With the death of Birmingham born former MP Sir Anthony Beaumont-Dark on Monday at the age of 73, I was astonished to read what he had done for the City of Birmingham.

When I first voted it was kick him out of the Selly Oak seat he'd had for years.

Yeah when I was growing up he was part of the Birmingham political scene. Always appearing on Central Weekend - anyone else remember that?! Give him his dues though, he was a great advocate of all things Birmingham. I seem to remember a pipe hanging from his lips too?!

I hadn't realised how much influence he had with getting the National Exhibition Centre off the ground.

He was quite character, and good for Brum's profile. He was certainly quite a wit looking at some of his quotes :lol:

He was one of the few people who could handbag Mrs Thatcher, and gave as good as he got :)

Yeah I remember Central Weekend - I used to love that programme!

He was a very eccentric yet very intelligent & astute man. He may have been outspoken but at least you knew where he stood. The kind of bloke who calls "a spade a fucking spade!", as opposed to the modern-day PC riddled Westminster sops who would probably say "an earth-moving device may or maynot be an earth-moving device, it is too early to say. Although I must say if this is true then there are more earth-moving devices than there were under a Tory Government blah blah"

Dark also wasn't scared of Thatcher either but always respected her. And one of his famous quotes was aimed towards one of the Tory candidates, Sir Anthony Meyer, who was tipped to take over from Thatcher as PM when she was eventually stabbed in the back and toppled from power back in 1990 I think.

Dark described him as a "stalking donkey!"

Class!

Always known by his full name, except during elections when his name as it appeared on lampost placards was just "Tony Dark".

Gotta love those down-with-the-peasants Tories.