Working on the 1964 general election at Liberal Party headquarters and - typically without any appointment - in strode a tall, blond and dashing man who announced that he was going to be the Liberal candidate in the Richmond, Yorkshire, constituency. This was Keith Schellenberg. He hadn't ben panelled or even interviewed by the local association but such formalities never bothered Keith. He was fast tracked through the processes and duly fought the election, polling a creditable 20% of the vote. I asked him for the address of his local headquarters. He laughed and told me that he did not have such a normal thing but would have a mobile office, to wit a caravan towed behind an open eight litre Bentley.

He was a great character and made an immediate impression at every campaign stop. Alas, with Richmond being the largest constituency in England, he couldn't make enough of them to win. He was disappointed not to sweep home but he stuck with the constituency and fought it again in 1966 but when his vote dropped slightly he abandoned the seat. The long haul was not for Keith! However, eight years later, when his interests had shifted to Scotland, he made another Quixotic election foray in the Moray and Nairn constituency where he finished a poor fourth and he gave up on his parliamentary ambitions.

Geoff Tordoff was a political "fixer" par excellence. He practised this vital craft formally as the chief whip of the Liberal peers and later as chief whip of the Liberal Democrat peers, but his influence on the direction of the Liberal party and on difficult key political issues was evident from the mid-1970s. He was highly regarded as a party officer because he was always seen as "one of us" and was never remote. He was invariably good-humoured, convivial and often very whimsical, but with a great political awareness of what had to be done and how to achieve it. He was perceived as possessing good judgement¹ and this usually enabled him to persuade party rebels that a different course of action better suited their and the party's best interests.

Geoff was a self-confessed "Grimond Liberal" having been attracted to the party as a consequence of Liberal Leader, Jo Grimond's, stand against the Suez War. The influence of Jo Grimond on the revival of the Liberal party was remarkable and there are still a number of colleagues who, like Geoff, would date their affiliation to the party to Grimond's charismatic leadership despite the fact that his period as leader ended fifty-two years ago.² Grimond's attraction for instinctive Liberals such as Geoff was his innate anti-Conservatism coupled with a determination to take a firm Liberal line on controversial issues - such as Suez - and a rejection of state socialism. Instead he promoted a progressive alternative to both other parties which chimed with many politically minded individuals at the time, including Geoff Tordoff. Grimond wrote a number of books and managed to attract a number of distinguished academics, not all of whom were card carrying Liberal members, who headed policy committees which produced a series of attractive booklets. Despite the tiny parliamentary party, Grimond by force of personality and intellectual stature, gained more media coverage than the party's numbers warranted. The Liberal party lived off the Grimond legacy for decades not least because many candidates and officers of the calibre of Geoff Tordoff stayed with the party.

I met Geoff at the Warrington by-election in April 1961 at which the agent was Ken Forbes, a larger than life, cigar smoking, former Labour agent who introduced Geoff as the only Liberal in the constituency.³ This was not entirely true but although he had been involved with the party beforehand he had not formally joined. I was happy to sign him up. Ever after he blamed me for the lifetime commitment that ensued! He contested Northwich in 1964 and Knutsford in 1966 and 1970. Thereafter he dedicated himself to party organisation. He had already been one of the handful of party officials, including Gruffydd Evans, Pratap Chitnis, Tim Beaumont and myself, who had been involved in a vain attempt to prevent Jeremy Thorpe becoming leader in January 1967, being aware of his superficiality and elitism. At the time he was active in the party's North West Federation and the North West Candidates Association, which he helped to found. The Manchester Region was one of the most active regions for young Liberals who initiated the New Orbits series of policy booklets. The more senior Liberals, including Geoff, were based at the Manchester Reform Club until its demise as a political club in 1967.

By the time of the late 1960s and early 1970s the Young Liberals spearheaded a radical youth movement, the "Red Guard", which embraced direct action, such as the Stop the Seventies Tour which dug up a number of cricket pitches in order to prevent a cricket tour by the South African apartheid regime. Jeremy Thorpe, most Liberal MPs and the party establishment were deeply opposed to the "antics" of party's youth wing but Geoff Tordoff and some other party officers, including Gruffydd Evans, believed that the aim should be for the Young Liberals' energy to be drawn into mainstream party activity rather than being stifled. The "dual approach" motion at the 1970 party assembly, linking community involvement with mainstream politics was one spin off.

Geoff's national offices began with the Chairmanship of the Assembly Committee (1974-76) which enabled him to use his awareness of the strands of opinion within the party and the knowledge of its many groups to channel debate through the formal structure. In 1976, soon after David Steel's election as leader, he began three years as party chair, working constructively with Steel despite having been a John Pardoe supporter in the leadership election. It was a key post at a very difficult time: the final months of the Jeremy Thorpe affair and the eighteen months of the often fraught Lib-Lab Pact which sustained the minority Labour government, rather than allow Margaret Thatcher to succeed in a vote of no confidence - which she did after the end of the pact.

The Thorpe affair did considerable damage to the party. Liberal MPs had been aware for some years of allegations of a homosexual affair but remarkably it had been kept within the parliamentary party and it only became public knowledge when his accuser, Norman Scott, mentioned Thorpe in a minor court case. Thereafter it dragged on for some time with ever more curious and damaging revelations. In party terms it came to a head when he was finally persuaded to resign and David Steel was elected in his place. Then, when about to go on trial for conspiracy to murder Scott (a charge on which he was subsequently acquitted) Thorpe promised Steel that he would not attend the party conference in September 1978. Inevitably he broke the promise and effectively hijacked the conference. The parliamentary party and latterly party officers had kept the whole long matter within their own ranks and party members were unaware of all the earlier problems and a Liberal candidate, Dr James Walsh, in all good faith, moved a motion censuring the party officers for their treatment of the former leader. Geoff Tordoff as chair, Gruffydd Evans as party president and myself as chair of the assembly committee met and decided that it was time that members knew the full facts and that, if the motion were carried, we would all resign on the spot. The motion was taken in closed session and delegates were amazed at what was revealed - the treatment of party staff, the existence of private funds and his preference for attending elitist functions rather than giving attention to party campaigns etc. With some lobbying of delegates by Tony Greaves and John Smithson, the motion was forthwith withdrawn without a vote.

