stop The FOBT's. A bill he introduced to have the Statuary Instrument (SI) reduced to £50 FOBT threshold in February 2015 was defeated.

For many years Leech campaigned against homophobia, the need for same-sex marriage, and for homophobia to be stamped out. In 2013, he ran a campaign calling for homophobic chants at football matches to be outlawed. In 2013, a letter leaked from his office described a constituent as "ignorant, offensive and homophobic" after he attacked Leech for campaigning on same-sex marriage and to eradicate homophobic chanting at football matches. His stance was welcomed by LGTBQ+ groups.

Leech has been described as the architect of the campaign to pardon Alan Turing who was convicted of homosexuality and later committed suicide. He submitted a bill calling for a formal pardon, and at the UK premiere of a film based on Turing's life, The Imitation Game, the film producers thanked Leech for bringing the topic to public attention and securing Turing's pardon. His campaign then turned to acquiring pardons for the 75,000 other men convicted of the same crime. Leech said it was "utterly disgusting and ultimately just embarrassing" that the conviction was upheld as long as it was, and celebrated the posthumous pardon. Leech's campaign gained public support from popular physicists such as Stephen Hawking.

Leech led a campaign for safe standing at football matches. Standing had been banned in English football's top two divisions following the Taylor Report into the 1989 Hillsborough Disaster. Leech told the Commons that clubs should be allowed to install 'rail-seating' allowing supporters to stand with the option of sitting down following the lead of countries including Germany, Austria and Sweden that operate safe standing.

Leech campaigned to remain during the 2016 EU referendum. On his website, he asked Mancunians to 'send a message to the world that [Manchester] is an open, tolerant, outward-looking, proud and patriotic city'.

On 5 October 2016, Leech's questioning during a city council meeting revealed that Manchester had not accepted any refugees under the Government's 2015 resettlement scheme due to disagreements with funding. He accused the council of being "sickeningly shallow" and demanded it commit to housing 50 Syrian refugee families and as many unaccompanied Syrian refugee children as possible. The council was vague in its response but said 'Manchester would play its part.'

Leech has criticised the city council's attitude towards homelessness. In October 2016 he accused the Labour group of playing political football with the lives of Manchester's homeless.

In January 2017, Leech revealed statistics about the number of sexual attacks linked to the dating apps Tinder and Grindr. In March he called on the council to implement 'Ask for Angela', a scheme to help people get out of uncomfortable situations in bars and pubs to which the council agreed.

In November 2016 police investigated threats directed at Leech on Twitter. He continued to hold surgeries in his ward.

Leech is an amateur dramatics enthusiast (Manchester Road Players). He is a football supporter and season-ticket holder at Manchester City F.C. and a member of the parliamentary Football team.