The following obituary was in The Times 18.12.25

Labour MP with a principled approach to local politics.

Parliamentarian who strived to be an accessible and involved constituency representative – and who had a love of practical jokes

Iain Coleman in September 1998 at Craven Cottage, Fulham’s football ground in southwest London. He said: “I have never tried to hide the fact I am a fervent Arsenal fan”.  TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE

Iain Coleman (WH 71-74), Labour MP, was born on January 18, 1958. He died after a long period of ill health on September 20, 2025, aged 67

Even a patient and dedicated parliamentarian can be tested by a lengthy speech in the Commons. In 1998, Iain Coleman, the MP for Hammersmith & Fulham, was struggling to stay alert during a prolonged late-night speech on the subject of leasehold reform delivered by his fellow Labour MP Barry Gardiner. Coleman leant over to another Labour colleague, Stephen Pound, and bet £100 that the member for Ealing North wouldn’t set him on fire. Pound promptly produced his lighter.

Later, Pound received a call requesting that he see Major Jennings, the serjeant at arms, for a disciplinary hearing. He presented himself at Jennings’s office, and after explaining that he didn’t actually ignite Coleman, and that, besides, “setting fire to an MP is one of our ancient rights and privileges”, he was dismissed. Waiting outside the office, “cackling in the shadows”, was Coleman, who, it transpired, had faked the phone call summoning Pound to the serjeant at arms. “I am the founder-member of the Parliamentary Pyrotechnic Club,” Coleman joked later. “Steve can join. It is a privilege to be set on fire by him.”

Coleman’s playful sense of humour was paired with a vigilant, principled approach to local politics. It was with some pleasure, for instance, that in 1991 Coleman, as leader of Hammersmith & Fulham council, took Carol Thatcher to court for failing to pay her £247 poll tax bill: “After all, the poll tax was Margaret Thatcher’s idea so it does seem rather peculiar that her daughter has chosen not to pay it on time,” he remarked.

Despite a sometimes jocular approach to parliamentary politics, as MP for Hammersmith & Fulham between 1997 and 2005 Coleman took his duties towards his constituents seriously. Homelessness, poverty and social care were particular focuses of his work first as a councillor and then as an MP. He also advocated, despite his own strong allegiances to Arsenal, on behalf of Fulham FC, and fought against the closure of the historic Craven Cottage ground where the team still plays today.

It was important to Coleman that he be seen as an accessible and involved constituency MP. In his 2001 re-election campaign, he asked constituents to send him back to Westminster, “not so that I can pat Tony Blair and Gordon Brown on the head, but because I’m determined to continue to represent you and make a difference for the people of Hammersmith & Fulham”.

Iain Coleman was born in Hammersmith in 1958 to Pamela (née Betts), an NHS psychologist, and Ronald Coleman, a businessman. He attended Tonbridge School, where an influential history teacher introduced him to the socialist ideas that would shape his political thinking over the following decades.

Coleman’s family were politically active; both parents were Conservative supporters during Coleman’s childhood, though his mother would eventually switch to Labour and be elected councillor and then mayor for the borough of Barnet. His brother, Neale Coleman, is also a Labour politician, who worked as a policy adviser to Ken Livingstone during his mayoralty and was even kept on by Livingstone’s replacement, Boris Johnson, who referred to him fondly as “Comrade Coleman”.

Coleman campaigning in Fulham in the lead-up to the 2001 general election with the London mayor Ken Livingstone.   ALAMY

Iain’s own career began in a care home in Kent, where he was employed after leaving school as a care worker. He joined the Labour Party in 1978 and in 1986 he was elected a councillor for Hammersmith & Fulham alongside Dame Sally Powell, whom he met at a miners’ support group in 1983. Their first challenge would be guiding the council through a continuing legal case arising from its “excessive” involvement in the financial derivatives market during the 1980s. At one point it was believed that Hammersmith’s swap positions accounted for “half of 1 per cent of the entire global market in derivatives”.

They managed the crisis, and Coleman continued to hold his position in the council for 11 years, serving as its mayor from 1996-97. He married Powell, who would later become a member of Labour’s national executive committee, in 1996. She and their son, Jack, survive him.

In the 1997 general election, Coleman fought and won in the newly created Hammersmith & Fulham constituency, defeating his Conservative counterpart, Matthew Carrington, by 3,842 votes. He used his maiden speech to address wealth inequalities in his home borough, contrasting its affluent reputation with its high number of benefit-dependent households, which was over a third, and primary schoolchildren entitled to free school meals, which was over half.

Ideologically he tended towards the left of his party. In the discussions preceding the Iraq war he argued that “no substantial case has been made to justify a military assault” and consistently voted against British involvement. In Labour leadership elections he backed Ed Miliband, Jeremy Corbyn and, in 2020, Rebecca Long-Bailey, though after Sir Keir Starmer’s win he described him as “the right person to lead our party at this time” and urged supporters to “unite around him in the interests of working-class people and our nation”.

No party leader, however, could hope for the level of support Coleman always showed his favourite football club. Despite his constituency containing both the Chelsea and Fulham grounds, Coleman was a lifelong Arsenal supporter, and he and Nigel Mason, who mirrored him in being an Islington councillor but a Chelsea supporter, liked to joke about looking after each other’s home grounds.

The extent of Coleman’s enthusiasm for the Gunners led to a rare scolding in the press in 1998 when a leaked note revealed that he refused to miss a single home game and had left staffers to come up with various excuses to keep his diary clear on match days. “It is a bit embarrassing,” he said of the leak. “I can’t say I am laughing.” Nonetheless, Coleman defeated Carrington once again in the 2001 general election, though with a narrower margin of 2,015 votes.

Three years after his re-election, in June 2004, Coleman was walking through a supermarket when he felt a weakness down one side. A moment later he collapsed. “I briefly lost consciousness and came round on the floor,” he recalled later. “I picked myself up and tried to carry on shopping, but I collapsed three more times. I had no idea what was wrong.”

He managed to make it home, where his wife insisted on taking him to hospital. There, doctors confirmed he had had a stroke.

Coleman temporarily lost his ability to speak, and took time to regain control of a partially paralysed leg and hand. After some initial improvement, his health deteriorated further, his appearances in parliament became less frequent, and in March 2005 he announced he would be standing down as MP due to health reasons.

His wife estimated that he had about 20 strokes between 2004 and 2024, eventually leading to early onset dementia. During his time as councillor of Hammersmith & Fulham, he had fought hard to introduce a policy of free social care for the borough. Now, receiving 24-hour care himself, he had become one of its main beneficiaries.

In a 2024 letter to The Guardian, Coleman’s wife praised the policy and called for other councils across the country to follow the example her husband had set as councillor all those years before. “One of the most important challenges people face is the cost of social care for their loved ones,” she wrote. “I believe every local authority in the nation could provide this for everyone who needs it.”