Adrian Slade had three strings to his bow: a successful advertising executive, a fine entertainer and a long term Liberal colleague. The three regularly overlapped, not least when he became the life and soul of the party at the Liberal Party’s end of Assembly Glee Club. He once told me of his professional debut as a solo artist when he was hired by Clement Freud for one of his night clubs. On his first night Freud came forward to introduce his nervous artiste and simply said, “This is Adrian Slade - he does things with a piano.” This aspect of his life followed his time as President of the Cambridge Footlights when, it is alleged, he recruited Peter Cook but turned down David Frost. His piano was part of his personality and went with him into the care home in which he spent his last years.
His father, George Penkavil Slade, known as “Pen”, was a Barrister who died when Adrian was six; his mother, Mary Albinia Alice Carnegie lived to the age of 92. Adrian was sent to Eton at the age of 13. Adrian’s three elder siblings were all distinguished: his sister, Pauline was awarded the MBE for her work in the voluntary sector,; one brother Christopher was a Lord Justice of Appeal; and his other brother, Julian, was a composer. From 1960 Adrian was employed by leading PR agencies before founding his own company In 1971. He was responsible for the 1979 general election poster showing David Steel poised above Margaret Thatcher and Jim Callaghan each of the latter pointing guns in opposite directions.
Adrian was one of that considerable band of “Grimond Liberals” who were drawn into Liberal politics by the charismatic and intellectually rigorous Liberal Leader, Jo Grimond. Adrian joined the party in 1963 and was its candidate in Putney at the 1966 election, polling just 10% of the vote. He fought the seat twice more, in February 1974, doubling the Liberal vote, and again in October 1974, polling 15%. At the 1987 general election he contested Wimbledon coming second with 27.5% of the vote. Between these parliamentary elections, in 1981, he won Richmond for the Greater London Council, the only Liberal success, but was soon joined by two Labour to SDP defectors, plus Mike Tuffrey’s by-election victory in 1985, and became leader of the Alliance group, until Margaret Thatcher abolished the authority in 1986. Following his victory he went to see Ken Livingstone, the GLC’s Labour leader, to discuss what committees he should sit on and they also discussed where he should sit in the council chamber as to annoy the Conservatives the most.
Following his 1981 election victory the Conservatives launched a legal petition alleging errors in his election expenses return. The court did not unseat him but found two technicalities which resulted in legal expenses of around £50,000. Adrian’s many friends rallied round and a star studded cast of former Footlights colleagues appeared in “An Evening at Court” on the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on 23 January 1983 to raise funds for Adrian. Among those appearing were John Cleese, Peter Cook, Angela Thorne, French and Saunders, The Goodies, Eleanor Bron and John Fortune. Adrian also recorded his brilliant - and often scurrilous - party Assembly songs and also published them as “Party Pieces” also on sale for his appeal.
In 1987 he was elected as Liberal Party President and became the last to serve as such. As President he was a member of the Liberal team that negotiated the merger with the SDP from September 1988 to January 1989. His personal contributions included proposing “The Democrats” as the name for the new party; when this was rejected he then suggested “The Alliance”. These initiatives were perverse as a number of Liberal parliamentarians had clearly stated that they were not prepared to join a party that did not have the word “Liberal” in its title. He spoke in favour of the merger at the Special Assembly in Blackpool on 23 January 1988. He was awarded the CBE in 1988.
Between 2002 and 2011 Adrian carried out an important series of lengthy interviews with key Liberal Democrat parliamentarians for the Journal of Liberal History . He also interviewed Ludovic Kennedy who had fought the significant Rochdale by-election of 1958, and the Russian Liberal, Grigory Yavlinsky, president of the Yablokov party. The full interviews are held in the archive of the Journal.
Adrian was married to Sue for sixty-four years and was a great family man, treating family occasions with the same exuberant conviviality that characterised his political activities. His passions for cricket, football, food, wine and theatre, involved all the family: daughter Nicola, son Rupert and grandchildren, Kath, Hanna and Lara.
