Political deaths in 2024: The well-known names we lost in the last year

Whether a former deputy Prime Minister infamous for throwing a punch, to a Scottish independence campaigner and former First Minister, 2024 saw the deaths of several political heavyweights.

As the year draws to a close, we look back at the lives of some well-known Westminster names who have died over the past 12 months.

Derek Draper

Married to TV presenter Kate Garraway, the former political adviser Derek Draper had contracted Covid-19 in March 2020 and went on to suffer from long Covid.

Previously a key New Labour era figure in the Tony Blair government of the 1990s, Draper, also an ex-lobbyist, worked alongside Peter Mandelson and Liam Byrne, before leaving politics following the so-called “cash-for-access” scandal, dubbed “lobbygate”.

He moved to the US and retrained as a psychotherapist. Draper died on 3 January, 2024, aged 56, after enduring an induced coma and long-lasting organ damage from coronavirus.

Sir Tony Lloyd

Labour MP Sir Tony Lloyd died in early 2024, just a few days after announcing his terminal blood cancer diagnosis, which he said was “aggressive and untreatable”.

The 73-year-old had represented his Rochdale constituency since 2017, but first became an MP for Stretford, Greater Manchester, in 1983. 

He later represented Manchester Central, served as chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, Greater Manchester police and crime commissioner and interim mayor of Greater Manchester mayoral candidate, before returning as an MP.

Sir Tony’s family said he died “peacefully” on January 17, “surrounded by his family”. He had been knighted by Queen Elizabeth in her 2021 birthday honours for services to parliament.

Baroness Ruth Henig

On February 29, deputy House of Lords Speaker Baroness Ruth Henig died aged 80.

The child of Jewish refugees came to the UK from the Netherlands in 1940, and became a history lecturer and dean of arts and humanities at Lancaster University, writing on the First and Second World Wars, the Treaty of Versailles and international affairs.

She served as a Labour councillor in Lancashire for 24 years, led the Lancashire Police Authority for a decade, and was made a Labour peer in 2004.

Lady Henig had served as one of the upper chamber’s deputy Speakers since 2018.

Lord Frank Field

Former Labour minister, crossbench peer and lifelong anti-poverty campaigner Lord Frank Field died aged 81 on April 23, 2024, after a long illness.

The peer was elected to represent Birkenhead 10 times from 1979 to 2019, and joined the House of Lords in October 2020, after resigning the Labour whip under Jeremy Corbyn.

A former welfare reform minister under the Blair government, he was removed from the role after the then-Prime Minister described his ideas as “unfathomable” and went on to lead the Work and Pensions Select Committee and belong to the Labour Leave [the EU] group.

Lord Field revealed he had terminal cancer in October 2021, and was in a London care home when he died. He spent time in a hospice and called for assisted dying law change.

Alex Salmond

Scotland’s former First Minister and Alba Party leader Alex Salmond died aged 69 in October, after collapsing from a heart attack in North Macedonia.

Salmond led the Scottish National Party (SNP) from 1990 to 2000 and 2004 to 2014, with elections expert Sir John Curtice describing him as “probably the person who did more than anybody else to move the argument about independence”.

He served as First Minister from 2007 to 2014, but resigned after the 2014 Scottish independence referendum resulted in a 55 per cent to 45 per cent vote to stay in the UK, launching his rival pro-independence party Alba in 2021.

Salmond faced multiple accusations of sexual misconduct. He was acquitted of a series of sexual offence charges against nine women in 2020, following a court case.

Lord John Prescott

In November, the former Labour deputy Prime Minister Lord John Prescott died aged 86, following a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

A former trade unionist, ex-merchant seaman and key Blair-era minister, the UK’s longest serving deputy PM was widely seen as New Labour’s link to its traditional values. 

He entered the House of Lords in 2010, after serving for four decades as MP for Kingston upon Hull East, and campaigning on climate change and the Kyoto Protocol with Al Gore.

Lord Prescott stepped from the Lords in July 2024 due to health issues from a stroke in 2019, and died on November 20.

Often a colourful character, he was famous for punching a protester who threw an egg at him during an election campaign visit to North Wales in 2001, earning him the nickname ‘Two Jabs’ – and later made a cameo in TV comedy Gavin and Stacey.