Fletcher unsuccessfully contested
Middlesbrough West for the
Labour Party at the
1959 general election. At the
1964 general election he was elected as
Member of Parliament (MP) for
Darlington, and held the seat until his death in 1983, aged 71. He was a member of the
Tribune Group and was regarded as being broadly on the left of the Labour Party. Fletcher's Labour successor after the
resulting by-election was
Ossie O'Brien, who was MP for just a matter of weeks before he lost to the
Conservative Michael Fallon at the
1983 general election. ==Legacy==