John Ovenden
Hard-working Labour MP and then Kent county councillor
JOHN OVENDEN, who has died aged 75, was a moderate Left-of-centre Labour MP for Gravesend whose parliamentary career ended at 36 with the loss of his seat; he went on to lead the Labour group on Kent County Council, ultimately serving as the council’s joint leader.
A hard-working constituency MP, Ovenden pressed for the Commons to adopt “normal” working hours and fought hard for north Kent’s commuters as British Rail put up fares by 15 per cent. He opposed plans for an oil refinery at Thamesmouth and pressed for the redevelopment of derelict quarries on both sides of the river.
Ovenden resigned from the Left-wing Tribune Group in March 1976 in protest at 37 of its members having brought about a government defeat by abstaining over spending cuts. A year later, ironically, he was one of a group of Labour opponents of Scottish devolution who defeated a government motion to curtail debate on the legislation. He went on to vote against the principle of the Bill, then toed the party line as it went through.
John Frederick Ovenden was born at Gillingham on August 17 1942, the son of Richard Ovenden and the former Margaret Lucas. His father was killed in action with the Army when John was barely two, and the experience of his upbringing led him to campaign as an MP for widows and single parents.
He left Chatham House Grammar School, Ramsgate, at 17 and became a Post Office telephone engineer. He also joined the Labour Party, and in 1966 was elected to Gillingham council, serving until 1972. In 1970 he fought the safe Conservative seat of Sevenoaks.
Next, Ovenden was selected for Gravesend, which the Conservative Roger White had won from Labour in 1970. In the snap election of February 1974 Ovenden defeated White by 1,582 votes, slightly increasing his majority that October.
At 31 one of the youngest of Labour’s new intake as Harold Wilson returned to power, he raised in his maiden speech the plight of young homebuyers for whom the arrival of a baby was “not a joy, but a financial disaster”. He went on to do useful work on the Public Accounts Committee, and to urge the Employment Secretary Michael Foot to prevent au pairs and catering workers from abroad being treated as “slave labour”. He reckoned membership of the EEC an “unmitigated disaster”. But in the chamber he concentrated on constituency issues.
At the 1979 election which brought Margaret Thatcher to power, he lost his seat to the former ITN newscaster Tim Brinton by a decisive 9,346 votes. He went back to Post Office Telephones as a manager, staying with the organisation when it was privatised as BT.
Ovenden tried to win back his old seat, redrawn as Gravesham, at the 1983 election, and despite the national swing to the Conservatives managed to trim Brinton’s majority by 1,000. During the campaign he made local headlines by refusing to appear with the National Front candidate, who polled just 420 votes.
In 1985 he was elected a county councillor, representing Gravesend South. He went on to lead the council’s Labour group, and in 1993, when a Labour/ Liberal Democrat coalition took control of the county, became co-leader of the council; he continued in this role until the 1997 elections, but carried on as a councillor until 2001.
A sociable figure with (as one friend put it) “a deliciously sarcastic sense of humour”, Ovenden liked pubs and real ale and was an ardent supporter of Gillingham FC and Kent county cricket.
John Ovenden married Maureen White in 1963; she survives him with their daughter.
John Ovenden, born August 17 1942, died July 17 2018