Bob Blizzard
Jazz-loving MP who fought hard for Britain’s fishing industry and for his Suffolk constituency
BOB BLIZZARD, who has died aged 71, was Labour MP for the traditionally Tory constituency of Waveney in Suffolk from 1997 to 2010, having led the local council based in Lowestoft for six years.
He resigned as PPS to the work and pensions minister Nick Brown in 2003 in protest at the Iraq War, but later served under Gordon Brown – to whom he was closer politically than to Tony Blair – as a government whip.
Described by AA Gill in The Sunday Times as “like a day-old heifer bumping into things”, the Suffolk-born Blizzard campaigned fervently for a better deal for his constituency. He complained soon after his election that it was starved of economic development because of its “horrendously inadequate” transport infrastructure.
Blizzard set up Lowestoft 2000, a partnership with businesses to promote the town, and secured improvements to traffic bottlenecks. His campaigning for a third bridge out of the town across Lake Lothing paid off after he lost his seat in 2010: the “Gull Wing” bridge is set to open next year.
Blizzard carved out a particular niche through his passion for jazz, shared with John Prescott and Ken Clarke. He founded the Lowestoft Jazz Weekend, and, as secretary of the all-party group on jazz, the Parliamentary Jazz Awards. He chaired Jazz Services, a national organisation backed by the Arts Council, from 2011, and was vice-president of the National Youth Jazz Collective.
A passionate supporter of Lowestoft Town FC, he was also the club’s patron.
Robert John Blizzard was born at Bury St Edmunds on May 31 1950, the son of Arthur Blizzard, a signwriter, and his wife Joan. From Culford School, he read English at Birmingham University, graduating in 1971.
In 1973, after postgraduate study – whose value he would question wryly 20 years on when still spending half an hour a week on school toilet duty – he began teaching English at Southfields secondary school, Gravesend. Three years later he was appointed head of English at Crayford School, Bexley, and in 1986 head of English at Lynn Grove high school, Gorleston-on-sea, just north of Lowestoft.
Blizzard joined the Labour Party in 1983, was elected to Waveney district council in 1987 and became its leader in 1991.
Before the 1997 election he was selected to fight Waveney. The Conservative Eurosceptic David Porter had held the seat in 1992 with a majority of 6,702, but boundary changes were reckoned to have made it a marginal.
In the event, as Blair led New Labour to power Blizzard stormed home with a majority of 12,083 on a 14 per cent swing to become Lowestoft’s first Labour MP in 38 years. He stepped down from his council duties.
Blizzard was broadly pro-europe, but voiced concern from the outset at the damage EU policies were doing to his constituency, starting with the Common Fisheries Policy.
In one of his first Commons speeches he called for action against quota-hoppers – foreign boats flying British flags and catching part of the EU fish stocks allocated to Britain. “In Lowestoft there is a trawler – a Lowestoft trawler with a Lowestoft company – that is purely and simply a quota-hopper,” said Blizzard. “It does not land any fish in the port of Lowestoft, although it is registered there.”
He went on to congratulate Blair’s government on establishing a better relationship with Lowestoft’s remaining fishermen than its predecessor.
Blizzard served from 1997 to 1999 on the Environmental Audit Select Committee, then became PPS to Baroness Hayman, Minister of State at Maff. Holding his seat by 8,553 votes at the 2001 election, he became PPS to Nick Brown, a key lieutenant of Gordon Brown, until his resignation.
Re-elected in 2005 by 5,915 votes over the Conservative Peter Aldous, Blizzard became PPS to Douglas Alexander, Minister for Europe at the FCO. When Alexander was promoted to Transport Secretary, Blizzard went with him.
When Gordon Brown succeeded Blair as Prime Minister in June 2007, Blizzard was appointed a Government whip. The following year, he was promoted within the whips’ office to a senior post as Commissioner of the Treasury.
Blizzard chaired several all-party parliamentary groups, including those for British offshore oil and gas, renewable transport fuels, Brazil, Chile and Latin America.
With Labour’s defeat at the 2010 election, Blizzard lost his seat to Aldous by 769 votes. Subsequently he produced a report providing “an unflinching look at the bad results Labour suffered in the East, and ideas for how Labour can change its policies and the way it does business, to reclaim the ground it has lost”.
Blizzard was overwhelmingly selected to fight the seat again in 2015, but after Aldous increased his majority to 2,408 as David Cameron won an outright majority, he retired from politics.
Bob Blizzard had been married, and he leaves a daughter and a son. He is also survived by his civil partner Jane Washington-evans.
Bob Blizzard, born May 31 1950, died May 5 2022