Alan Keen obituary
Julia Langdon www.theguardian.com
Labour MP and former football scout who became embroiled in the expenses scandal
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the Guardian
It came as something of a surprise when Alan Keen, who has died from cancer aged 73, was first elected as the Labour MP for Feltham and Heston in 1992. He had nothing like the high political profile of his wife, Ann Keen, who was fighting the neighbouring west London seat of Brentford and Isleworth for the second time, and who was bitterly disappointed at her failure to take the seat from the Conservatives.

Her husband had been selected as a candidate for the first time only the previous year, and had not previously exhibited any personal ambition to reach Westminster; nor was he expected to win the seat. The Keen family was further dismayed by the fact that Ann's sister, Sylvia Heal, lost her seat in Lichfield and Tamworth, and Neil Kinnock failed to become prime minister.

But Alan, who had been a member of Hounslow borough council for four years until 1990, had cultivated his contacts within the sprawling suburbs lying to the east of Heathrow, and he alone within his family was quietly confident that he could win sufficient votes in one of the largest Asian communities in Britain to dislodge the sitting Tory MP. His success in doing so was probably the most startling incident in his subsequent political career.

He was a charming, amiable, kindly and unassuming man who became an unobtrusive loyalist on the Labour backbenches. However, he could be enlivened by a passion for music. He played the drums and the harmonica, sometimes arriving at a party with a plastic carrier bag containing dozens of harmonicas, all of which he intended to play. In the Commons, he made few speeches, rarely tabled questions and on few issues was prepared to resist the blandishments of the Labour whips.

For such a quiet and intensely private man it was, in its way, incongruous that he and his wife, eventually elected in 1997, when Heal also returned to the Commons, became known in 2009 as "Mr and Mrs Expenses". An apparent lack of political nous, matched by any compensating evidence of much contribution to public life, led to an unhappy period of humiliation in the press coupled with much public scorn.

They had jointly claimed enormous sums in expenses – almost £1.7m over seven years – and when they bought a £500,000 flat as their second home on the south bank near Westminster, nine miles and 30 minutes from their constituency home, they were found to have committed a serious breach of rules involving significant public funds. Their constituency home in Brentford was occupied by squatters in 2009, having been empty for over nine months because of a dispute with builders, but this did little to increase local sympathy. Nor did Alan's decision to vote against proposals to reform the so-called "John Lewis list" system for furnishing MPs' second homes.

Locally he made himself unpopular for changing his mind about the necessity of a third runway at Heathrow. This now abandoned project was widely opposed in his constituency, a view he initially shared, but which he then reneged upon, claiming that it would not affect most of his constituents. Despite the row that ensued, he held his seat in 2010 election, when Ann lost to the Conservatives' Mary Macleod.

Alan was born the son of Jack Keen, whom he never knew, and Gladys (nee Sivills), who came from Teesside. His mother went to work at the age of 14, and two years later moved to London, where Alan was born, in search of employment, while desperately missing the close-knit community of the impoverished streets of Grangetown. She took her baby son back to Middlesbrough when he was three weeks old, and he was immensely proud of his heritage.

He went to Sir William Turner's school, Redcar, and up to 1992 worked as a systems analyst, accountant and manager. His first marriage was dissolved, and in 1980 he married Ann (nee Lloyd Fox). He is survived by her and the son and daughter from his first marriage.

A great lover of sport, he said once: "We shall win gold medals and make our nations world champions only if we ensure that all children and young people have a chance to participate in sport." He was chairman of the all-party groups on football and on athletics, and a member of the select committee on culture, media and sport.

Lawrie McMenemy writes: Alan Keen could lay claim to being football's greatest fan in parliament: he was himself a good player, and in the 1970s and 80s a scout for his local club, Middlesbrough. Among the managers he served was Jackie Charlton, and among the footballers he spotted was Graeme Souness, a lifelong friend. Other friends included Kenny Dalglish, Steve McClaren and Sven-Goran Eriksson.

Alan made the football group just about the biggest of its kind in parliament. With 150 members, it carried considerable weight. I met Alan regularly in his capacity as chairman and was impressed by his ferocious support for his hometown club, his knowledge of the game and the two reports on its governance that he conducted.

David Alan Keen, politician, born 25 November 1937; died 10 November 2011