David Hudson, who has died in an accident at his Wetherby home, aged 80, was the third generation of local Conservative politicians. His grandfather, James David Hudson, was a founder member of the Wetherby Rural District Council in 1897. Previously he had been a produce merchant, exporting cheeses to the United States. He was said to have crossed the Atlantic twelve times in sailing ships. He bought the family home, Hill Top Farm in Wetherby, with proceeds from the sale of a property block in Broadway, New York, in 1861. David's father, Colonel Joseph H Hudson, was a County Councillor for Wetherby and Chairman of the West Riding County Council immediately before its demise in the 1970s. David himself was elected to Wetherby RDC in 1955, to the West Riding County Council in 1967 and to Leeds City Council in 1975. He served as Mayor of Wetherby Town Council and was the Deputy Lord Mayor of Leeds in 1981-82 and Lord Mayor in 2001-02. He also served on the West Yorkshire Police Authority and the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Authority.

Of all the politicians from the outer areas that became part of Leeds City Council in 1974, David Hudson seemed most at home in the wider city politics. An extremely convivial individual, he took to the formal and informal machinations of the Leeds Civic Hall without any apparent effort and was popular with members of all the political groups. Although ostensibly very relaxed he was not averse to mixing it politically when the need arose and on occasion could be provoked into fierce defence of the Conservative cause. He served for many years on the planning committee and, though there was no suggestion of malpractice, he came under public criticism for alleged conflicts of interest when he obtained planning permission to develop valuable land around the family home. He was Managing Director of the family farm and holiday homes management business.

David Hudson was passionate about cricket, having played for Wetherby Cricket Club from 1943 to 1965, four times captaining the team to the Wetherby and District League title. He was also a keen rugby union player in his youth. He also took a great interest in local hospices, choosing St Gemma's and Martin House for his Lord Mayoral charities. He was one of the last of that style of Conservative land owners and business leaders who believed that it was an important duty to participate in civic life. He finally retired from the City Council at last June's elections.

He married Gillian Barlow in 1954, and they have three daughters, Fiona, Jennifer and Pippa.

Despite his distinguished academic and literary career, Richard Hoggart, who has died aged 95, was best known for his comments on Lady Chatterley's Lover as a defence witness at the 1960 obscenity trial, and for his seminal work, The Uses of Literacy , on Northern working class life.

Before Hoggart's 1957 book there had been no thorough and sensitive narrative which combined analysis and description of working class culture in a manner which painted its strengths alongside its struggles. Hoggart came directly from the tough back streets of inner city Leeds, made more harsh by the death of his father when he was just eighteen months old, followed by that of his mother when he was seven. Parted from his two siblings, he was brought up by his paternal grandmother in industrial Hunslet.

Thanks to a perceptive and persuasive headteacher, Hoggart gained a scholarship to the local grammar school and from there to Leeds University and a First in English Literature. Twenty years later came The Uses of Literacy which combined a clear recall of his childhood with a mature analysis of its significance. His ability to judge himself appealed to many influential individuals and it became a reference point for much social policy debate.

Hoggart could be blunt, as shown by his comment that "you are bound to be close to people with whom …. you share a lavatory in a common yard," but he was also reflective, as when he wrote that "a writer who is himself from the working classes has his own temptations to error, somewhat different but no less than those from another class. I am from the working classes and feel even now close to them and apart from them. In a few more years this double relationship may not, I suppose, be so apparent to me; but it is bound to affect what I say." Such a doubt may have shaped his personal concerns but his three volumes of autobiography and his books of intimate personal commentary demonstrate that he never lost the ability to relate to his roots.

His testimony for the defence in the 1960 obscenity case against Lady Chatterley's Lover was regarded as the turning point of the trial. To those who expected otherwise of a scion of the working class, his evidence came as a shock, but to those who had read Uses of Literacy it was no surprise. In the book he had carefully differentiated between male "locker room" obscenity and the natural directness of sexual expression. He wrote of his grandmother reading many of the books he brought home when in the sixth form, including D H Lawrence: "much of it she admired, and she was not shocked. But of his descriptions of physical sex she said, 'E makes a lot of fuss and lah-de-dah about it'."

At the trial Hoggart reclaimed explicit sexual language for the "tradition of British Puritanism" that used words for their forthright meaning rather than as macho obscenities. Mervyn Griffith-Jones QC , the prosecution counsel, had clearly not been prepared for Hoggart's line of defence and the prosecution case slowly unwound until the jury's not guilty verdict became inevitable. Hoggart wrote later: "The judge and Griffith-Jones were a well-matched pair; both seemed to think they were trying not so much a book as Lady Chatterley herself, for letting down her class; and Mellors for getting above himself (and by getting on top of her.)"

Following wartime service in North Africa and in Italy with the Royal Artillery he returned to the first of a series of academic posts, including inaugurating the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University and a five year stint as Assistant Director-General of UNESCO, the United Nation's cultural and educational agency. At the latter he took charge of a number of heritage projects and his autobiography records many of his clashes with bureaucracy and corruption. He tells of being in the VIP lounge at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport when a Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister tried to give him a "fat envelope of roubles for 'incidental expenses'. This was one of the oldest tricks in the book. The packet went back and forward until I asked my interpreter to buy champagne for everyone in the lounge. The minister and the interpreter thought that a nice move."

