Graham William Allen (born 11 January 1953) is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Nottingham North from 1987 to 2017.
He was a local government officer at Greater London Council between 1983 and 1984, before working for the trade union movement, running the first political fund ballots, and then with the GMB until his election in 1987.
[5] After helping to organise Tony Blair's leadership campaign, Allen was given a series of shadow portfolios, including social security, transport and the environment.
Allen was liberated by his move to the backbenches, which freed him to speak out publicly on the few elements of government policy he opposed.
[12] Allen was a proponent of democratic reform[6] and supported independent local government, some proportional representation and a fully elected House of Lords.
Allen expanded on this in 2019, when he launched plans for a Citizens Convention on UK Democracy with cross-party support from MPs including Vince Cable, David Davis, Dominic Grieve, Caroline Lucas and Tom Watson.
The convention aims to involve millions of people in a process of recommending changes to improve democracy including a review of the Parliamentary "Second Chamber", the House of Lords, devolution and the regions, paying for politics, the voting system and a written constitution to enshrine in law things done by convention that do not currently exist in a statute.