Dedicated David: 50 years after becoming an MP, David Winnick vows to keep on serving

Thursday saw the honourable member for Walsall North celebrate 50 years since he first became an MP, having won the Croydon South seat by the slenderest of margins after four re-votes.

"I actually lost all four of them," the 82-year-old recalled. "Fortunately my agent went through the Tory piles of votes. They were all bundled in stacks of 100 and it turned out one of them contained votes for me. Let us not be malicious and just say it must have been an accident on the part of the vote counters. As a result I was elected by a majority of 81."

Mr Winnick, who grew up in Brighton, started his political career in 1959 as a councillor for the London boroughs of Willesden and Brent.

He says he loved politics from a very early age, despite his parents being apolitical.

His first crack at becoming an MP fell short in Harwick in 1964, but two years later at the age of 32 he won Croydon South from the Tories' Sir Richard Hilton Marler Thompson.

"The political climate was very much in Labour's favour back then," he said.

"The 1966 election extended the party's majority and quite frankly it was a wonderful period. I went into the Commons hoping to make changes to improve the lives of normal people. For those who were on low incomes and disadvantaged, life had become miserable. We brought in abortion for women, divorce reform and legalised homosexuality. Labour helped to change people's lives, which is what I had signed up for."

Mr Winnick held his seat until the 1970 general election when the Tories were surprise victors, before taking the Walsall North seat he still holds today in 1979.

Keeping the seat for 37 years means he is the longest serving MP for any Walsall constituency, a fact which he admits gives him an immense sense of pride. He also ranks as the only MP still in the Commons that held a seat in the 1960s.

The likeable father-of-one, who says he enjoys nothing more than sitting down in front of a good film in his spare time, is reputed for his commitment to human rights and his tireless constituency work.

He is frequently armed with an acute sense of injustice, and was firing on all cylinders last month when he pressed the then Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith over proposed cuts to disabled benefits.

Just days after he had accused the Conservatives of 'waging an ongoing war against the disabled', Mr Duncan Smith had quit and the policy was ditched. For Mr Winnick it was another episode to add to the long line of memories of his time in the Commons.

Having never been afraid to waiver from the party line, in November 2005 he was behind the crushing defeat of then Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair's bill to detain terror suspects for up to 90 days.

It marked Mr Blair's first Commons defeat after eight years in power and was the biggest reverse for a government on a whipped vote since James Callaghan's administration.

"It was not long after the 7/7 attacks and people were still hurting," recalled Mr Winnick."But however horrified I was, I thought 90 days was excessive and put down an amendment to change it to 28 days. The Tories voted for it and so did a good number of my colleagues. I've never been a Blairite but to his credit he didn't make it personal.

"He told the whips not to make an issue of it and we went about our business."

But he also caused controversy in 2013 in the wake of Margaret Thatcher's death, defying then Labour leader Ed Miliband and condemning the former Tory Prime Minister in the Commons, saying she had caused 'immense pain and suffering to ordinary people'.

"She did it with such indifference that I couldn't let the occasion pass without saying something," he said.

"There was so much praise for her that I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I had kept my mouth shut."

And despite his advanced years, Mr Winnick says he has no plans to retire just yet. "

I was returned only last year and my enthusiasm hasn't waned one bit. If I ever lose my commitment I will walk away.

"I simply won't be a hypocrite. My desire to see substantial improvements to the lives of working people is as strong as ever and I will continue to represent my constituency."