Geoff was party chair when in March 1977 David Steel negotiated the Lib-Lab Pact⁴ in order to prevent James Callaghan's Labour government falling to a vote of confidence after it had lost its parliamentary majority. There was inevitably significant party disquiet over the deal but Geoff Tordoff's effective communications within the party did a great deal to ensure that the party leadership was able to maintain the pact without being undermined. He ensured that the membership's views were communicated to Steel and that Steel's views were made clear to the membership. This enabled the renewal of the Pact after three months and facilitated the calling of a special party assembly in February 1978 which overwhelmingly passed a compromise motion that Geoff Tordoff had played a major part in drafting. This made it clear that the party expected the Pact to end within five months but gave David Steel a mandate to determine the date himself. In his book on the Pact,⁵ David Steel makes it clear that Geoff played a key role in providing him with sound reports on the party's feelings on the Pact. As part of that advice his first report advised Steel to stand firm, that the party was ready to fight an election and that Labour had either "to bend or be broken". His second report stressed that the party needed concessions from Labour and in particular a guarantee on proportional representation. None was forthcoming. Following the end of the Pact, Margaret Thatcher succeeded in a vote of no confidence by one vote in the House of Commons.

Following his three years as party chair he took on the chairmanship of the Campaigns and Elections Committee (1980-82) before becoming party president in 1983-84. He was deeply committed to making a success of the alliance with the SDP and he built up effective working relationships with many of the SDP's leading figures. Inevitably it fell to Geoff to play a key role in the seat allocation negotiations, particularly in managing the inevitable difficulties on the Liberal side.⁶ Later, in a key debate on defence policy at the 1989 Liberal assembly, Geoff again took soundings on behalf of the leadership and reported back to defence spokesman, Ming Campbell, that they could lose the vote to retain Trident. Paddy Ashdown as leader wanted to speak in the debate but Ming Campbell believed that to do so, given his previous record on defence policy would be counter-productive. Ming spoke, Paddy didn't and the leadership won the vote.⁷

Geoff was given a life peerage in 1981 taking the title Lord Tordoff of Knutsford. His career at Shell Chemicals had progressed but, with some internal antagonism towards his politics, not as far as might have been expected. He resigned from Shell in order to devote himself full-time to the Lords. He served as Chief Whip for five years, (1983-88) and, later, following the merger of the Liberal party with the SDP he served as Chief Whip of the Liberal Democrat peers for a further six years (1988-94).

In the Lords he eventually resigned his party commitments to take on the important non-party role as Principal Deputy Charman of Committees. In 2004 he was appointed as a Lord in Waiting to the Queen. Geoff's wife, Pat, was a keen Liberal in her own right but her increasing ill-health meant that Geoff had to take on the role of her principal carer. She died in 2013. He himself also suffered from increasing ill-health and he retired from the Lords in 2016.

Geoff Tordoff was not a writer and he left no books or even booklets on policy. His strength was in personal relationships and his long friendship with Gruffydd Evans and their long partnership in key party roles ensured the sound management of the party and a greater measure of party solidarity than is the norm for Liberals. Hugh Jones, the secretary-general of the party from 1977-83 made a shrewd comment on Geoff's role as party chair, "I had the impression that he relied more on patience than preparation".⁸

The Liberal party has not always possessed competent and dedicated officers who, over a period of time, have underpinned the more prominent names in the parliamentary party or in the media, but when the party has had such party servants it has survived and even thrived. In the late 1920s and the 1930s the prominence of Maynard Keynes and the profligacy of Ramsay Muir's writings were anchored up by the steady hand of W R Davies at party headquarters and of Lord Meston as party chair. The same can said of Geoff Tordoff's key role in the party's management from the mid-1970s.

I have one personal postscript. At Liberal assembly glee clubs on the final evening, Geoff and I regularly performed our party piece: the "Bold Gendarmes" duet from one of Offenbach's lesser known operas. Earlier this year, when Geoff was living in a retirement village in Ilkley, where there was a regular musical event, he asked the organiser whether I would come and reprise this piece. I of course went and we duly did one last performance! It was great to see Geoff and to chat to him again.

Geoff Tordoff, born 11 October 1928, died 22 June 2019.

¹ The classic expression of the political need for judgement is the speech of Edmund Burke to his Bristol electors, 3 November 1774, but a more modern exposition of that need is Medicine and Politics: 1975 and After, J Enoch Powell, Pitman Medical, 1976, pages 1 to 7.
² Apart from two months as acting leader in May 1976 when Jeremy Thorpe finally resigned.
³ Forbes grossly overspent his allotted by-election budget and on the initial count the Liberal candidate, Frank Tetlow, had just lost his deposit which, as the equivalent of £3250 today, would have been additionally embarrassing. Forbes demanded a recount which enabled Tetlow to scrape above the 12.5%!
⁴ See Michael Meadowcroft review of The Lib-Lab Pact, A Parliamentary Agreement, 1977-78, (Jonathan Kirkup, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) in Journal of Liberal History, Issue 94, Spring 2017.
⁵ A House Divided - The Lib-Lab Pact and the Future of British Politics, David Steel, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980; see also Against Goliath - David Steel’s Story, David Steel, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989.
⁶ Eventually only three seats had both Liberal and SDP candidates, Hackney South and Shoreditch, Hammersmith and Liverpool Broadgreen.
⁷ My Autobiography, Menzies Campbell, Hodder and Stoughton, 2008, p 116.
⁸ Campaigning Face to Face, Sir Hugh Jones, Books Guild, 2007, p79.