Richard Hoggart was regarded as a "safe pair of hands" and was in great demand as a member of government committees, but his open recognition of media "dumbing down" was explicit, even if qualified by a typical Hoggart reticence: "I don't read or watch them myself but if they want the popular press as we have it, or the trashier programmes on television who am I to regret or judge their tastes. That's democracy." Tony Benn records, however, that after such comments "Wilson thought Richard Hoggart unacceptable as a BBC Governor."

Richard Hoggart differed from his fellow working class Leeds authors in that, whereas they tended to emphasise the ludicrous and the comic, he was an academic who observed society with a watchful eye and a sensitive ear. He wore his learning and achievements lightly and regarded them as a means to a positive end. His writings draw out warmth rather than whimsy and enabled those who knew the conditions and the humanity that he described to feel that he respected them and saw the potential in those constrained by their circumstances.

He leaves a wife, Mary, whom he married in 1942, their son: Simon, a prominent Guardian journalist died in January, their second son, Paul, is a television critic, and their daughter, Nicola, a specialist Special Needs teacher.

Pat Hawes was very much a British jazz pioneer. He was a talented pianist who could play in just about every style, including boogie, stride and ragtime. He produced fine solos and his playing was always tailored to the musicians around him and he was a sensitive accompanist when supporting soloists. I enjoyed Jim Godbolt's anecdote about Pat in the second volume of his History of Jazz in Britain: "In the early days .... pianists were expected to pound the piano with both fists in crude imitation of the more primitive New Orleans style. The general attitude can be summed up by the horrified reaction of a pianist - Pat Hawes - in a 'pure' New Orleans-style band on being asked by a recording engineer to play a bit higher up the keyboard: 'Wot, and sound like f***ing Teddy Wilson?'"

At the age of fifteen he won a competition playing boogie-woogie before playing briefly around his home area of Pinner in a local dance band. He joined John Haim's band and recorded with him in 1946. Pat played and recorded with just about every major British band but never stayed with any single band more than a few years. His two periods with the Crane River band, from 1949 to 1953 and in its revival from 1972 to 1975, were just about his longest stays with any band. Between times he led his own trio and, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s , did a great deal of solo work. He took part in bands accompanying visiting jazzmen Albert Nicholas, Captain John Handy and George Probert. He recorded two sessions under his own name, firstly in 1996 and his final recordings in 2000. This latter session was entitled "That Salty Dog" and featured Pat singing the title number, plus other rare vocals!

Pat was a very amenable and easy going colleague who was always anxious to please. Despite his long and distinguished record he never stood on ceremony but happily did just about any gig. He did a Thames river boat gig for my Granny Lee band in 2001 making the trek from Maidenhead just weeks after he had collapsed in the street with a heart attack. He made light of this "episode" and the only concession he made to his health was to insist that there was a piano on board as he had had "to give up carting keyboards and amplifiers around."

In his later years Pat wrote excellent reviews for Jazz Journal and for this journal and it was only when these ceased to appear that I, and no doubt other friends, realised that he was ill. His presence and his playing are much missed.

Patrick Vernon Hawes, born 29 July 1928, died April 2017

Political party agents once had public status as individuals who carried out professional duties that were important to the exercise of democracy. That esteem has been considerably undermined over the past 30 years by the advent of the adman, the campaign manager and the candidate’s “minder”, Albert Ingham was one of the last links with the old school of agent and, whilst always being receptive to new ideas and techniques, was rightly always proud of the profession that had occupied his entire working life.

Albert Ingham began his professional career immediately after the war in 1918, being appointed to the Elland Divisional Liberal Association staff. From early on he was recognised as a skilful organiser and diplomat and was often sent by party headquarters into difficult situations as a troubleshooter. This took him to East Anglia and to Lancashire before returning to Yorkshire in 1936 as agent for the Colne Valley Liberal Association.

He was so much part of the Yorkshire party scene that it was often not realised how wide his service had been. I once commented to him how difficult it must have been for the Preston Liberals in 1929 when Sir William Jowitt defected to Labour immediately after the election in order to become Attorney General in the second Labour Government. Ingham replied: “You don’t have to tell me — I was his agent!”.

At the outbreak of war in 1939 he went to work with the YMCA in support of members of the forces. At the end of the war he took on the job of Secretary to the Yorkshire Liberal Federation, a post he held, including a spell as Chief Agent, until his retirement in 1967. Thereafter he took on a new lease of life as probably the most experienced amateur worker and fund-raiser at general, municipal and by-elections. Though small in stature he was impossible to ignore as a campaigner and was held in immense affection by everyone in the party, not least for his remarkable skill for being in the right place at the right time to appear in press photographs.

His Liberalism was deep and passionate: he always described himself as a Radical. He was a constant spotter of talent and supporter of younger colleagues, many of whom he encouraged to become parliamentary candidates before they themselves recognised their own abilities.

