Michael Clapham (born 15 May 1943) is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Barnsley West and Penistone from 1992 to 2010.
After leaving school in 1958, he was a coal miner for 12 years before he returned to education at Leeds Polytechnic, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree with honours in 1973.
In 1974, he lectured in trade union studies at the Whitwood College in Castleford (now the Whitwood Campus of Wakefield College),[1] before joining the National Union of Mineworkers in 1977 as a claims officer, becoming its head of industrial relations in 1983, the position he held for the duration of the miners' strike of 1984–1985, he stepped down on his election to the House of Commons in 1992.
He was a member of the Trade and Industry Committee from 1992 to 1997 and again from 2003; in between he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Alan Milburn following the 1997 general election, but he resigned over Harriet Harman's decision to cut lone parent benefits in December of that year.
His voting record shows him to be against many of Tony Blair's policies, including ID cards, student top-up fees and the Iraq war.