When he left school during World War II he tried to join the Army but was turned down on the grounds of being "insufficiently robust".
He served in the Home Guard, but was "a good deal less than successful in those ranks, the highlight of his career being the accidental stabbing of a colleague in the hindquarters with a bayonet".
Having unsuccessfully contested Bilston in 1970 and Kingswood in February 1974, he became an MP in October 1974 at his third attempt and represented Cheltenham until his retirement in 1992.
[2] Irving was not afraid to stand up to the prime minister of the day, Margaret Thatcher, particularly over the decision to de-unionise Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) a body located within his Cheltenham constituency, but he was also a great admirer of Thatcher: from the day she was elected leader of the Conservative Party until she resigned as Prime Minister fifteen years later, Irving paid to have fresh flowers delivered to her.
[citation needed] According to both Martin Horwood, the former Lib Dem MP for Cheltenham and Michael McManus's book, Tory Pride and Prejudice: the Conservative Party and Homosexual Law Reform, Irving was gay[4] and he is reported to have offered a steady stream of advice to the Conservative Campaign for Homosexual Equality.