[2] Originally a Conservative, Raffan was in the early 1970s a chairman of Pressure for Economic and Social Toryism (a precursor of the Tory Reform Group), thus placing him on the left of the party.
[2] He was elected as Conservative MP for the Welsh seat of Delyn from 1983 to 1992, but his views on issues like drugs put him out of favour with the prevailing leadership of Margaret Thatcher, and he was never made a Minister.
[2] In 1998 he stood as the Liberal Democrat candidate in the European Parliament by-election for North East Scotland, and soon afterwards was appointed the Scottish party's chief spokesman on home affairs.
The following month he resigned as an MSP, citing ill-health (and not the controversy his expense claims had caused or the accusations of inappropriate sexual and bullying behaviour towards his staff) as the reason.
[citation needed] In the run up to the 2018 local elections, Raffan wrote a letter to the Evening Standard declaring that he was going to vote for the Labour Party in Kensington, where he was living.