Graham Allen was born and bred in the constituency of Nottingham North; he went to local schools and still lives in the local area.

 “I regard every day as a privilege to represent in Parliament the place where I was raised."

Graham had joined the Labour Party in 1971 at age 18, a natural progression for someone who was from a mining family and whose grandfather was a founding member of the Nottingham Labour Party. After leaving school he worked as a warehouseman, but was sacked for forming a Trade Union branch.

“Like so many kids today in Nottingham North I didn’t know how to take advantage of school and had to learn the hard way. That’s why second chances are so important locally”

He studied for his A-levels in his spare time, before going on to the City of London Polytechnic, where he studied Politics, Economics, Statistics and Sociology, graduated first in his year and became the President of the Union in 1976. He then took an a MA in Political Sociology from Leeds University, studying with Prof Ralph Miliband. After leaving University Graham worked as a researcher at the Labour Party HQ, helping to create the Party's pioneering policies on the environment. At the age of 27, he was elected to Tower Hamlets Council for the St Katherine’s Ward (covering the Tower of London and Wapping) and contested a hopeless GLC seat. In 1983 he became Deputy Head of the Programme Office at the radical and innovative Greater London Council, where he helped to ensure that the GLC's £1billion budget was spent properly and effectively. In 1984 he was asked by the UK’s trade unions to run the Trades Union Political Funds Campaign. Mrs Thatcher had imposed a ballot on every Trade Union to authorise spending on campaigning. Polling showed unions would vote ‘No’ and thus sever Labour’s financial arteries.

By reviving workplace organisation, enforcing media discipline and keeping to a painstaking campaign strategy, the campaign not only persuaded all existing unions to retain their political funds, a further 11 unions set up political funds for the first time. 

“It was the first nationwide defeat of Mrs Thatcher at the ballot box- the tide was held and began to turn”

In 1985 Graham was selected by Labour to contest his home seat of Nottingham North and worked as GMB Regional official based in Nottingham until the election.  

Nottingham North was a Conservative constituency but Graham and the local Labour Party used all their campaigning skill to overturn the Tory majority to win narrowly in 1987.

Just elected

As a new MP in 1988, Graham had the opportunity to continue his interest in economic policy through membership of the Public Accounts Committee. In 1990 he became the Chairman of the Labour Treasury Committee.

Party leader Neil Kinnock - like every subsequent Labour Leader - appointed Graham to the Labour frontbench as spokesperson on Social Security, in 1991. He was re-elected in 1992 with a majority of 10,743 - the fifth largest swing to Labour in the country.

John Smith then appointed Graham spokesperson on Home Affairs with special responsibility for the constitution and immigration. In this job he was able to indulge his passion for the democratic reform in the UK devising policies for a Bill of Rights, an elected second chamber, a reformed judiciary, an updated Commons and a democratised EU.

Many of these have now been implemented. Graham explored these democratic reforms in his debut book, Reinventing Democracy.

Graham on John Smith: “John’s early death was a tragedy, he would have been a reforming, liberating national leader who would have freed up the potential of our people”

Tony Blair appointed Graham as spokesperson on National Heritage in 1994, on the media and new technology, then as Labour's frontbench spokesman on Transport, creating a policy legacy on Bus Re-regulation, the Merchant fleet, and Regional Airports among other areas. His final opposition portfolio was as Shadow Minister for the Environment, running up to the 1997 Election.

After the 1997 landslide for Labour, Prime Minister Blair appointed Graham to the Government Whips Office as a Senior Whip (Lord Commissioner) and Whip to the Deputy Prime Minister. In 1999 he was promoted to Vice Chamberlain of Her Majesty's Household - the link between the Palace and Parliament - and the Whip to the Treasury, a position he held until the 2001 election.

“It was a great honour to serve in the first Labour Government in my parliamentary lifetime, but I wanted to return to policy thinking if not in the Government, then in the backbenches”

So in 2001 Graham served his first full term as an out and out constituency MP, and maintains the record amongst MPs for initiating the most parliamentary debates.

He has put forward several bills aimed at insuring a more responsive and democratic Government, and he has also published another book about devolving over-centralised power entitled  The Last Prime Minister: Being Honest about the UK Presidency. 

Graham strongly supports your Labour Government but isn’t afraid to stand up for his beliefs, most famously on the US war in Iraq, where he played a leading part in getting Parliament recalled and organising the 2 largest rebellions within a governing party in British political history.

“I was saddened to be forced to organise against my own Prime Minister, but the timing, preparations and consultation was wrong, and thousands of terrorists have been created”

In the 2005 election Graham once again managed to retain one of the largest margins of victory in the country with a 12,171 majority.  He said, "The result was a tribute to the work done by the Labour Government over the last eight years and above all, to the incredibly hard work of Labour supporters locally".

Graham on Blair: “History may comment on the lack of radicalism and the Iraq misjudgement but his political epitaph is that Tony made Labour electable and won 3 elections- no other Labour leader has ever done that. We all owe him a great deal”

Graham on Brown: “In combining Blair’s public pragmatism with Smith’s political radicalism, Gordon will become – not least for the educationally underachieving and socially disadvantaged in Nottingham North – one of the great Prime Ministers”

Graham himself has become even more involved locally by chairing and rebuilding Nottingham's Local Strategic Partnership, One Nottingham. While his roles as One Nottingham Chair and MP for Nottingham North are separate, both allow him to continue striving to improve the lives of those in his community - the place where he was born, raised and continues to live.

"While there is one child on our outer estates who still under achieves I - and other Labour Government - still have a job to do"