My friend Tony Judge, who has died aged 85, gave a lifetime of service to the police and also to the Labour party.
He was elected to the Greater London council for Mitcham and Morden in April 1973, when Labour gained control of County Hall. Tony became the last member to chair the GLC ambulance committee before responsibility for ambulances moved to the health authorities. He went on to chair the housing management committee, with Ken Livingstone as his deputy. In his book If Voting Changed Anything They’d Abolish It (1988), Livingstone described Tony as “honest, unaffected and hard working”. They became friends. Livingstone also said that Tony was “very much the acceptable face of the Labour right and totally loyal to the Labour party”.
Tony lost his GLC seat in 1977, but was re-elected for Mitcham and Morden in May 1981. In that election I had been elected Labour member for Hornchurch, and for the next five years we often found ourselves in the minority in the largely leftwing Labour group. Despite disagreements with the new leftwing ascendancy at the GLC and in London Labour politics more widely, Tony never considered joining the new SDP. Nevertheless his loyalties were severely tested when the GLC created a police committee, despite having no power or jurisdiction over the Metropolitan Police.
Born in Plymouth, he was raised in Leeds by his mother, who worked in a railway station buffet. Tony passed the 11-plus and went to grammar school, but his mother decided he should leave at the earliest opportunity due to family money worries and so he never achieved his full academic potential.
He joined the police in Blackpool, then, in 1958, the Police Federation, the police staff association, remaining with that organisation for the rest of his working life. He edited its monthly magazine, Police. The Police Federation is not noted for its liberal stance and occasionally conflict arose from his lifelong membership of the Labour party.
He was elected as a councillor in the London borough of Harrow and then Kingston-upon-Thames. He was the Labour candidate in the Kingston byelection of May 1972 that started Norman Lamont’s career in politics, before being elected the following year to the GLC.
In 1960 Tony married Jean Chaffé, whom he had met at the Police Federation and who supported him throughout his political and working life. Their two children, Jane and David, predeceased him. He is survived by Jean, and their grandson, Jack.
