Graham Stringer

Graham Eric Stringer (born 17 February 1950) is a British Labour politician who served as Member of Parliament for Blackley and Broughton, previously Manchester Blackley, from 1997 until 2024. He was Leader of Manchester City Council from 1984 to 1996 and also served as chair of Manchester Airport from 1996 to 1997.

Early life and career
Graham Stringer was born on 17 February 1950 in Manchester. He attended Christ Church Primary School in Beswick and Openshaw Technical High School for Boys in Openshaw. After graduating in chemistry from the University of Sheffield in 1971, Stringer worked as an analytical chemist in the plastics industry.

He became a local councillor in Manchester in 1979, and was Manchester City Council leader from 1984 to 1996. He was also chair of Manchester Airport from 1996 to 1997.

Parliamentary career
At the 1997 general election, Stringer was elected to Parliament as MP for Manchester Blackley with 70% of the vote and a majority of 19,588.

Stringer was a member of the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Select Committee until 1999. He then served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Cabinet Office until 2001.

At the 2001 general election, Stringer was re-elected as MP for Manchester Blackley with a decreased vote share of 68.9% and a decreased majority of 14,464. He was again re-elected at the 2005 general election with a decreased vote share of 62.3% and a decreased majority of 12,027.

After a spell on the back benches and as a government whip, he spent the last six years of the Labour Government as a member of the Transport Select Committee. He campaigned against a proposed Congestion Charge in Greater Manchester.

In September 2008, Stringer became the first Labour MP to publicly call for Gordon Brown to resign as Prime Minister.

In January 2009, Stringer denied the existence of dyslexia, calling it "a cruel fiction" invented by "the education establishment" to divert blame for illiteracy from "their eclectic and incomplete methods for instruction". The Dyslexia Action charity and the British Dyslexia Association criticised Stringer's claims.

Stringer is a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, an organisation that promotes climate change denialism. As a member of the Science and Technology Committee, Stringer participated in the investigation into the Climatic Research Unit email controversy ("Climategate") in 2010, questioning Phil Jones closely on transparency and other issues; in the five-member group producing the report, he voted against the other three voting members on every vote, representing a formulation more critical of the CRU and climate scientists.

Prior to the 2010 general election, Stringer's constituency of Manchester Blackley was abolished, and replaced with Blackley and Broughton. At the 2010 general election, Stringer was elected to Parliament as MP for Blackley and Broughton with 54.3% of the vote and a majority of 12,303.

In January 2011, he called for Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, a lifelong Labour voter and vocal supporter of the party at elections, to be given a seat in the House of Lords.

In an op-ed in March 2011, Stringer criticised the British inquiries into the CRU email controversy, writing that the controversy "demanded independent and objective scrutiny of the science by independent panels. This did not happen".

Stringer contributed to the book ''What Next for Labour? Ideas for a New Generation'' in January 2012; his piece was entitled "Transport Policy for the Twenty-First Century".

Stringer was a member of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee from 2013 to 2015. In 2014, Stringer was one of two MPs on the committee to vote against the acceptance of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change conclusion that humans are the dominant cause of global warming.

In February 2014, Stringer, along with 98 others, voted for the Dominic Raab amendment to the Immigration Bill, aimed at preventing foreign criminals using European Human Rights Law in deportation cases.

He was a critic of former Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, whom he accused in May 2014 of running an "unforgivably unprofessional" campaign, and referred to as "not an asset on the doorsteps" when campaigning.

At the 2015 general election, Stringer was re-elected as MP for Blackley and Broughton with an increased vote share of 61.9% and an increased majority of 16,874.

Stringer has established a reputation as a prominent Eurosceptic in the Labour Party who favoured a referendum on the EU. He called for Britain to leave the EU in the 2016 Brexit referendum, describing the EU as a barrier to a progressive government.

At the snap 2017 general election, Stringer was again re-elected with an increased vote share of 70.5% and an increased majority of 19,601.

On 17 July 2018, a vote was held on whether the United Kingdom should remain in the customs union in the event of a no deal Brexit. Frank Field, Kate Hoey, John Mann and Stringer were the only Labour MPs to oppose the amendment, which was voted down by 307 votes to 301.

He is a member of Labour Friends of Israel.

Stringer was again re-elected at the 2019 general election, with a decreased vote share of 61.9% and a decreased majority of 14,402.

On 21 October 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Stringer was the only Labour MP to vote against implementing stricter lockdown in the North West of England, an area that includes his own constituency in Greater Manchester.

As a result of the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, Stringer's constituency of Blackley and Broughton was abolished, and replaced with Blackley and Middleton South. In June 2024, Stringer was selected as the Labour candidate for Blackley and Middleton South at the 2024 general election.

Personal life
In 1999, he married Kathryn Carr; they have three children. In the 2021 BBC One drama The Trick, a dramatisation of the Climategate scandal, Stringer was portrayed by Andrew Dunn.