Simon Hughes

Hughes won the Bermondsey by-election in 1983 in a notoriously homophobic contest against Labour's Peter Tatchell, for which his own campaign later apologised, and then held the seat for 32 years through relentless local casework on council housing, estate repairs and the regeneration of the riverside. He held surgeries several times a week across the constituency. His 2006 admission that he had had relationships with men did not end his local support. He lost in 2015, when the Liberal Democrat vote collapsed nationally.