Albert Ingham, political agent, born Rochdale 4 May 1901, MBE 1979, married 1922 Minnie Sellen (died 1981; one daughter, and one daughter deceased), died Leeds 13 April 1990.

An appreciation for Liberal History Journal

The death of Trevor Jones on 8 September 2016 signals the demise of one of the most remarkable electoral campaigners in modern political history. It was his skill and drive that delivered Liberal control of Liverpool City Council and which produced a number of the by-election successes that rescued the party from its 1970 depths. At that election it had fewer votes and seats than today but, after five by-election victories and the early burgeoning of community politics, it reached almost 20% of the vote by the February 1974 election.

The bare statistics of the Liverpool successes were remarkable, following, as they did, Trevor's first victory in 1970, when he joined Cyril Carr as the second Liberal Councillor, and led to control of the City Council a bare three years later. The context of this transformation is significant and remarkable in that they were achieved in a city that had a very sparse Liberal tradition. Even in the halcyon year of 1906, only two of the city's nine constituencies returned Liberal MPs and Liberals had not controlled the City Council since 1895. Two Liberal MPs were elected for the one year 1923-4 but otherwise it was unremitting gloom for many years. There were single local ward victories in 1946 and 1947, without Conservative opposition, and the last lingering Liberal alderman came off the council in 1955. Liverpool politics were additionally stacked against Liberals by the dimension of religious alliances. The strong Catholic population identified itself with Labour and, until local government reorganisation in 1973, there was a Protestant party which regularly held two wards - without Conservative opposition.

There was not even more than a smattering of Liberal clubs, with only the Kildonan and Garmoyle institutes - the latter still in party hands. Even so, the mighty handful of Liberal stalwarts, such as Beryl Hands, Warwick Haggart, Albert Globe, Fred Bilson and Russell Dyson, maintained a Liberal presence during the dark years. Cyril Carr had gained Church ward at a by-election early in 1962, at which Labour had turned down an appeal to withdraw its candidate but mysteriously failed to submit a valid nomination paper. Significantly there was no additional success in Church ward until 1967 - the year of Trevor Jones' first contest in the City.

Trevor Jones was born in Denbighshire, North Wales, but his family moved to Bootle soon after. He went to the local grammar school but left at the age of fourteen. Then, concealing his age, he joined the Merchant Navy and served on the Atlantic convoys, about which Nicholas Montserrat wrote do vividly in The Cruel Sea. At the end of the war he was in Singapore where the sight of emaciated Allied prisoners being released from the Changi prison camp had a great effect on him. Back in Liverpool he married Doreen Brown in 1950. She was also to become a Liberal councillor and Lord Mayor. After working on the docks for some years he borrowed £200 to buy the business which eventually became a successful ship's chandlery.

It was the threat of demolition of one of his warehouses to make way for a new road that was the eventual catalyst for his involvement in politics. He took his campaign, with typical Jones' leaflets, all the way to the House of Lords. He then realised that only political involvement could have long-term effects. His instinctive affinity for the underdog, plus his Welsh roots, led him to join the Liberals and neither its single-figure national poll rating nor the fact of having only one City Councillor out of 160 council members, inhibited him. Two second places followed in 1968 and 1969 until he joined Cyril Carr the following year, gaining Church ward. Cyril and Trevor were completely different but, with more tolerance on both sides, could have been complementary. Cyril was a thoughtful lawyer with a long Liberal heritage and always acted with care, whereas Trevor leapt in with the telling phrase and sharp repartee. Trevor was initially loyal to Cyril's leadership but they fell out after the Liberals had gained control of the new Metropolitan City Council in 1973 and Trevor retired to the back benches. Each of them had their adherents and, despite attempts to cover up the split, it was inevitably difficult to run the City Council. Cyril refused to resign the leadership but eventually his declining health made it necessary and Trevor duly took over.

He did not inaugurate the name "Focus" for the now ubiquitous leaflets but he popularised its use and latched on to its frequent appearance on the streets as a way of localising Liberal campaigns. Trevor saw it as a tool to use everywhere and was frustrated that the national party was, he felt, too respectable to promote it. He therefore decided to stand for election as the party's president and used his "Focus" techniques around the country successfully in 1973 to defeat Penelope Jessel, the leadership's candidate.

Trevor then engineered his most remarkable election coup. He had got involved in the pending by-election in Sutton and Cheam before being elected as party president. On the face of it this was nowhere near a possible Liberal victory. The party had polled only 6% at the April 1970 Greater London Council election and barely saved its deposit at the General Election two months later. But there was a new, young candidate in place, Graham Tope, who readily agreed to Trevor using his new techniques at the by-election. Trevor took over the whole campaign with astonishing energy. He would pick on local issues, producing all the leaflets and election material in Liverpool and then driving down to Sutton with his Triumph Stag stuffed full of Focus leaflets which the local helpers then delivered. The final result in Sutton and Cheam was a Liberal victory by over 7,000 votes, conjured out of nowhere by Trevor. Other by-elections followed, usually with Trevor much involved, and with greatly increased Liberal votes and with a number of Liberal victories. He once told me that he had voted in every by-election he had been involved with!