Many readers of Liberator will have heard the phrase "Grimond Liberal" without knowing precisely what it meant, not least because the Jo Grimond era ended fifty-two years ago - except for a brief few months as interim leader when Jeremy Thorpe finally resigned in 1976. Jo was a superb orator, an intellectual Liberal who wrote numerous books and a charismatic leader who attracted a great cadre of highly competent individuals into party membership and, in due course, into party positions, both in public elections and in party offices. Geoff Tordoff became one of the latter. Jo's attraction for instinctive Liberals like Geoff was his innate anti-Conservatism coupled with a determination to take a firm Liberal line on controversial issues, such as the Suez invasion, and a rejection of statist socialism, instead promoting a progressive alternative to both other parties which chimed with many politically minded individuals at the time, including Geoff Tordoff.

I first met Geoff at the Warrington by-election in April 1961 where he was introduced as the only known Liberal in the constituency. This was not entirely true but at least it enabled me to sign him up for the party - a fact that he regularly blamed me for committing him to the lifetime of political struggle that ensued. He soon became a candidate, fighting Northwich in 1964 and Knutsford in 1966 and 1970. After that he devoted himself to party management for which both his temperament and his particular skills well suited him. He was invariably good humoured, often very whimsical but with a great political awareness of what had to be done and how to achieve it. He was a "fixer" who could usually persuade party rebels that a different course of action better suited their and the party's ends. He began his party management chairing the Assembly Committee (1974-76), running the annual conference, but crucially he began a three year term as party chair in 1976, a key post at an extremely difficult time: the final months of the Jeremy Thorpe affair and the eighteen months of the often fraught Lib-Lab pact which sustained the Callaghan minority Labour government, rather than allow Margaret Thatcher to succeed in a vote of no confidence - which she did after the end of the pact.

The Thorpe affair did considerable damage to the party. Liberal MPs had been aware of the allegations of a homosexual affair against him for some years but it only became public knowledge when his accuser, Norman Scott, mentioned Thorpe in a minor court case. In party terms it came to head when he was finally persuaded to resign the party leadership and David Steel was elected in his place. Then about to go on trial for conspiracy to murder Scott (a charge on which he was subsequently acquitted - Thorpe promised David Steel that he would not attend the party conference in 1978. Inevitably he broke the promise and arrived, effectively hijacking the conference. Party members were unaware of all the earlier problems and a candidate moved a motion censuring the party officers for their treatment of the previous leader. Geoff Tordoff as Chair, Gruffydd Evans as party president and myself as Chair of the Assembly Committee, decided that it was time that members knew the full facts and that if the motion was carried, we would all resign on the spot. The motion was taken in closed session and delegates were amazed at what was revealed - the treatment of party staff, the existence of private funds and his preference for attending elitist functions rather than giving attention to party campaigns etc. The motion was forthwith withdrawn without a vote.

During the Lib-Lab pact Geoff was the eyes and ears of the party leader, David Steel, and Geoff's advice on how far the party would allow him to go was invariably respected. One "safety valve" which Geoff engineered was the special party assembly in February 1978 in which the party made it clear that it expected the pact to end within a few months but gave Steel a mandate to determine the exact date.

After his three years as party chair he took on the Campaigns and Elections Committee (1980-82) and then became party president, (1983-84). He was appointed to the House of Lords in 1981 and became Chief Whip of the party in the Lords, 1983-88 - post for which he was admirably suited. He had achieved numerous promotions within Shell chemicals, despite some antipathy from his bosses, but he resigned in order to do the Whip's job full-time. Geoff typically helped to smooth the relations with the SDP during the alliance period.

Following the merger between the Liberal party and the SDP, Geoff became Chief Whip of the Liberal Democrat peers, 1988-94. He subsequently took on important non-party roles in the Lords from which he retired in 2016, suffering from ill health. His wife, Pat, was herself a keen Liberal but suffered from long-term ill health up to her death in 2013. They are survived by three daughters, two sons, six granddaughters, two grandsons and a great grandson!

My long friendship with Geoff involved a particular party piece at each Liberal Assembly - the "Bold Gendarmes" duet from one of Offenbach's lesser known operas. Just a few months ago, when Geoff was living at a retirement complex in Ilkley, he asked the organiser of musical events there if I could possibly come and reprise this duet. I did so and enjoyed a final meeting with a much respected friend and colleague.

Geoff Tordoff, born 11 November 1928, died 22 June 2019

Review of the BBC's "A Very English Scandal"

The BBC has received almost universal plaudits for its three part drama based on Jeremy Thorpe's showmanship, high risk behaviour, and multi-faceted political and personal life, inexorably leading to his trial for conspiracy to murder along with his former friend, David Holmes, and the two henchmen, John Le Mesurier and George Deakin. Having been at headquarters at the beginning of Jeremy Thorpe's leadership and having been Assembly Committee Chair at the end of it, I was inevitably glued to the television screen. The political atmosphere of fifty years ago was vividly evoked by the drama and I certainly recognised many of the scenes depicted on the screen, including, suddenly, two involving Mike Steele, the very effective party press officer at the time. From that point of view it was a worthwhile project and a surprisingly successful effort to bring modern history to the screen.

I have never hidden my view that Jeremy Thorpe was a poor political leader and a deeply flawed politician. In comparison with Jo Grimond, his immediate predecessor as Liberal Leader, his legacy was extremely thin. During nine years of leadership Thorpe left no legacy of writing - neither books nor pamphlets. He was a showman and a charismatic campaigner with a capacity for making effective set speeches. To his credit he had a lifelong devotion to anti-colonialism - which was rightly shown in the film and this - plus a commitment to electoral reform - was a key motivation for his attachment to the Liberal party despite his solidly Conservative family history.

Even though the election of party leader at the time was in the sole hands of the handful of MPs, widespread consultations with party officials across the country were made - with candidates, association chairs and leaders of council groups all being 'phoned. The small "cabal" of staff and officers at HQ opposed to Thorpe becoming leader, quite unofficially and quixotically, tried to prevent it, by, for instance, trying to get Richard Wainwright, entirely unauthorised, into being considered as an extra candidate. It was futile, with Thorpe the only MP dating from 1959 and with his problematic history having been hidden.

