About David Marquand
David Ian Marquand FLSW (20 September 1934 – 23 April 2024) was a British academic and Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP). == Background and political career == Marquand was born in Cardiff on 20 September 1934. His father was Hilary Marquand, also an academic and former Labour MP. His younger brother, the late Richard Marquand, and his nephew, James Marquand, became film directors. Marquand was educated at Emanuel School in Battersea, London, Magdalen College, Oxford, St Antony's College, Oxford, and at the University of California, Berkeley. Marquand first stood for Parliament at the Welsh seat of Barry in 1964, but lost to the Conservative incumbent Raymond Gower. He was elected the MP for Ashfield in 1966 and served in the House of Commons until 1977, when he resigned his seat to work as Chief Advisor (from 1977 to 1978) to his mentor Roy Jenkins, who had been appointed President of the European Commission. During the 1970s split between "Croslandite" and "Jenkinsite" social democrats within the Labour Party, Marquand was part of the Jenkins group and joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP) when it was founded. Marquand sat on the party's national committee from 1981 until 1988 and was an unsuccessful candidate for the party in the High Peak constituency in the 1983 general election. When the SDP merged with the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democrats, Marquand remained with the successor party until rejoining the Labour Party in 1995, following the election of Tony Blair as Labour leader. In October 2016, it was reported that Marquand had left Labour once more, and had joined Plaid Cymru, though he remained hopeful for anti-Conservative parties to work together in the aftermath of the vote for Brexit.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.