Perhaps the most curious aspect of Trevor's undoubted skills was the failure to deliver parliamentary victories in Liverpool - including his own candidature in Toxteth in which he finished a poor third. He then tried for the candidature in Orpington following Eric Lubbock's 1970 defeat but Kina Lubbock, Eric's wife was preferred. He had one further parliamentary campaign, in Gillingham, but again finished third. He then concentrated on Liverpool and was Council leader at the time of the Toxteth riots, which upset him greatly. In 1981 he was knighted for his services to local government, but the title he much preferred was "Jones the Vote" which combined his Welsh origins and his electoral skills.

Trevor was certainly not an easy colleague. He was intensely loyal and committed but he had little time for those who did not accept his strategy. He remained popular not least because he was so effective. An instinctive Liberal he was a strategist and a campaigner rather than a great thinker. He was fierce with those who stood in his way and this applied to the SDP who stood against Liberal candidates, thus ensuring a number of Labour victories and opening the door to the disaster of Militant. Trevor was fearless in standing up to their Councillors. On one occasion he so riled Derek Hatton, Militant's key man, that Hatton shouted, "I'll dance on your grave." Trevor replied, "That's fine by me - I'm going to be buried at sea." His refusal to give way to the SDP meant that Liverpool Broadgreen was one of only three constituencies contested by both Liberal and SDP candidates at the 1983 General Election. When in March 1987 forty-seven Militant councillors were disqualified, the Liberals came back into control and Trevor was once again leader of the council, albeit very briefly.

Trevor Jones' policy achievements in office were slim and his passion always seemed to be more for the thrill of Liberal election victories rather than for political power. Very unusually, Trevor's municipal leadership and the amazing, if somewhat capricious, Liberal municipal successes in Liverpool were based primarily on his remarkable organisational abilities and his ability to grasp tactical opportunities. It is for these skills that he is warmly remembered by his Liberal colleagues.

Guardian obituary

Sir Trevor Jones, who has died at the age of 89, formalised and finessed the Liberals' practice of community politics. He was not its originator, indeed he was far too practical to be a theorist, but he developed the brash leaflet based on local issues that electors' identified with. Delivered with great frequency during and between elections, it was at his first election that Trevor Jones that gave it the name of "Focus" which became ubiquitous, as it still is, for Liberals and, later, Liberal Democrats. As an organiser he had phenomenal energy and ambitions to match. First elected in 1968, he was the dominant Liberal influence in his beloved city of Liverpool until he retired in 1991. He clearly found it difficult to be away from the action and he returned to the city council in 2003 for a further six years.

Owen Trevor Jones was born in a North Wales village in December 1926 but his family moved to Bootle when he was young enough to acquire his clear Liverpool accent. He went to the local grammar school but left in 1940 at the age of fourteen. He then managed to conceal his age in order to join the Merchant Navy and served on the vulnerable Atlantic convoys that were essential to Britain's survival. He later served in Aden and was in Singapore at the end of the war. Seeing the emaciated Allied prisoners being released from the infamous Changi prison camp had a great effect on him. He married Doreen Brown in 1950. After the war he worked on the Liverpool docks until, in 1961, he borrowed £200 to buy a business dock fenders, which protect boats from dock sides. He built this up and diversified into other businesses, including a ships' chandlery.

Six years into his business life one of his warehouse was threatened with demolition to make way for a new through road. Trevor set about organising opposition and designing campaigning leaflets. Then, following an appearance before a House of Lords select committee to argue for conservation and against wholesale replanning in Liverpool, he turned to the political process as the way to influence decisions. His affinity with the underdog, and his Welsh roots, led him to join the Liberals, who at the time were barely above single figures in the polls. Within two years he joined Cyril Carr as the second Liberal on the city council. Trevor Jones and Cyril Carr were completely different but complementary. Cyril was a thoughtful lawyer with a long Liberal heritage who acted always with care, whereas Trevor leapt in with the telling phrase and sharp repartee. Trevor was initially loyal to Cyril's leadership until they fell out later in 1973, and at first he served as his deputy when the Liberals won control following local government reorganisation in 1973. Carr gave up the leadership in 1975 on health grounds leaving the way for Trevor Jones. In 1973 Trevor Jones was also elected to the new Merseyside Metropolitan County Council and led the Liberal group there. Amongst the new city councillors was Trevor's wife, Doreen.

Having established a strong Liberal bridgehead in a northern industrial city, based on community politics, he was frustrated that the national party's official lip service to this strategy was belied by its respectable image, typified by its then president, Stephen Terrell, a highly respected barrister with a distinguished war record, but who had openly criticised the young liberals' radicalism. Typically, after Terrell's year of office, Trevor decided to contest the presidency against the leadership's nominee, Penelope Jessel. He toured the country, distributed his "Focus" leaflets and romped home.