For the party managers the difficulties with Thorpe were the eternal problem - that it is electoral suicide for a party to criticise its leader whilst in office. Consequently his autocratic, and sometimes domineering attitude towards staff, his unwillingness to apply himself to difficult political issues, his preference for gimmicks rather than the necessary slog of day in day out election campaigning, his love of pretentious occasions which were at odds with the party's image, his decision to confront the young liberals rather than seeking to promote conciliation, and his lack of transparency over funds he solicited personally, were all almost entirely kept under wraps out of party loyalty. For instance, the party treasurer, Sir Frank Medlicott, resigned ostensibly on health grounds even though he said to me that he was not prepared to be treasurer of a party in which the leader had secret funds.

The remarkable internal party secrecy until the Norman Scott affair broke in the media as a consequence of Scott's outbursts, even extended to the parliamentary party keeping its knowledge of Scott's allegations and the cover up within its ranks without it being even communicated to party headquarters just around the corner at 36 Smith Square.

One error that the BBC drama makes is to suggest that the occasional party mutterings against his leadership were because of his presumed homosexuality. This is categorically untrue and it was a subject that was never mentioned. Similarly the depiction of Emlyn Hooson is extremely flawed. Emlyn was a man of much greater intellect and standing than the film's image of him. His portrayal as a sly politician always seeking an opportunity to topple Thorpe in order to take over the leadership has no basis in fact. He had certainly wanted to be leader - he stood in the January 1967 election against Thorpe - but I have gone back over my files and all the publications and I know of no evidence that he took any action with a view to causing Thorpe's resignation for selfish purposes. In fact, Emlyn's leading role in discrediting Scott at the now infamous "star chamber" meeting with Scott had the effect of entrenching Thorpe's leadership.

The BBC drama was also in error in suggesting that George Carman had confessed to having had some homosexual tendencies. Quite apart from the irrelevance of such an inclusion, even if true, legal friends who knew Carman tell me that it was completely untrue and that, in fact, Carman was quite a predatory womaniser.

Apart from these significant errors the nature of producing a drama inevitably led to the compression of certain events and to "sexing up" an already lively story by quoting a number of rumours and allegations as if they were facts. Questions inevitably arise as to how and why Peter Bessell changed from being Thorpe's totally loyal right-hand man, who took great risks in covering for him, to the chief prosecution witness at the trial. The clue lies in a particular failing of Thorpe: that he demanded total loyalty and at the moment there was any whiff of dissent that supporter was then simply cut off. It happened after Peter Bessell had fled to California to escape from his creditors and was no longer available for Thorpe at a moment's notice and he realised that Thorpe was prepared to throw him to the media wolves. It happened similarly later on in the case when David Holmes, Thorpe's previously close friend, realised that he was being made to take the whole blame for what Thorpe saw as the incompetence of the execution of the whole plot to silence Scott. It even extended to the wholly innocent friend, Nadir Dinshaw, who finally demurred at being the conduit for diverting cash from Jack Hayward, and was then threatened by Thorpe who said that "he would be asked to move on", ie suggesting that, having an immigrant past, his residence in the UK might not be secure!

The film takes the simplistic media view that because Peter Bessell's affairs were in disarray, he let the party and his family down by abandoning his parliamentary seat and by fleeing Britain, and therefore his whole political career must have been a sham. In my view this is unfair. For much of his time in parliament he was a loyal and able spokesman for the party, with whom I worked on speeches and articles. He certainly became unreliable as his personal and business affairs collapsed and he was never going to be a compelling prosecution witness. His book "Cover Up" has some errors but it is a far more reliable record of the whole period than is often admitted.

The party's problem with Thorpe came to a head at the 1978 Liberal Party Assembly at Southport. Knowing how disruptive his presence would be, having just been charged with conspiracy to murder, the new party leader, David Steel, had extracted a promise from Thorpe that he would not attend - a commitment he proceeded to break and duly hi-jacked the conference. The complete party confidentiality on the behaviour of Thorpe had meant that even its candidates had been kept in the dark. One candidate, Dr James Walsh from Hove, tabled a motion censuring the party's officers for their treatment of its erstwhile leader! The then three key officers, Gruff (later Lord) Evans, party president, Geoff (later Lord) Tordoff, chair of the party executive, and myself as chair of the Assembly Committee, and thus in the hot seat, met and decided to take the motion head-on and that, if it was carried, we would all resign on the spot. The motion was taken at a private session of the Assembly and Gruff Evans was ruthless in his detailing of the difficulties we had faced over many years, which were a revelation to delegates. Dr Walsh's motion was duly withdrawn.

Two questions remain. First, was not Thorpe as leader responsible for the huge rise in Liberal support at the February 1974 election? Not really. With his 1970 majority having dropped to just 369 votes he was instructed firmly that he was not to set foot outside his constituency and he undertook no leader's tour at the election. In fact the general election vote was on the back of a series of five by-election victories in Rochdale, the Isle of Ely, Ripon, Berwick-upon-Tweed and, most remarkable of all, Sutton and Cheam, won thanks to Trevor Jones' campaigning skills. If anyone was responsible for the general election vote it was he. Before this run of by-elections our poll rating barely climbed out of single figures, whereas from August 1973 to polling day it hovered around 20%.

Second, was it really possible that an intelligent and highly regarded public figure could conspire to murder a person, however miserable and threatening the man in question had made his life over many years? The answer is that it was possible. No-one, however apparently stable and sensible, is immune from becoming mentally unbalanced by the pressure of domestic circumstances and there is no doubt that it is conceivable that eventually Jeremy Thorpe could arrive at a point where he demanded "who will rid me of this turbulent Scott?" As for evidence, after the trial, and after the death of David Holmes, Andrew Newton publicised recordings he had made of telephone conversations he had had with Holmes which essentially admitted the conspiracy.

The BBC's drama was compelling. The acting was remarkably good. In particular Hugh Grant's absorbing of Thorpe's mannerisms and his style of speaking was astonishing. It was a well worthwhile effort to popularise a political era that many of us had endured!

