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30 November 2016updated 07 Sep 2021 10:35am

The Returning Officer: Mrs R B Fraser

By Stephen Brasher

In 1931, a rumour spread that the prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, would fight Streatham (as well as Seaham). Labour’s candidate was to be Robert Fraser, the leader writer of the Daily Herald, but he withdrew and his wife stood in his place. Fraser fought York in 1935 and was selected for Wellingborough in 1936; he resigned in 1941 as a result of the pressure of war work at the Ministry of Information.

One newspaper noted that Mrs Fraser was “as thoroughgoing a representative of insurgent postwar youth and highbrow feminism as one could imagine . . . She wears American horn rims but is a good deal prettier . . . than most Hollywood film stars.”

Stephen Brasher

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