Andrew MacKinlay - Parliamentary Career

Parliamentary Career

He stood unsuccessfully for Labour in the following elections:

• February 1974 General Election: Surbiton
• October 1974 General Election: Surbiton
• 1983 General Election: Croydon Central
• 1984 European Elections: London South & Surrey East division
• 1987 General Election: Peterborough

In 2003, he famously described Dr. David Kelly as "chaff" during Dr. Kelly's appearance before the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. His question was:

I reckon you are chaff; you have been thrown up to divert our probing. Have you ever felt like a fall-guy? You have been set up, have you not?

so in this context "chaff" is a reference to the radar countermeasure rather than to something of little value. It emerged during Kelly's subsequent inquest that Kelly had been deeply upset by his treatment before the Committee and he had privately described an MP, assumed to be MacKinlay, as an "utter bastard" MacKinlay reportedly apologised to Kelly's wife for the remark following Kelly's death.

According to one report, in May 2007, MacKinlay made the nomination that resulted in Gordon Brown having enough nominations to be certain of not facing a contest over the leadership of the party. However, another report states that the decisive nomination was made by Tony Wright with MacKinlay yet to nominate at that point.