Janey Buchan - Telegraph Norman, a teacher, entered full-time politics first, serving as MP for West Renfrewshire from 1964 and as a Scottish Office and Agriculture Minister. At home bringing up their son, Janey Buchan combined an active role in the Labour Party with an intense interest in the arts and the media, which developed into a fascination with television. She campaigned against censorship and for restrictions on advertising aimed at children. She was elected to Strathclyde Regional Council in 1974 and became vice-chairman of its education committee. Three years later she chaired the Labour Party in Scotland, coming under Conservative fire when she was also appointed to chair the Scottish Gas Consumers' Council. It took the first elections to the European Parliament in 1979 for Janey Buchan to find a seat; she would say the only reason she made it to Strasbourg was that no men in the Scottish party were interested. But, having won the Labour nomination for Glasgow, her election was a formality. After leaving Strasbourg in 1994 she concentrated on the fight for human rights at home and abroad, not least as founding president of the Scottish Homosexual Rights Group. She remained a formidable fund-raiser for the arts, at her retirement party demanding a book token from each guest. The Buchans amassed more than 15,000 - mainly political - books in their Victorian house. On her husband's death she indignantly rejected suggestions that she sell them, saying: "Do you think I can do what young Winston Churchill did with his grandfather's papers?" She donated the books to Caledonian University, a comprehensive collection of (mainly Left-wing) songs forming the basis of the world's first academic Centre for Political Song. Fifteen years later, preparing at 79 to move to London, she found a further 1,000 books in the attic. Janey Buchan is survived by her son. Janey Buchan, born April 30 1926, died January 14 2012