Jeremy Thorpe, by Walter Bird, NPG x167152An assessment of Jeremy Thorpe the politician and of him as the Liberal Party leader for nine years is bedevilled by the huge shadow of the eventual public revelations of his sexuality and the attempts to conceal it over almost his entire parliamentary life, followed by the lurid details of his trial for attempted murder. These latter events are relevant to an evaluation of his career only insofar as they affected his and his colleagues' ability to promote effectively the Liberal cause. Quite apart from Michael Bloch's much reviewed biography - which is very good on Thorpe the person if somewhat naïve on the political aspects - there is by now considerable evidence on the record of his defects and of his lack of political judgement, but throughout the years of his leadership the criticisms and frustrations of those running the party were inevitably muted by an awareness of the electoral consequences of undermining the leader whilst in office. Mine was a fairly minor role in the early days but the loyalty and forbearance of key party officers such as Gruffydd Evans, Geoff Tordoff and Tim Beaumont meant that the problems were hidden from the mass of the party until the events of the party Assembly in Southport in September 1978, to which I will return.

One should start any obituary of Jeremy Thorpe by stating the positives. Coming from a strongly Conservative family he joined the Liberal party whilst a student at Oxford for exactly the right reasons: industrial co-ownership, the statutory ending of monopolies, civil liberties, colonial freedom and electoral reform. He opposed the Suez invasion, and in parliament he opposed capital punishment, supported abortion law reform and homosexual law reform - none of which would be likely to be likely to go down well with his constituents. He maintained his key principles throughout his life. He was adopted as the candidate for North Devon in 1952 at the age of 23, just one year after the worst Liberal general election result ever. The problems with Thorpe were to do with the outworking of his beliefs and with the lack of a strategic ability to make them effective. Part of the reason for this was an apparently innate lack of respect for the party nationally and a consequent inability to regard it as a partner in the task of promoting Liberalism. He certainly had charisma and an ability to charm individuals and to make excellent speeches, often with a compelling turn of phrase, but the concern was whether there was anything more than the showman who enjoyed the aura of high society and of sometimes indulging in student-like japes. There is, for instance, no book, booklet or pamphlet written by him in his nine years as party leader. There was also a certain illiberal sense of social superiority, presumably stemming from his background and his education, which from time to time would show in disparaging treatment of party staff and even of a belief that he was entitled to sack an individual whose work he felt inadequate.

It took him seven years intensive work in the constituency to win North Devon in 1959 and, being the only Liberal gain in that election, it heartened and enthused the whole party. He held the seat for twenty years until the publicity surrounding the criminal charges he faced, and the impending court case, brought his defeat in 1979. In contrast to his relationship with the party at national level, he had a warm affinity with his electors and he evinced a remarkable ability to recall individuals and their interests on subsequent meeting.

The question for party officers in 1967 was whether the flamboyant showman, with Liberal instincts but some dubious friends, would be the best leader for the party following Jo Grimond's retirement. Jo would have been a hard act for anyone to follow. Intellectually secure, the writer of two full length books and many pamphlets on Liberalism, the catalyst for attracting thinkers and academics as well as members and candidates, an inspiring platform speaker and television performer, he almost singlehandedly made a party with a minuscule parliamentary presence politically relevant as a non-socialist party seeking a realignment of the Left. Jo had always said "get on or get out" and had given the party ten years to do it. He followed his own advice and indicated his intention to retire at the end of 1966. Efforts to dissuade him failed and, in reality, those of us who worked closely with him were conscious of his increasing unwillingness to take on party meetings and rallies.

In key respects Jeremy Thorpe was the exact opposite of Jo Grimond, embracing gimmicks, flashiness and a risky personal life, whereas Jo would refuse to do "photo opportunities" saying to me that "politics is too serious for gimmicks". And Jo was certainly not a flashy dresser but usually slightly scruffy in an acceptably eccentric way! Retiring when he did limited the potential candidates for the succession, effectively ruling out MPs only elected nine months before, including amongst those who could conceivably have harboured ambitions, John Pardoe, James Davidson, Michael Winstanley and, crucially, Richard Wainwright. Russell Johnston and David Steel had a little more seniority but did not at that point come forward. Peter Bessell was bound to support Thorpe, his west country colleague. Those "party managers" who believed that Thorpe was politically shallow and personally risky, including Gruffydd Evans, Tim Beaumont and Pratap Chitnis - and, apparently, Frank Byers, though I was unaware of it at the time - had a dilemma. They had, rightly, kept their doubts about Thorpe away from the party generally and had no legitimate means of inhibiting his candidature.

There was a further question mark against Thorpe. He had become the party's treasurer in October 1965. The party was in one of its perennial financial crises and Thorpe tapped a few big donors in order to bale out the party. Thorpe and cash were a continual problem and from 1961 he had personal access to funds which he was able to use tactically to develop his stature within the party. It eventual led to the resignation of Sir Frank Medlicott as party treasurer in 1971. Sir Frank told me at the time that he "was not prepared to be treasurer of a party in which the party leader controlled secret funds." Loyally Sir Frank publicly gave ill health as the reason for his resignation and he did, indeed, die shortly afterwards.

Neither eventual leadership candidate against Thorpe had enough salience. Emlyn Hooson was regarded as right wing and out of sympathy in the party as a successor to Grimond's whole realignment strategy whilst Eric Lubbock was a fine "fixer" but not charismatic enough to be leader. Even so, the headquarters "cabal" made one last attempt to thwart Thorpe, by running Wainwright, entirely without his connivance, or even knowledge, as a possible additional candidate. There was only one full day between nominations and the election by the twelve MPs but even so "soundings" were taken. As Local Government Officer, my instructions from Pratap Chitnis, as head of the party organisation, were to telephone every council group leader and ask, given the three candidates, which they would favour. Almost without exception they named Jeremy Thorpe. I would then ask what their view would be "if Mr Wainwright was a candidate"; almost invariably the answer was the same. The same response was forthcoming from the other party groups consulted - candidates, Women's Liberal Federation members and Young Liberals. The latter came to regret that opinion a few years later.

