The Manchester Evening News reports that Liberal Democrat peer John Roper, who retired last year, has died at the age of 80:
Lord Roper started his career as an economics lecturer at the University of Manchester before standing for Parliament in High Peak, near Stockport, for Labour in 1964.
He was elected Member of Parliament for Farnworth in 1970.
He sat as a Labour Co-operative MP from 1970 to 1981 and for the SDP for the following two years.
His Farnworth seat was subsequently abolished, and he contested Worsley at the 1983 general election, finishing third in a three-way marginal.
In 2000, he was created a life peer as Baron Roper.
Dick Newby, his successor as the party’s chief whip in the upper chamber, said: “John was, throughout his life, a great servant to social democracy and liberal politics in Britain.
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