Even while he was campaigning for the presidency, he had got involved in the pending by-election in the Sutton and Cheam constituency. The party was at 8% in the polls nationally and locally it had struggled to hold its deposit at the previous election and when it adopted Graham Tope as its prospective candidate the local association was delighted to have a young liberal activist who had not been put off by polling only 6% there at the 1970 Greater London Council election. Thus, when Trevor approached him and asked if he would use his techniques Graham Tope agreed, realising that he had nothing to lose. Trevor took over the whole campaign with astonishing energy. He would pick on local issues and then produce all the leaflets and election material in Liverpool and drive down to Sutton with his Triumph Stag stuffed full of Focus leaflets which the local helpers then delivered. It was rumoured that the famous "Liverpool mattress" made its appearance in the leaflets, allegedly being transported by Trevor and dumped in order to be photographed and then publicly removed. When Des Wilson fought Hove a short time afterwards he said that Trevor was driving him around when an elderly lady tripped and fell while on a pedestrian crossing. Trevor slammed on the brakes and leapt out of the car, grabbing a camera on the way. He then photographed the uneven surface before attending to the lady! "It will look good on a leaflet," he commented. He once told me that he had voted in every by-election he had been involved in!

The final result in Sutton and Cheam was a Liberal victory by over 7,000 votes, conjured out of nowhere by Trevor. It was entirely a community politics campaign but, as Graham Tope has admitted, it was all faked - the actual community work did not begin until after the election. On the same day as Sutton and Cheam the Liberal candidate in Uxbridge, with a traditional campaign, polled just 10%. Other by-elections followed, usually with Trevor much involved, and with greatly increased Liberal votes with a number of victories, including Liverpool Edge Hill with his close colleague, David Alton.

Trevor Jones himself fought two parliamentary elections in 1974 - one, Toxteth in Liverpool, was theoretically ideal for his style but he finished a poor third. He commented that he had spent too much time campaigning for other candidates. He then tried to be adopted for the Orpington seat, narrowly lost by Eric Lubbock in 1970, but Eric's wife was preferred. Trevor then contested Gillingham but again finished third. Thereafter he concentrated on Liverpool city council and was leader of the council at the time of the Toxteth riots which upset him greatly. In 1981 he was knighted for his services to local government. However, the title he preferred was the one that combined his Welsh origins and his political skills - "Jones the Vote."

Trevor was never an easy colleague. He was intensely loyal and committed but he had little time for those did not accept his strategy. He retained his popularity not least because he was so effective. He was fierce with those who stood in his way. This applied to the SDP who stood against Liberal candidates in Liverpool and who, by splitting the vote, ensured enough Labour victories to put them in control and opened the door to the disaster of Militant. Trevor was fearless in standing up to their councillors. On one occasion he so riled Derek Hatton, Militant's key man, that Hatton shouted, "I'll dance on your grave." Trevor replied, "That's fine by me - I'm going to be buried at sea." When in March 1987 forty-seven Militant councillors were disqualified the Liberals came back into control and Trevor was again leader of the council. Having been a casualty of Militant's iconoclastic gestures, the office of Lord Mayor was reintroduced and was taken by Lady Doreen Jones. His refusal to give way to the SDP meant that Liverpool Broadgreen was one of only three seats contested by both Liberal and SDP candidates at the 1983 general election.

Unusually in politics, Trevor's municipal leadership was based chiefly on his remarkable organisational abilities and it is for these skills above all that he is remembered by his Liberal colleagues.

Trevor Jones, born 17 December 1927, died 8 September 2016. He leaves his wife, Doreen, and a son, Glyn and a daughter, Louise.

An extended version of that published in The Guardian on 24 September 2016.

Soon after I took over as Secretary to the Yorkshire Liberal Federation in 1967, I asked Russell Johnston to come and speak at a Freshers' Day meeting at Leeds University. We agreed the date and time and I expected details of his arrival by train. No such information appeared and, to my amazement, he arrived by car, having driven from Inverness. More astonishing was the fact he regarded this as normal. I suppose that to an MP with a constituency two hundred miles across, a trip down to Leeds was hardly much further. What I did realise was that Russell would travel just about anywhere in order to advance the Liberal cause.

Sometimes we talk about "natural" Liberals, about those whose instinctive response to any political situation can be relied upon implicitly, whose judgement is invariably "sound". Russell was one such Liberal. Perhaps more than anyone of his generation, even perhaps more than Jo Grimond if one takes into account the quality of passion and the attribute of emotion. Whereas Jo inspired by the incisiveness of his analysis and the power of his peroration, Russell wooed with his warmth and by his blatant humanity. Also he had the ability to transform phrases that might otherwise be thought trite into vivid expressions of the liberal spirit. Who else would have dared to utter the following phrases, knowing that he could make them appeal directly to his audience:

"Liberalism can never be a spent force. Tomorrow or ever. As long as human kind retain their civilisation; as long as birds sing in unclouded skies, so long will endure the power of the compassionate spirit. But a Liberal society will be built only with the bricks of effort and the mortar of persistence. And it is to you that the challenge is made. It is upon you that responsibility rests. It is with you that hope resides."