The first ballot gave Thorpe six out of the twelve votes, whereupon Emlyn Hooson and Eric Lubbock withdraw from a second ballot thus giving Thorpe an unopposed election. The leadership die was thus cast and the party walked the tightrope of Thorpe's political and personal adventurism thereafter. Peter Bessell was regularly engaged in keeping Thorpe's gay lovers at arms length and, unlike Jo Grimond who managed to engage with the radical excesses of the Young Liberals, Thorpe naively supposed that he could discipline and stifle them and he thus managed to have a public falling out. Other important groups both in and out of the party were also increasingly frustrated by his lack of depth and as early as January 1968 Tim Beaumont and the four other original dissidents, plus Richard Holme, were discussing whether or not it was possible to engineer his resignation. The continuing problem was the lack of a viable alternative. Richard Wainwright's name was continually mentioned and that autumn Richard asked William Wallace and me to see him at his Leeds home. He instructed us to stop promoting his name saying that he was not a leader. Leadership required a "first thinker" capable of virtually immediate sound analytical judgement on issues whereas he was a "second thinker" whose skill was to consolidate and develop.

Jeremy Thorpe's out of the blue wedding to Caroline Allpass on 31 May 1967 only partially muted the criticisms, although the dissident quintet made an ill-timed strike whilst they were on their honeymoon. Obviously Thorpe was perfectly entitled to celebrate his wedding any way he wished but the ostentatious and establishment laden festivities jarred with radical colleagues. Thorpe had never been able to command the warm support of the party as a whole and for the rest of the parliament he struggled with criticism from a number of influential individuals and from Young Liberals whilst receiving loyal support from a bewildered membership. At this time the young Liberals were a numerous and intellectually radical force and Thorpe could have harnessed their enthusiasm and commitment to radical causes but instead he chose to take them on. Ironically, one of the Thorpe "ideas" that they applauded - the suggestion that rail lines into Ian Smith's Rhodesia could be bombed to deny him supplies - was actually planted on him by a South African BOSS agent with a view to discrediting the Liberal party. Once Thorpe had made the speech, the agent returned to South Africa.

Following the leadership election there was little evidence of an electoral honeymoon and a year after his election as leader the party had gained just one percentage point. 1968 was a year of missed opportunity. With Labour at its lowest rating since polling began - it dropped to 28% in the middle of the year - the party could have mounted a determined and focussed national appeal to disillusioned Labour voters, just as was done in some localities, but the leadership had no real awareness of how to tackle traditional Labour areas and the chance passed.

The single bright spot came the following year with the party's by-election gain in Birmingham in June 1969 but this was a personal victory for the candidate, Wallace Lawler, who had been a popular local councillor for seven years. At the following general election, in 1970, the party vote was down slightly on 1966 and Thorpe's own majority in North Devon dropped to a perilous 369.

Throughout this whole period the spectre of Thorpe's homosexual liaisons, illegal at the time, hovered over him and also, by association, his close friend Peter Bessell, MP for the neighbouring Bodmin constituency who, in order to stave off potential disaster, was making regular payments to one such, Norman Scott, who had also managed to contact Caroline by telephone. Whereas Thorpe showed no external sign of the turmoil of his personal life, it must surely have had a detrimental effect on his - and Bessell's - political judgement and capacity. As if these political and personal problems were not enough, just two weeks after the 1970 election polling day Caroline was killed in a car accident when driving back to London from North Devon. There were hints that she was distracted by some fresh development in the Scott saga but the more plausible explanation was that she was momentarily distracted through being extremely tired from the election campaign and from looking after the Thorpes' young son.

Not surprisingly Thorpe was devastated and for some eighteen months was only able to carry out the minimum of duties so that the party staggered on lacking firm leadership with poll ratings hovering around 6-7% through 1970 and 1971 and fighting only six of the fourteen by-elections - coming third in each one. The most significant initiative was promotion of the community politics strategy mainly by young Liberals, which was formally adopted by the party at its 1970 Assembly and towards which Jeremy Thorpe was decidedly lukewarm. In 1972 there were a number of parliamentary issues on which Thorpe made a positive Liberal contribution. First, he led the Liberals into the government lobby to save the day against an anti-EU proposition from Enoch Powell which split the Tories; second, he opposed the Rhodesia deal Sir Alec Douglas-Home had reached with Ian Smith on behalf of the government; third, he opposed the support being given to the Stormont Assembly on internment; finally, he supported the right of the Ugandan Asians being expelled by Idi Amin to come to Britain. On all four issues the government eventually adopted Thorpe's Liberal line. The electoral tide began to turn for the party in 1972 partly through the happenstance of a by-election in Rochdale won, as in Birmingham Ladywood, by a popular local councillor, Cyril Smith, with the active personal support of the party leader.

A by-election in Sutton and Cheam, eventually in December 1972, had been trailed since June when it was known that the Conservative MP was to be appointed as Governor-General of Bermuda. It was regarded as a safe Conservative seat and the Liberal candidate had finished a poor third in 1970. However, at the September party assembly. Trevor Jones, Deputy Leader of Liverpool Liberals, and a enthusiast for "community politics" easily defeated Penelope Jessel, the leadership's candidate for the party presidency, and he moved into Sutton and Cheam with his "Focus" leaflets and immense enthusiasm. The Liberal, Graham Tope, took the seat with a majority of 7,000. The victory had little to do with the party leader, and Trevor Jones led the subsequent by-election campaigns to substantial second places in unlikely places, such as Manchester Exchange and Chester-le-Street, neither of which the party had even fought in 1970. The momentum lifted the poll ratings to 22% and enabled the gains in Ripon, the Isle of Ely and Berwick. Meanwhile Jeremy had married Marion, divorced from Lord Harewood, the Queen's cousin, six years earlier. The wedding celebrations attracted the same comments as the earlier ones had but there was no doubt as to the pleasure the marriage brought them both.

The party went into the February 1974 general election in extremely good heart. Given his narrow majority at the previous election, Thorpe decided to stay in his constituency for the whole campaign, broadcasting nation wide from a makeshift studio in the board room of the Barnstaple Liberal Club. The opinion polls showed that he scored over the other leaders and it was thought that staying out of the rough and tumble had in fact helped the Liberal campaign. A great deal has been written on the immediate post-election negotiations with Edward Heath on the possible formation of a coalition. There was no doubt that Thorpe wanted to be in office - going to see Heath without consulting anyone in the Liberal party is a strong hint - but it was never a possibility given the arithmetic and the political reality. What would have happened had it had been possible, given what was known in security files on his background, remains an interesting speculation.

