Tam Dalyell, who died in 2017, was Labour MP for West Lothian and then, when the boundaries were redrawn, Linlithgow. He was elected to the Commons in 1962 and became private secretary to Richard Crossman, about whom he later wrote a biography. He was known for positing the West Lothian question (whether MPs from the devolved countries of the UK should be able, post-devolution, to vote on strictly English matters) and for his consistently anti-war position. His opposition to British military action led to his role in the Belgrano Affair and to a Diary about it for the LRB. He liked writing for the paper, he said elsewhere, because ‘it is one of the few publications in Britain that allow a writer to return to old ground.’
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