Syd Rapson
Sydney Norman John Rapson is a British former politician. He moved with his family to the Paulsgrove area of Portsmouth as a young child, where he attended Paulsgrove Modern. After leaving school he worked in the aeronautical industry for nearly forty years, and became a long serving councillor, serving as Lord Mayor of Portsmouth in 1990. He was elected as the Labour Member of Parliament for Portsmouth North at the 1997 general election until he retired in 2005. He was succeeded by Sarah McCarthy-Fry.
He had stronger trade union credentials than many of the 1997 intake, having spent many years as an Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union activist and convener, which also gave him the strong interest in defence, the hallmark of his parliamentary career. He joined the Commons Defence Select Committee after the 2001 election. He generally maintained a low profile around Parliament; he rarely contributed to debates and sat for four years on the low-key Accommodation and Works Committee.
Rapson appeared in the controversial TV programme Brass Eye, in which he was duped into presenting a segment on "trust-me trousers", supposedly worn by paedophiles and inflated to hide an erection. Rapson was also recorded stating: "using an area of the Internet the size of Ireland, paedophiles can make your keyboard release toxic vapours that can make you more suggestible". His complaints, and those of fellow MP Barbara Follett, that they had been duped into appearing on the programme, were thrown out by the Broadcasting Standards Commission in January 2002.
Rapson has two children and four grandchildren.