Vibrant and inspiring
On the cold paper the words seem hackneyed, but in the hall Russell made them vibrant and inspiring. Similarly he often ended his set Scottish conference speech with a verse from a poem which, almost mystically, he applied to the Liberal challenge. Reading the speech afterwards there might seem to be only a tenuous connection, but it hardly mattered to those who ushered it into their consciousness in the hall. To them it was entirely apposite. No-one could make you feel quite like Russell could that it was necessary to continue the Liberal struggle, however lonely the climb and however rough and stony the path. Who could resist the peroration to his speech to the SLP Conference in 1971, just after the disastrous general election of 1970:

"We can shape the future of mankind, not just in Scotland, but on this planet. It is a future which could be bleak and Orwellian, but if opportunities are taken and people made aware, there is a future which glitters like rivers of molten gold. And it is your place to work towards this. It is your place if you believe in it, to give to it. And even if you and I never live to see its achievement, it is still worth working for. To be a Liberal and to know it is enough."

Russell Johnston's initial inspiration, he often said, came from the writings of Elliot Dodds, the Yorkshire Liberal who, with Ramsay Muir, was the author of the enduring prose of the 1936 preamble to the Liberal Party constitution. I never asked Russell how it was that he came across Dodds' writings at Edinburgh University in the early 1950s. I wish I had. He was also much influenced by John Stuart Mill and, perhaps above all, by John Bannerman, whom he described as "a man of irrepressible, untidy kindness." Time after time in Russell Johnston's speeches there are references and acknowledgements to John Bannerman.

John Bannerman was an iconic Scottish Liberal figure. His by-election contests in 1954 and 1961 in Inverness and Paisley respectively, in both of which he came tantalisingly close to victory, gave the party a great boost and in the 1960s he was often paired with Mark Bonham Carter at Liberal rallies. It was a clever juxtaposition: Mark was the cool, thoughtful policy creator whereas John was the craggy, warm inspirer. I often puzzled why Bannerman was such an inspiration to Russell until I realised that, in fact, neither of them was too concerned about detailed policy exposition over a range of topics, but both of them were able to draw from a deep well of Liberal intuition which could confidently be attached to the issues of the day. To both of them Liberalism was an integral part of their personality and both of them returned time and again to the same few themes - electoral justice, the need to express the integrity of the Scottish identity, the linkage of personal responsibility with state guarantees and the internationalism of the Liberal cause.

Russell joined the Liberal party in 1954 - not an auspicious year - and, when he finally returned from National Service in Berlin and completed his teaching degree at Moray House, Edinburgh, he became the parliamentary candidate for Inverness. At that time the Scottish Liberal Party was run in a highly centralised, and, as it turned out, successful manner by George Mackie and Arthur Purdom. I recollect them making occasional forays to Liberal headquarters in Victoria Street with the huge chairman Mackie dwarfing the organisational secretary Purdom. They appointed key candidates to the Edinburgh staff with the title "Research Officer" or some such designation in order to enable them to devote time to a potentially winnable constituency. Russell and David Steel were two such and they arrived in the House of Commons with less than a year between them - in 1964 and 1965 respectively.

Russell held Inverness, in its various incarnations, for thirty-three years until he retired in 1997, whereupon he was elevated to the House of Lords. Along the way he achieved the unusual record of being elected with the lowest percentage vote ever: a mere 26% in 1992! Somewhat ironic for a lifelong advocate of electoral reform! Despite all his travels and the huge size of his constituency he maintained a high reputation as an assiduous local MP and a powerful voice for the Highlands. In 1973 he was the first Liberal to be appointed to the European Parliament and, with the advent of direct elections, was expected to win the Highlands and Islands seat in 1979 but failed narrowly, and then less narrowly in 1984. The perhaps over-sophisticated reasons advanced for his defeats were, in 1979, that Russell refused to undertake to resign his Westminster seat, and then, perversely, in 1984, having given the undertaking, that the voters were determined to keep him at Westminster. Suffice to say that his passionate Europeanism was exercised thereafter through the Western Europe Union and the Council of Europe.

Whenever the Liberal party arrived at the task of reorienting its philosophy in the light of new political circumstances it turned to Russell. He was a member of the "Liberals Look Ahead" Commission (chaired by Donald Wade) in 1968/9 and a number of its phrases sound as if couched in his soft brogue:

Democracy cannot flourish on a diet of triviality,
and:
Implicit in the report is a recognition of the human capacity for evil. History teaches .... the futility of facile optimism.

However, the report's insistence that "Experience has shown that a Liberal Party is essential if Liberalism is to be effectively promoted and the Liberal influence in British politics maintained and strengthened ..." sits uncomfortably with his later enthusiasm for the Alliance and particularly for the merger with the SDP, as does his waspish comment on Roy Jenkins' Dimbleby lecture on 1980:

Of course, I was pleased when [Roy Jenkins] made his Dimbleby Lecture a Liberal address. Of course, I'm in favour of co-operation, but I'm not selling the great Liberal tradition or betraying the years of toil of the faithful for a mish-mash of unsalted social democratic porridge. Liberals did not discard their beliefs for office.

Or his comment the following year:

It is of the quintessence of Liberalism that we seek co-operation throughout society and want to work with others of like mind. But we are strangers to expediency. And we have our pride. We have not endured our long struggle in the hills to be patronised by the fat dwellers of the plains.

