Thomas Horabin was born in 1896 at Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales.

After the outbreak of war in 1939, he became outspokenly critical of the government’s administration and his views leant ever farther to the Left.

In the summer of 1939, Horabin was adopted as the Liberal candidate for North Cornwall. During the 1939 by-election he publicly declared that Churchill was ‘the only possible man for Prime Minister in this hour of danger’. During the campaign the North Cornwall Liberal Association circulated a petition throughout the constituency requesting that Chamberlain resign and the King entrusted Churchill with the formation of a Government of National Defence that comprised all parties. Churchill alone, the petition declared, had the ‘moral purpose, courage, experience and capacity to save us from these dangers in this hour of peril’.

He was appointed Chief Liberal Whip in August 1945, but decided to leave the party in the autumn of 1946. He joined the Labour party in November 1947. Despite the request of the North Cornwall Liberals that he resign his seat he declined to do so and sat as Labour member for the constituency for the duration of the parliament through to 1950.

Very little trace of his career survives apart from a Penguin Special, "Politics made plain" published in 1944 which set out his distinctive and radical political ideas. After an aircraft accident left him seriously injured, he decided not to run in the 1949 campaign for North Cornwall. He instead fought for the Exeter seat as a Labour Candidate and lost by some 3,000 votes. After this defeat his political activity ceased and he turned his talents elsewhere.

He died in Folkestone in 1956 aged 60.