John Stanley, who has died aged 83, was one of the longest-serving postwar MPs, representing the Kent commuter belt constituency of Tonbridge and Malling for 41 years, but had a hapless reputation as a minister.
Although he never became a cabinet minister, Stanley played a part in some of the most contentious issues of the Thatcher years. An ultra-loyalist, even before he became an MP he was one of the originators of the policy of selling council houses, and steered the legislation through the Commons as housing minister. Moved to the Ministry of Defence after the Conservatives’ post-Falklands general election landslide in 1983, he became embroiled in the Belgrano affair and the prosecution of the civil servant Clive Ponting.
