Michael Meadowcroft, who wrote so many obituaries himself, is remembered in the Guardian by Martin Wainwright, the son of a fellow Yorkshire Liberal MP:
Michael Meadowcroft, who has died aged 84 after a short illness, was a Yorkshire Liberal politician and activist of great resource and flair. He constantly wrong-footed Labour in its former heartlands in Leeds as a nimble source of new ideas, closely in touch with voters and patient at working with them to get local problems solved.
He served as a Liberal party member of Leeds city council from 1968 to 1983, and then as an MP for Leeds West for four years.
Meadowcroft was famously the only MP in the city’s history who led a weekend jazz ensemble in the main shopping precinct, pausing between numbers to discuss political issues with passers-by.
Exuberantly self-confident, he was a natural challenger with less interest in becoming part of any status quo. But he was steeped in Liberal philosophy as well as being a rigorous organiser, central to the party’s adoption of "community politics" during its resurgence under the charismatic leadership of Jo Grimond in the 1960s.
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