James "Jim" Daly (9 October 1936-20 September 2002) was a trade unionist, lecturer and politician. He was a member of the Labour Party, later defecting to the Social Democratic Party and continuing in its successor, the Liberal Democrats.
Born in County Offaly, Ireland, he moved to Chiswick in West London. He became involved in student politics and then became a union official.
In 1971 he was elected to Hounslow Borough Council as a Labour Party councillor for Homefields Ward. The election was very tight with six candidates contesting the three seats available: Daly topped the poll with the other two seats won by the Conservative Party. In 1973 he was also elected to the Greater London Council as a Labour councillor representing Brentford and Isleworth. He became Chairman of the GLC's Transport Committee which oversaw London Transport.
He did not defend his borough council seat at the next election in 1974 and in 1977 he lost his GLC seat to the Conservative Party. He had by this time taken up a career as a lecturer in industrial relations at the Polytechnic of North London. He left the Labour Party when the Social Democrats split from it in 1981. He was deeply opposed to the politics of Ken Livingstone and was expected to stand against him at the 1981 GLC elections at Paddington. In the event another candidate was chosen and Daly did not stand for election again, but was on the SDP's Steering Committee as spokesman on housing policy.
At the 1984 European Parliament elections Daly was the SDP's candidate at the London South Inner constituency, finishing in third place with 16.6% of the vote.
Daly returned to Hounslow Council at the 1986 borough elections, winning a seat as a Liberal-SDP Alliance candidate in the tightly-fought East Bedfont Ward. He became leader of the Alliance group on Hounslow Council. By the next borough elections in 1990 the Alliance had become the Liberal Democrats. They did poorly, losing all but one councillor. Daly and his fellow Lib Dem candidates in East Bedfont came behind the Labour and Conservative parties. He tried to regain the seat at the 1994 borough elections but again was defeated, coming eighth of nine candidates. He tried again at the 1994 and 1998 borough elections, coming sixth on both occasions. His last attempt came in May 2002. He returned to his original ward of Homefields butcame behind the Conservative and Labour candidates.
An obituary, in The Guardian, here [1]