When John Morris arrived at Westminster as an ambitious young MP in 1959, Harold Macmillan was prime minister. By the time his parliamentary career ended on his death in 2023, he had seen 14 prime ministers come and go and served in the cabinets of three of them.
With the exception of a seven-week hiatus between standing down at the 2001 general election and his elevation to the House of Lords as Lord Morris of Aberavon, he sat in parliament for a continuous 64 years. His 42 years as the member for Aberavon made him one of the longest-serving Welsh MPs.
When he was made attorney-general in Tony Blair’s government in 1997 he was the only member of the New Labour administration with cabinet experience,