GEOFFREY WANSELL: Why Leo Abse was a very dangerous dandy

Though unashamedly heterosexual, he was an avid campaigner for gay rights. Throughout the Sixties, Abse seemed to see it as his personal duty to shepherd into existence a sexual revolution. He oversaw the legalisation of sexual relationships between men, and changes to the divorce laws that made it ever easier for women to leave their husbands.

More than any other parliamentarian of his generation, Abse, whether wittingly or not, ushered in an era of political correctness that made it all but impossible to criticise someone's sexuality, and began to erode the importance of traditional marriage and the family.

Danger man: Leo Abse MP in his budget day suit

Never afraid of drawing attention to himself, the peacock-like Abse, who was Labour MP for Pontypool in South Wales for 29 years, piloted a Private Member's Bill through Parliament in 1967 that legalised sex between men over the age of 21, famously remarking: 'Imprisoning homosexuals for long periods in male jails is like incarcerating a sex maniac in a harem.'

The late Roy Jenkins, then Home Secretary, gave Abse government time to debate the reform, which attracted considerable hostility in both the Commons and the Lords. But Abse's determination never wavered  -  and the Sexual Offences (Homosexual Reform) Act became law.

Two years later, Abse also helped to force the 1969 Divorce Reform Act through Parliament. This transformed the concept of divorce, making the 'irretrievable breakdown' of a marriage  -  rather than adultery by either partner  -  grounds for divorce.

These two backbench Bills, though now coming under increasing moral scrutiny, are unarguably two of the most important pieces of social legislation passed by Parliament in the Sixties.

Throughout the passage of both, the gnome-like figure of Abse, who often wore jewellery and carried a cane, took delight in explaining the details of Freudian psychoanalysis to his fellow MPs. He was inspired to do so by the work of his elder brother Wilfred, who had trained as a psychotherapist.

Indeed, Abse's views on homosexuality were strongly influenced by his interest in psychotherapy. He argued that an obsession with the question of punishment of homosexuals 'has hitherto prompted us to avoid the real challenge of preventing little boys from growing up to be adult homosexuals'.

It was an attitude that did not always endear him to fellow parliamentarians. Some criticised him for being 'preoccupied with sex'; but it was a charge that never fazed the ever-flamboyant Abse.

His bride was 50 years his junior

Indeed, 13 years after he left the Commons, in 2000, Abse married for a second time at the age of 83 (following the death of his first wife).

His bride, Aina Czeputkowska, a Polish-born textile artist who had worked in the Gdansk shipyards as an electrician, was 50 years his junior.

Unabashed, Abse suggested that she could always 'find another man' after he was dead.

His interest in sexual matters never wavered, and he wrote many books on the subject.

In a 1989 biography of Margaret Thatcher  -  called Margaret, Daughter Of Beatrice  -  he went to considerable lengths to explain that the then Prime Minister's failure to include her mother's name in her Who's Who entry, while including her father's, meant that she had been 'denied her mother's breast' as a child.

Abse argued that this explained Thatcher's decision to withdraw free school milk from children when she was Secretary of State for Education.

An unashamed political maverick, in 1996 Abse also published a biography of Tony Blair, called The Man Behind The Smile: Tony Blair And The Politics Of Perversion, and followed it four years later with a study of US President Bill Clinton's sexual peccadilloes.

In his later book, Tony Blair: The Man Who Lost His Smile, he paints a portrait of a political Peter Pan obsessed with rock music and eternal youth, and an aggressive narcissist 'suffering from emotional and psychological incontinence'.

One of his earliest political boasts, listed in his own Who's Who entry, was an arrest for 'political activities' while he was an aircraftsman in the RAF. While stationed in Cairo in 1944, he had helped to set up a Forces Parliament.

He thought devolution would force everyone to speak Welsh

He first stood for the Commons in 1955, and was eventually elected in a by-election three years later.

Abse, whose father was a Cardiff cinema owner and brother Dannie became a poet, was a passionate defender of Welsh and Jewish causes  -  although he did not support devolution for Wales, believing it would force everyone into speaking Welsh.

Ever the political maverick, he spent his later years in the Commons campaigning against nuclear power and nuclear weapons, demanding the withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland, and condemning Mrs Thatcher's insistence that Argentina should offer an unconditional surrender in the wake of their invasion of the Falkland Islands.

Despite his controversial views, Abse had his political supporters. Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock and his wife Glenys said: 'Leo was courageous, highly principled, very funny and totally unique.

'We're glad that he had such a fulfilling life in which he gained so much social progress by being an outstanding, free-thinking socialist.'

But while Abse is now probably best remembered by many for his extravagant plumage (he took particular pride in his suits on Budget Day, many of which were designed by his first wife), his most potent legacy was to have been responsible for helping weaken the institutions of marriage and family life.