Constituency : Gateshead West 1970-81 ( Labour ), 1981-83 ( SDP ), Orpington 1992-2010 ( Conservative )
John was another of the initial clutch of SDP MPs.
John was born in Preston. He was educated at Silcoates School and Cambridge. In the 1960s he worked for Rowntrees in market research. He moved on to financial journalism then founded the CRU Group, a commodities consultancy. He contested Folkestone and Hythe for Labour in 1966. He was selected for the safe seat of Gateshead West winning it easily at the next four elections. He was a junior minister under Bill Rodgers at the Department of Transport. John was dismayed at Labour's hostility to business and told Rodgers the party was finished after the 1979 defeat.
John worked alongside David Penhaligon as a "fireman" sorting out Alliance disputes
As Gateshead West was abolished, John stood for Newcastle Central in 1983 coming third.
At the start of the 1987 campaign, John announced his conversion to Thatcherism and joined the Tories. Five years later, he was selected for Orpington , after a key speech in an economics debate at the 1990 Tory conference. and won the seat comfortably.
John became a junior minister in the Department of Health and received a rough ride from both sets of former colleagues in the Commons. Dennis Skinner called him a "dirty double rat".
John held on with a reduced majority in 1997. He became chair of the Environmental Audit Select Committee, holding the position until 2004. He was very nearly defeated in 2001 before shoring up his position in 2005. He was one of a handful of Tory MPs to vote against the Iraq War. He helped draw up the plans for reducing the number of MPs under David Cameron.
John announced he was standing down in 2009 by which time he was the only one of the SDP defectors remaining in Parliament.
John was elevated to the Lords in 2013 and is a strongly pro-EU Conservative.
He is now 79.
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