The 1984 runners and riders - Liberator's finest hour

Mark Pack has reprinted this spread from the 1984 Liberal Assembly issue of Liberator.

It was probably the magazine's finest hour. Certainly, it was the only time we have provided the lead item for the BBC's six o'clock news.

The spread caused a huge row at the time but, as Mark points out, the pen portraits of the Liberal MPs (written by Ralph Bancroft, if I recall rightly) are remarkably kind - click on the picture and you should be able to read them.

Only one MP complained: Malcolm Bruce, who thought we had made him sound too worthy.

That BBC news item pictured David Steel and then "Liberal activists arriving in Bournemouth". Again if I recall rightly, that was Stewart Rayment and I walking along the seafront.