 Described as an "old-style centre-right socialist", Dormand was a working-class child who progressed through grammar school education to study at Oxford and Harvard to a career as an educational administrator before entering Parliament at the age 50, where he was noted as an advocate for education and for mining areas.He never achieved ministerial office, but as a skilled administrator he played a significant role as a government whip in the 1970s, and as Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party when the party was in opposition in the 1980s.An atheist and a staunch republican, he reluctantly accepted a life peerage when he retired from the House of Commons and was an active working peer until his death 16 years later.