has always been a dimension of what I do." (Later he would also publish fiction, including a spy novel To Live in Danger in 1960 and then a long work Facing Death. The latter, initially composed in the 1960s but not published until 1977, would be shortlisted for an award by The Yorkshire Post). In 1955 he began a year studying philosophy at Yale University on a postgraduate fellowship. He had expected to hate America but found that he loved it. His deep admiration of the country's equality of opportunity was expressed in a swift series of books, Go West, Young Man (1958), The New Radicalism (1963) and The Democratic Revolution (1964). Politician Magee returned to Britain with hopes of becoming a Labour Member of Parliament (MP). He twice stood unsuccessfully for Mid Bedfordshire, at the 1959 general election and the 1960 by-election, and instead took a job presenting the ITV current affairs television programme This Week. He made documentary programmes about subjects of social concern such as prostitution, sexually transmitted diseases, abortion and homosexuality (illegal in Britain at the time). Interviewed in 2003, Magee said: British society was illiberal in a number of areas that are now taken for granted... Roy Jenkins changed them and he was bitterly opposed by the Tories. But if you were liberal with a small L there was a menu of social change and I believed very strongly in that whole liberal agenda. He was eventually elected MP for Leyton at the February 1974 general election, but from 1981 found himself out of tune with the Labour Party's direction under Michael Foot. On 22 January 1982 he resigned the Labour whip and in March joined the defection of centrist Labour MPs to the newly founded Social Democratic Party. He lost his seat at the 1983 general election. Magee returned to writing and broadcasting which, indeed, he had continued during his parliamentary career and would also serve on various boards and committees. He notably resigned as chairman of the Arts Council music panel in 1994 in protest at funding cuts. He also returned to scholarship at Oxford, first as a fellow at Wolfson, then at New College. He also found more time to write classical music reviews and worked on his own compositions. He admitted that, while his own work was "whistleable", it was also "inherently sentimental". Interviewed in 2003, Oxford contemporary William Rees-Mogg recalled