David Ashby

David Glynn Ashby (born 14 May 1940) is a British retired lawyer and politician who was the Conservative Member of Parliament for North West Leicestershire from 1983 until he stood down in 1997.

Ashby was both a criminal barrister (1963-2001) and a British politician. His political career spanned over twenty years, starting in 1968 as a local Conservative councillor for Hammersmith, Greater London where he was chairman for Housing and then progressing as a Conservative Councillor for the Greater London Council (GLC) representing Woolwich West from 1977 to 1981.^[1] While at the GLC (subsequently dissolved under Margaret Thatcher's government in 1986), he was Chairman of Housing and Management and campaigned fervently for a fairer system of council house distribution by moving power to the boroughs and decentralising.^{[citation needed]}

At the 1983 United Kingdom general election he was elected as a Conservative Member of Parliament for North West Leicestershire, seen at the time as a marginal seat. He was a back-bench MP under both the Margaret Thatcher and John Major governments of the 1980s and 1990s. He was a member of the Home Affairs Committee 17 June 1987 - 21 March 1997, and Consolidation etc. Bills (Joint Committee) 9 June 1983 - 16 March 1992.^[2] Ashby was deselected by the North West Leicestershire Constituency Conservative Party in 1996 and Robert Goodwill unsuccessfully contested the seat for the Tories at the 1997 United Kingdom general election.