John Sampson Macfarlane Leech[citation needed] (born 11 April 1971[1]) is a British Liberal Democrat politician who was Member of Parliament for Manchester Withington from 2005 to 2015.

He played a role in the campaign to outlaw homophobic chanting at football matches,[6] and put pressure on leaders in Greater Manchester to take on Syrian child refugees.

Leech was born in Wakefield, West Yorkshire,[7] and grew up in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, where his father was a minister at Chorlton Methodist Church.

He attended the private Manchester Grammar School, Loreto College and Brunel University where he studied History and Politics and also joined the Liberal Democrats.

After leaving university he worked as a trainee manager for McDonald's and part-time at the RAC in Stretford as a call centre insurance claims handler.

[9] In 2004, the whole council was contested due to boundary changes and Leech won a seat for Chorlton Park, which covered most of the former Barlow Moor ward area.

[22] A news article published in 2016 claimed Leech had completed more than 111,000 pieces of casework during his ten years in parliament, based on analysis from 'Write To Them'.

[29] During the election campaign, Leech released a film showing young children watching television and reacting to controversial news headlines, including then-recent comments about women made by Withington councillor Chris Paul.

"[31] Leech was re-elected to Manchester City Council in May 2018, topping the ballot and increasing his share of the vote to 55% with a turnout of just under 50%, unusually high for a local election.

[32] In an opinion piece written on the day the UK left the EU, Leech said Brexit was "not in our [Lib Dems] name, and we will fight back."

[36] On 15 October 2020, Leech endorsed a Tier 3 lockdown for Greater Manchester saying "nothing eclipses public health", and accused the region's leaders of being "completely irresponsible".

[74] In January 2017, Leech revealed statistics about the number of sexual attacks linked to the dating apps Tinder and Grindr.

In September 2017, Leech launched a Manchester-based campaign to tackle what he described as an "appalling" rise in homophobic and transphobic bullying in local schools.

[79] Speaking at the Liberal Democrats conference, he said 'We have absolutely no right to claim we live in a decent society when this kind of behaviour is still rife in our schools.

Also in September 2017, Leech delivered a speech at the Liberal Democrats Conference in which he called on the Government to take a more proactive role in youth crime.

[84] He said that "Under absolutely no circumstances" should Lendlease ever be considered for a council contract again until they paid a £3m Grenfell-style cladding bill in the Green Quarter of Manchester.

[88] In August 2020, Leech wrote to the Big Five tech giants – Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft – urging them to donate £400,000 each to secure the future of the Bletchley Park trust where Turing did much of his work after the organisation announced it was to lose more than £2m and cut a third of its workforce.

[89] In September 2020, Leech blamed a "toxic social atmosphere" created by PM Boris Johnson for a rise in attacks against the LGBTQ+ community.

[90] In 2005, Politics.co.uk gave him the magazine's monthly ‘Top MP’ honour for his campaign to outlaw homophobic chanting at football matches.

[96] In the 2019 EU elections, he worked with the Liberal Democrats' sister party D66 to deliver a campaign aimed at young people.

"[97] In a press conference in Utrecht, he said the saddest thing about Brexit was losing the close and long relationship the Netherlands and the UK have had for generations.

Police advised Leech not to post his schedule publicly and to temporarily pause his advice surgeries whilst the force worked with Twitter to find the user.

[101] Responding, Leech said he "did not seek the vote of homophobes", signing off with "You are, of course, entitled to hold your offensive views, but please do not bother to waste my time, and yours, by expressing them to me."

[102][101] On 12 February 2019 Leech sparked controversy when he tweeted that a potential council policy, which was still out for public consultation, was "absolute crap".

[104] When asked to clarify his comments by local media, Leech refused to apologise and instead went on to describe the policy as a "Homeless Tax", "social cleansing" and promised his party would "oppose it until the end of time.

[106] The argument was prompted by a sign put up by Labour above the Lord Mayor's chair at the front of the council chamber, reading '10 Years of Tory And Lib Dem Cuts'.

[107] He began 'screaming' and 'shouting' at Leech and told him to hand over the laminated A4 pieces of paper at least 11 times, according to Manchester Evening News journalist Jen Williams, who filmed and reported the events.