The clue to his later advocacy of merger might lie in his contribution to the 1996 book Why I am a Liberal Democrat, in which he comments that:

Because of PR, most continental liberal parties were at some time or other in coalition government. The great, warm, patient Giovanni Malagodi [President of the Italian Liberal Party] taught me that compromise was no betrayal of principle .... but a step or two on the march towards one's goals.

Russell's end of conference speeches to the Scottish Liberal Party conference were legendary, so much so that they were collected and published in two volumes: 1971-78 and 1979-86. There is a splendidly cryptic note at the end of one speech to the effect that the peroration was only prepared at the last minute and that no notes survive! His other key publication for the SLP was his 1972 booklet, To be a Liberal, which is said to have been the means of recruiting a number of leading Scottish Liberals, including Jim Wallace. On re-reading this work, I confess to finding it uninspiring. It is, certainly, a well argued tract on the importance of politics, of representative democracy and of the essential reasonable nature of Liberalism but it is not a ringing appeal to the reader to join us on the barricades.

Perhaps Russell's forte was the speech rather than the article. Certainly he had a particularly niche at the annual Liberal Assembly where he was regularly called upon to get the "establishment" out of a difficult corner. Thus, in 1970, it was Russell who - unsuccessfully for once - put the case for the primacy of parliament against the advocates of the "dual approach" of community politics, who in 1979 made the keynote speech in the philosophy debate, who in 1987 made the most powerful appeal for merger with the SDP, and who, at the 1988 special assembly, wound up the debate in favour of that merger with great effect.

Russell did not lack political courage. Unlike Jo Grimond, he had a much more robust view of the Scottish National Party and its latent illiberalism, and when Jo went off on one of his intellectual forays, hinting at the benefits of an electoral pact with the SNP, Russell, at the 1968 Liberal Assembly, criticised Jo, calling him an "intellectual dilettante," which was tantamount to asserting that the Pope wasn't infallible. Similarly, after the 1970 election, Russell rejected David Steel's vapid cross-party "radical action" initiative, calling it "nonsense."

Tantalising question
The tantalising question in the light of his innate and passionate Liberalism, his oratorical skills, his breadth of experience and his popularity with party members, is why Russell never got even within reach of leading the Liberal Party. The closest he came was in 1976 after Jeremy Thorpe's resignation, when he threw his hat in the ring but could not find any Liberal MP prepared to nominate him - apart from the quixotic suggestion of John Pardoe that he and David Steel should both nominate Russell despite being themselves candidates, a gesture rejected by Steel as a tactical ploy on Pardoe's behalf.

Russell "thought that he might have won if he could have persuaded enough MPs to nominate him." Maybe, or maybe not, but his view was never tested. Why not? The difficult answer lies in the uncomfortable realm of personal traits that those charged with the responsibility of recommending an individual for high office have to consider. The question as to whether such concerns should influence one's judgement is not capable of objective resolution and the debate will continue indefinitely. In Russell's case some of the facts are in the public domain. He was named, along with Gwyneth Dunwoody, as having the highest level of unpaid bills at the House of Commons dining room, and two obituarists referred delicately to his "separated" and "estranged" status in relation to his wife, Joan. Another Liberal colleague was appalled when a trustee of a renowned and sympathetic fund suggested to him, in response to the direct question as to why Russell had not been nominated in 1976, that the fund in question had sustained Russell financially for some time for the sake of the party.

I know very little more than this, but my personal experience of this warm and generous man makes me think that he was not harsh or callous but rather uncomprehending of some of the constraints that life places on us. He took pleasure in discussion and debate and his enjoyment of conviviality caused him to be unaware of domestic and practical responsibilities to which he should have given attention. Alas, it was his undoing and the Liberal Party and politics generally are the worse for it.

To mention Denis Mason Jones to any of his wide circle of friends and acquaintances in Leeds would invariably provoke a instant smile. Denis, who has died at the age of 91, was one of those rare individuals who could move with ease in any number of different circles, and be popular in each, whether it was the Leeds "establishment", the professional set or a jazz night at the Leeds Club.

By profession he was an architect, having followed his father into partnership in the family firm. His design for Bodington Hall, at the University of Leeds won the Leeds Gold Medal in 1964, but, although he did many architectural designs, particularly for the conservation and restoration of buildings, one sensed that he much preferred to be occupied in sketching just about everything he was involved in whether it was the English countryside, historic buildings or a concert he was attending. His jackets were always made with an extra large "poacher's pocket" which contained his ever-present sketchbooks. A junior member of his staff was given the task of cutting pencils into half and sharpening the two pieces for him. He meticulously maintained an archive of these books - amounting to almost one hundred at his death.

To those who knew Denis his sketches were always recognisable and they had a wider circulation than even he realised. In 1998 when I was on an electoral mission in Cambodia, an American woman based in Laos desperately wanted to come to Phnom Penh as an election observer; when I eventually found a place for her she brought me a gift of a book, in French, on the English countryside, that she had bought in Vientiane. I immediately recognised the author of the illustrations and when I showed the book to Denis he recalled the occasion when its French author had observed him sketching in near Malvern and had made him an offer. Denis wryly commented, "It was one of the few occasions I got paid."

