Harold Elletson: Former MP who was MI6 agent while in Commons dies

A former Conservative MP who served with MI6 while sitting in the House of Commons has died at the age of 62.

Harold Elletson represented Blackpool North from 1992 to 1997.

In 1996, The Observer revealed he was also an MI6 agent at the time, working in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia after their dissolutions.

The newspaper said it was later established Prime Minister John Major had given him "special permission to continue his undercover role".

Paying tribute, Dr Elletson's son said he had been a "gifted mimic", who was "particularly good at impersonating Tony Blair, David Cameron and Michael Heseltine".

"He was a man of many talents and was always looking to learn new things," he said.

Dr Elletson, who was educated at Eton and spoke fluent Russian, first ran for election in Burnley in 1987, finishing second to the Labour incumbent Peter Pike.

He was subsequently elected to Blackpool North as part of Conservatives' triumph in 1992 and went on to serve as parliamentary private secretary to the then-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Patrick Mayhew.

After a boundary change added Fleetwood to his seat, he lost in the 1997 poll to Labour's Joan Humble.

He later became increasingly estranged from the Tories after failing to make the party's shortlist for Lancaster and Wyre seat in 2001 and a year later, he joined the Liberal Democrats.

In 2015, he co-founded the Northern Party to campaign for better representation for Northern England at that year's general election, standing and finishing last in the Lancaster and Fleetwood constituency.

In the 2019 election, he urged his neighbours in the constituency to vote for incumbent Labour MP Cat Smith.

Dr Elletson was also chairman of the New Security Foundation and had previously been director of the Nato Forum on Business and Security.

Alongside his political endeavours, he also held an ancient hereditary seat in Over Wyre, which gave him the title of Squire of Preesall and his family's ancestral home, the Grade II* listed Parrox Hall.

Local campaigner and family friend Leanne Murray said his tours of the hall "were wonderful".

"We are going to miss him in so many ways," she said.

"He had so many ideas and was such great company."

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