With six million votes and almost 20% of the poll, and a Labour minority government, it was clear that there would be a second election within months. The party, and its leader, were clearly popular and all the local activists would have responded to the leader launching a barnstorming crusade across the country. Alas, it didn't happen and a huge opportunity was lost, with the leader apparently preoccupied with his personal problems and, later, bogged down in the risible failure of his hovercraft gimmick. Instead of achieving a breakthrough, and despite fighting all but four British seats - at last realising John Pardoe's long campaign - the vote dropped, in real terms, by five per cent. There was mounting criticism of Thorpe from within the party, muted only by the three month European referendum campaign in which Thorpe played a significant and positive role in securing the pro-EU vote in June 1975.

Thereafter it is the record of Thorpe's long delayed descent into the depths of the scandal, the court case, the eventual reluctant resignation as party leader and the loss of his seat in 1979, punctuated by further examples of his poor judgement and manipulation. The collapse in 1973 of the somewhat shady London and Counties Securities secondary bank, with which he had got involved on the advice of a close friend and advisor, led to trenchant criticism from the two inspectors who investigated its failure. The personal introduction in 1977 of a crook, George de Chabris, real name George Marks, to the National Liberal Club which he asset stripped mainly for the benefit of himself and his family. And the obtaining of a great deal of money from Jack Hayward, including considerable sums under false pretences and on occasion diverted to uses other than for which Hayward had given it - including amounts to buy incriminating documents from Norman Scott. It is all a very sad story and it is only surprising and, in a way, a relief that it took so many years for the simmering pot to boil over. As Michael Bloch's biography makes clear, Thorpe carried on a dangerous double life that at any point could have seriously damaged the party. I remember vividly the embarrassment of canvassing at the 1979 election when the party leader was on a charge of the attempted murder of his homosexual lover. No wonder we did so badly on polling day.

As was their right, none of the principal defendants chose to give evidence at the trial. Whether, had they done so, given what has emerged since, not least from the late David Holmes, the jury's verdict would still have been for acquittal must be in doubt. Nevertheless, what was disclosed and accepted was quite sufficient to discredit Thorpe.

As party officers realised at the 1978 party Assembly at Southport, even so late in the day, most party members were unaware of the history. Thorpe had promised David Steel, newly installed as party leader, that he would not attend. He insisted on arriving in style and effectively hijacking the proceedings for his own selfish purposes. He was publicly criticised at the Assembly and a very loyal Liberal candidate from Hove, Dr James Walsh, put down a motion of censure of the party officers for their treatment of Jeremy Thorpe as leader. The three key officers at Southport, Gruff Evans, president, Geoff Tordoff, chair, and myself, Assembly committee chair, were furious and decided to take the motion head-on at a closed session of delegates. All three of us agreed that if the motion was carried we would resign on the spot. Gruff opened the proceedings with a forthright detailed exposé of Thorpe's actions and behaviour extending from before he became leader. The delegates were astounded and Dr Walsh was very distressed at what he had caused. In the end the motion was not put and the damaging resignations avoided. Thus ended Jeremy Thorpe's career within the Liberal Party. Lots of froth, a great deal of posturing, a curious fondness for high society, an inability to conduct potentially damaging liaisons discreetly, a willingness to manipulate individuals for his own survival, a regular refusal to accept political advice and a lack of political depth and judgement. Not a great CV for a Liberal Leader.

Even so no-one would have wished on him the physical debility of over twenty five years of Parkinson's Disease nor the indignity of being made to leave his home of thirty years having been made to move out last March following Marion's death as the Orme Square house was personal to her following her divorce.

Leeds Labour stalwart Joe Taylor died on 27 May at the age of 87. Joe Taylor represented the Middleton ward on Leeds City Council for thirty-one years, from 1964 to 1995. Following his retirement as a Councillor he was elected an Honorary Alderman of the City of Leeds. Taylor was Councillor Dougie Gabb's Deputy Lord Mayor in 1984-85. He was awarded the MBE for his public and political service.

Joe Taylor was the loyal Labour backbencher par excellence. His aim was to represent his local community and to improve the lot of his fellow postal workers, and he believed that this was best achieved through the Labour party and through trade union solidarity. He never sought executive positions and it is significant that the only Council committee chair he held - that of the Personnel Committee in 1985 - ended with a vote of no confidence passed by the left-wing dominated Leeds District Labour Party when a complaint of sexual harrassment by a woman council employee was not upheld by a panel with Councillor Taylor in the chair.

Taylor served as chair of his Leeds South Constituency Labour Party and, in the Post Office Workers' Union, he served as his branch's Legal and Medical Secretary for 24 years.

Joe Taylor was born in Holbeck and moved to Middleton when the new part of the council estate was built in 1932. He joined the army in 1936 at the age of 17 and served in the Royal Engineers. During his war service on the Far East, and his time as a Prisoner of War of the Japanese, he contracted malaria which recurred from time to time throughout the rest of his life.

Joe Taylor had no pomposity and treated Council colleagues of all parties with the same openness and warmth. He was a popular local figure and was highly respected for his commitment to the Middleton community.

His wife, Betty, died in 1995 and he leaves a daughter, Christine.

The death of Alf Tallant at the age of 95 has cut the last remaining link with the group of Leeds Labour pioneers who saw municipal politics as a key route to socialist influence. With its first Councillor only elected in 1903, Leeds Labour was ten years behind its neighbour Bradford, and it was often riven with internal disputes, but by the outbreak of war in 1914 it had more elected Councillors than the Liberals. Alf's grandfather had been the secretary of the South Ward Liberal Club in Hunslet but his father, Albert Tallant, allied himself to the Labour movement and regularly contested local elections from 1910 onwards, being a Leeds Councillor for eight years and an Alderman for eleven years. Alf went into the family shoemaking and shoe repairing business, based in the same Beeston shop for fifty years, until his retirement in 1973. Despite the decline in the demand for hand-made shoes, he took pride in having made an average of one pair of shoes a week, right up to his retirement.

