Dagger is awarded in his memory, for first books by previously unpublished writers; sponsored by BBC Audiobooks, it includes a prize of £1000. This award was known previously as the John Creasey Memorial Dagger. Pseudonyms His pseudonyms include: Gordon Ashe Henry St. John Cooper Credo Norman Deane Robert Caine Frazer Patrick Gill Michael Halliday Charles Hogarth (with Ian Bowen) Brian Hope Colin Hughes Kyle Hunt Abel Mann Peter Manton J.J. Marric James Marsden Richard Martin Rodney Mattheson Anthony Morton Henry St. John Martin Richard Jeremy York In addition, he wrote Westerns under the names of Ken Ranger, Tex Riley, William K. Reilly, and Jimmy Wilde. He also wrote Romantic novels under the names of Margaret Cooke, M.E. Cooke, and Elise Fecamps. Political career As well as being an author, Creasey was a committed Liberal party member though he later became an independent. He said that he had been organising Liberal street-corner meetings from the age of 12. At the time of the 1945 general election Creasey was Chairman of the local Liberal Association in Bournemouth where his publicity and writing skills were instrumental in helping the Liberals to an atypical second place. He was adopted as prospective parliamentary candidate for Bournemouth West in 1946 and appeared on the platform at the 1947 Liberal Assembly, which was held in Bournemouth. He fought Bournemouth West in the 1950 general election, coming third. He became increasingly unhappy with the party through the 1950s though and disagreed so much with the party's policy concerning the Suez Crisis he resigned his membership. However, after the Orpington by-election success of 1962 and impressed with Jo Grimond's leadership of the party he seemed to be reviving his Liberal activity. By January 1966 however, he had founded the All Party Alliance, a pressure group which sought to unite the best people from all parties. The platform of the All Party Alliance was based on running industry by councils made up of workers, managers, investors and government to avoid industrial action, with a mind to eventually eliminate income tax. Creasey fought by-elections as an independent in support of this idea around 1967 at Nuneaton, Brierley Hill and Manchester Gorton. He also fought Oldham West during the by-election of June 1968. He did well for an independent with the first-past-the-post system, having limited resources and often little time to campaign. In Oldham West he beat his old party's candidate into