Tuesday, December 29, 2009

An obituary of David Taylor

The best obituary of David Taylor in today's newspapers is the one by Tam Dalyell in the Independent:

In 2006, in my capacity as Father of the House of Commons, I was invited by the England Central Woodlands Project to open one of their new forest developments, part of which was in the North-West Leicestershire constituency.

David Taylor met me on site, and it immediately became apparent that he had an excellent rapport with both his constituents and the local and national forestry community.

Quite simply, he was not only respected, but loved – yes it is possible for a politician to be loved – by local people of many different party allegiances.

The only thing to add is that Dalyell was not so much the Father of the House as its eccentric uncle.

3 comments:

Stephen Glenn said...

Hang on a second Tam retired from the House in 2005. I know that for a fact as he didn't stand against me. Therefore how could he have been acting as Father of the House of Commons in 2006?

Robert Doyle said...

Tam Dalyell opened the Westminster Wood in March 2002 according to this:

http://www.nationalforest.org/document/fscene/nfcs2002.pdf

Paul Evans said...

Eccentric and borderline racist uncle that you'd rather not have round to dinner..