AN MP has spoken of his sorrow at the death of academic and biographer Ben Pimlott.

Mr Pimlott died over the Easter holiday from leuk-aemia, at the age of 58.

He was Labour's candidate for the then Cleveland and Whitby constituency in both the 1974 and 1979 General Elections, taking on Tory heavyweight Leon Brittan in the 1974 battle.

Ashok Kumar, Labour MP and Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, yesterday described Mr Pimlott's death as "distressing news".

Dr Kumar said: "Ben will go down in history as one of the great historians of the Left in Britain - perhaps as the greatest. I have read, I think, all of his works, and his thought and intellectual rigour has been a great inspiration to me.

"It was a great tragedy for Labour that he did not win the election of 1974, as I feel he would have certainly provided an intellectual backbone to the Wilson and Callaghan governments, something that was lost with the early death of Anthony Crosland."

Guisborough Labour Party member Harry Tout, who acted as Mr Pimlott's agent, said: "I was very proud to be both Ben's agent and friend in the 1970s.

"He was an outstanding candidate, especially when one has to take into account that we were fighting one of the Conservative Party's most formidable politicians."

David Walsh, former Labour leader of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, said: "His humour and stamina kept us going through tough election campaigns - none tougher than in 1979 when we had to face up to the naked force of Thatcherism for the first time."