Allender Steele Adams, known as Allen Adams, (16 February 1946 – 5 September 1990), was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 Labour

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 politician.

Adams was born in Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

. He married Irene on 24 February 1968.

Adams, a Strathclyde

Strathclyde

right|thumb|the former Strathclyde regionStrathclyde was one of nine former local government regions of Scotland created by the Local Government Act 1973 and abolished in 1996 by the Local Government etc Act 1994...

 Regional Councillor, was elected Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) for Paisley

Paisley (UK Parliament constituency)

Paisley was a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1832 until 1983, when it was divided into Paisley North and Paisley South...

 from 1979 to 1983, then for Paisley North

Paisley North (UK Parliament constituency)

Paisley North was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Paisley in Renfrewshire, Scotland. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system....

 from 1983 until his death in 1990 at the age of 44. He had served as Labour's Scottish whip

Whip (politics)

A whip is an official in a political party whose primary purpose is to ensure party discipline in a legislature. Whips are a party's "enforcers", who typically offer inducements and threaten punishments for party members to ensure that they vote according to the official party policy...

 whilst an MP. On 31 March 1988, he described Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...

 in the House of Commons as having "behaved towards Scotland with all the sensitivity of a sex-starved boa constrictor" (a remark immediately withdrawn, as is the custom in the Commons).

In the by-election that followed his death, his widow, Irene Adams

Irene Adams, Baroness Adams of Craigielea

Katherine Patricia Irene Adams, Baroness Adams of Craigielea is a Scottish Labour Party peer, who served as Member of Parliament in the constituency of Paisley North from 1990 to 2005.-Early life:...

 (who had succeeded him on the Strathclyde Council and served as his secretary while he was MP), was elected MP for Paisley North.

Sources

• Times Guide to the House of Commons, 1987 and 1992 editions