Denis Mason Jones designed a series of full-colour pictorial maps of British cities featuring their historic buildings. Marketed as "Heritage Maps," they are today much sought after. Typically when I got back from a European Union project in Uzbekistan, he presented me with a special map of the Silk Road portraying the key buildings of Samarkand and Bukaru. In the margin was his pencilled note: "Don't rely on this map for your return to Tashkent!"

He was the quintessential clubman. A member of the Leeds Club for over forty years he could regularly be found ensconced in one of its deep armchairs holding court amongst friends and colleagues. It was one of his great frustrations in recent years that his increasing frailty limited his attendances. He was a regular speaker at club lunches where his skill as a raconteur and his laconic timing always ensured a full house. At one such occasion he surveyed his audience and announced that he was fascinated by the rubric on many of his supermarket purchases, "Best Before." This, he said, was of no interest to him. What he really wanted was, "Fatal After."

Many of his anecdotes related to his war service which, although one would not know it from the hilarious character studies of his companions, had been traumatic. Of six close friends who graduated from Sidney Sussex College, Cam bridge, in 1939, he was the only one who survived the war. Whilst on mine clearing duty in North Africa in 1943 he was blown up my a mine which shattered his right arm. After eighteen months in and out of hospital, he became an instructor "showing chaps how not to lift a mine."

After the war he completed his architectural studies and went on to study in Zurich before returning to London. There he shared a house with six architects and painters, which was so disorganised and cluttered that, he said, "a large bicycle was once lost in a room for six weeks."

Apart from the Leeds Club, he was associated with much Leeds development, being involved with the Henry Moore Sculpture Trust - after the City Council had wined and dined the locally trained sculptor and persuaded him to fund a new gallery - the Leeds Civic Trust and the Yorkshire Heraldry Society.

He is survived by his wife, Mary, four children, Nicholas, Mark, Rosalind and Crispin, nine grandchildren and a great granddaughter.

Denis Mason Jones, born 19 March 1918, died 8 January 2010.

Peter Knowlson, who has died aged 79, was the Liberal Party's policy workhorse for over twenty years. He was occasionally infuriating, often badly treated by the party hierarchy, but always loyal and productive. He was a deeply instinctive Liberal, remarkably tolerant of others' foibles and wholly unaware of his own eccentricities!

Peter was educated at Clifton College, Bristol, and Clare College, Cambridge. He remained in Cambridge where he met and married Toni Conan-Davies. Toni was a council candidate in Cambridge before Peter, eventually winning the Cherry Hinton ward in 1965. Peter fought three elections unsuccessfully. I suspect that he was much more suited to the backroom than the frontline, as he himself recognised.

In the early 1970s Peter arrived at Liberal Party headquarters as Head of Research, later retitled Head of Policy, from a research post with the CBI. Initially he had a number of bright young researchers on his staff, including Magnus Linklater, later editor of The Scotsman, but as money became tighter he was increasingly on his own, though still expected to service as many committees and to produce as many reports. His capacity for detailed work was legendary and he was almost singlehandedly responsible for the comprehensive body of Liberal policy that existed in 1987. In 1981, the third year of a careful renewal of party thinking, he and I were working on the document "Foundations for the Future" when the alliance with the SDP largely ended this programme.

In common with others who chaired the annual party Assembly or Conference committee, I found him indispensable in his remarkable ability to take rambling and even incoherent submissions from associations or delegates and rapidly to translate them into amendments capable of being debated the following day. Similarly, Peter would attend a committee or a working group which would go round the houses in its discussions and then find its deliberations written up in structured paragraphs and measured English.

Peter was a great encourager of talent, particular young talent, and a number of recruits to policy committees found themselves gently but persuasively encouraged to undertake more they originally felt possible. He was also a good feminist who promoted staff from secretarial ghettos into research jobs.

When, following the 1987 general election, David Steel pushed the Liberal Party into immediate merger negotiations with the SDP, Peter was elected to the negotiating committee. Over the four traumatic months of negotiations his knowledge of policy documents was invaluable. Although he had his own forthright views he had always taken his role as a key party "civil servant" as requiring him to work with all sections of the party. It was a surprise, therefore, when he resigned from the negotiating team with myself, Tony Greaves and Rachael Pitchford over the proposed name of the new party. It was perhaps significant that he had just been made redundant by the Liberal Party. He moved to Age Concern where he worked on policy issues for ten years until his retirement.

As a friend Peter was generous and warm with regular invitations to the big house at Wimbledon for Peter's often somewhat idiosyncratic concepts of cuisine, the enthusiastic involvement of his three daughters, Felicity, Rachel and Roz, and the increasingly dramatic appearances of Toni - despite their increasing estrangement in the latter years before her death in an appalling fire at the house. The garden was also the site for another of Peter's interests - water sculpture, with fountains which would somehow be in continuous transformation!

Peter and Liberal Democrat peer, Susan Thomas, lived together in Dorking for some ten years before Peter moved to Gloucestershire in 2006. Soon after, whilst at his house in Lanzarote, at which he had done much self-designed building work long before the island became a tourist haven, he suffered a major stroke. This was followed by prostate cancer in 2009 and, after further complications, he died on 20th August 2011.