Despite his family background Alf Tallant came late into Leeds municipal politics, only being elected to the City Council in 1957. He was Deputy Lord Mayor in 1966 and became an Alderman in 1968, becoming one of only sixteen Labour members on a Council of 120!

With Labour back in office in Leeds in May 1972, Alf Tallant became Chairman of the Education Committee and launched a highly controversial school zoning policy, with catchment area boundaries being drawn around middle and high schools to achieve "a better mixing of the social classes". This often required tortuously shaped zones and the bussing of pupils. It was opposed by the Conservatives because it undermined parental choice and by the Liberals because it separated schools from their natural communities, and attracted large public protests. It was soon modified to allow parents to opt for schools other than those designated for their children and the scheme was later abandoned completely.

Tallant was a strong supporter of the arts and, under its civic ownership, became Chairman of the board of the Grand Theatre and Opera House, and of the City of Leeds College of Music. He became one of the first Honorary Aldermen of the City of Leeds in 1974. A man of strongly held views he remained deeply partisan throughout his time in politics. Not a natural orator, and by turns irascible and humorous, Tallant's quiet exterior hid deeply held socialist views and he remained strongly partisan throughout his time in politics.

Alf Tallant's wife, Rene, died in February 1989, and he leaves two daughters.

Alfred Tallant, born January 1908, died 25 August 2003.

See also The Guardian.

My friend and former colleague Trevor Wilson, who has died aged 96, was a Liberal party politician in Yorkshire from the early 1960s to the mid-80s.

A solid, non-confomist Yorkshire businessman, Trevor was elected to represent the woollen town of Elland on West Riding of Yorkshire county council in 1963, in a by-election caused by his father’s death.

After unsuccessfully contesting the 1964 general election in the Pudsey parliamentary constituency, he was elevated to become a county alderman in 1967 as leader of the Liberal group at the West Riding.

In 1973, when the authority was replaced by the West Yorkshire metropolitan county council, he continued as Liberal party leader until Margaret Thatcher abolished the metropolitan county councils in 1986. That year he was made CBE for his services to political and public life.

Trevor was born in Huddersfield as the only child of John, a chartered accountant and Liberal party councillor for Elland from 1929 to 1963, and Florence (nee Wilkinson), whose family owned the local Samuel Wilkinson brickworks. He began his secondary education at Elland grammar school, but in 1940, as German air raids began, he was sent, complete with gas mask, to Giggleswick school in a small West Riding village of the same name. In 1943 he went on to Balliol College, Oxford, where he joined the Liberal club and emerged with two degrees, in chemistry and inorganic chemistry.

After university he entered the family business in Elland until it closed in 1985, beginning on the production side and eventually ending up as chairman. Outside politics Trevor was a keen sportsman, playing cricket, rugby and golf and was involved in the scout movement, serving on the boards of a number of local charities, including Age UK and the Citizens Advice Bureau.

His leisure interests also involved leading mountaineering expeditions, including one to Everest Base Camp, going on annual ski trips until well into his 70s. and listening to opera.

Trevor Wilson, politician, born 21 August 1927, died 27 June 2024.

As a key financial figure in the Liberal Party, Philip Watkins knew as much as any individual member of the detailed internal matters that bedevilled the party through the latter part of Jeremy Thorpe’s leadership, but he could never be prevailed upon to divulge personal or party matters that might reflect badly on those involved.

Even during his last illness when I gently suggested that, for the sake of party history, he ought to record the details of a number of events which I knew he believed to have been incorrectly interpreted, he thought for a moment and replied, “You're probably right... but no.”

Watkins's professional skills as an accountant and his personal stature ensured that he was frequently relied upon to take charge of the party’s financial affairs at times of stress, whether from its extreme poverty or from some suspected maladministration. His personality and acknowledged probity, coupled with an incisive financial mind, were such that his actions in restoring solvency and stability were accepted by party officers, however fraught the situation.

Educated at Bristol Grammar School and Brasenose College, Oxford, Watkins was by profession a chartered accountant, but somehow always managed to arrange his private practice to ensure that he had sufficient time to be active in the causes he believed in.

Six times a Liberal Parliamentary candidate, he contested the Bridgwater constituency in 1959, 1964 and 1966, after which he moved to the nearby seat of North Dorset for the 1970 election, and for the two contests in 1974, in both of which he came second, polling more than 35 per cent of the vote.

He had taken on the key post of Chairman of the party’s Finance and Administration Board in 1969 with responsibility for the running of the party headquarters and its relationships with the constituency associations. Following the October 1974 election, he became Party Treasurer and devoted himself to the national organisation. His other posts included the chairmanship of the Liberal Candidates’ Association and, for 11 years up to the merger with the SDP in 1988, the vice-presidency of the party.

Despite opposing the merger, he joined the new party, believing those who went on to relaunch the Liberal Party to be tactically wrong. He remained active in the Liberal Democrats but did not take on national office. However, before his death he was a member of the General Committee of the National Liberal Club and financial adviser to the Liberal International, arguing with partial success for both to remain broad churches in the Liberal cause.

Curiously, in an age when relatively little consistent local activity appears to quality party activists to be appointed OBE or MBE, Philip Watkins was never offered an honour. Perhaps his identification with the fallout from the Thorpe affair blighted his chances.

Watkins was also Treasurer of the Electoral Reform Society where his gentle humour and shrewd financial acumen were greatly appreciated, particularly in the launching of the society’s international subsidiary, created to assist new and developing democracies.

Philip Watkins was also involved locally in London, being Church Warden of St James the Less, Pimlico, and a governor of Paddington Green School. He possessed a deep personal faith which he wore in a natural and attractive way.

Philip George Watkins, accountant and politician: born 5 November 1930; Chairman, Liberal Party Finance and Administration Board 1969-74, Treasurer, Liberal Party 1977-88; Vice-President, Liberal Party 1977-88; died London 1 June 1995.