Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman, who was first elected in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher came to power, has been reselected.

The youthful 73-year-oldis one of the most active MPs in the House of Commons.

Recent figures show the Labour MP spoke in 153 Commons debates and submitted 267 questions last year.

All the branches in the constituency have now ‘spoken for Barry’ and there is just the Co-operative Party’s assent needed.

That formality is expected to happen on January 31.

Mr Sheerman said: “I’m delighted because there can’t be a better job than going down to London every week and representing the jewel in the crown – Huddersfield.

“I hope to carry on with my energy and wisdom.”

Clr Mehboob Khan, the departing leader of Kirklees Council, and a close friend and political ally of Mr Sheerman, was quick to pay his tribute.

He said: “Barry is brilliant and people in Huddersfield will be overjoyed that, provided he is elected, will continue to fight for investment, jobs and better services.”

Mr Sheerman is originally from Middlesex but is very much an ‘adopted’ Yorkshireman and one of the country’s best-known and longest serving MPs.

A former university lecturer, he delights in the cut and thrust of politics and is rarely out of the headlines, both national and local.

If elected in next year’s general election he will also be one of the oldest MPs in the House.

Austin Mitchell, the 78-year-old Grimsby MP who is only the sixth oldest MP in the House, recently suggested that older MPs were now regarded as “dinosaurs, geriatrics or out-of-touch idiots” – none of which could ever be associated with Mr Sheerman, who possesses a youthful vibrancy.

And it seems age is no bar to continuing as an MP.

Britain’s greatest leader Winston Churchill was still going strong at 85 when he was re-elected following the 1959 general election albeit with a reduced majority. He retired at the age of 89.