John Pardoe endorses Ben Maguire, the Lib Dem candidate for North Cornwall

Ben Maguire is the Liberal Democrat in the North Cornwall constituency. Today he tweeted this endorsement from John Pardoe.

A sweet young thing asks: Who is John Pardoe?

My early Liberal heroes were David Penhaligon and John Pardoe, who both sat for Cornish constituencies.

Pardoe won North Cornwall from the Conservatives in 1966 and held it until 1979. From 1970 until he lost his seat, he was the Liberal Party's treasury spokesperson, and was known for his pessimistic view of the prospects of the British economy. As it was the Seventies, he generally proved to be right.

It's 45 years since Pardoe was defeated in North Cornwall, perhaps as a victim of Jeremy Thorpe's antics. Though he has resurfaced from time to time - notably, in 1987, when he was the manager of the Liberal-SDP Alliance general election campaign - he is pretty much a forgotten figure today.

But clearly not in North Cornwall, where his endorsement is still thought valuable.

He is also remembered in Calder's Sixth Law of Politics, which holds that every Liberal Democrat leadership election is a rerun of the 1976 Liberal Party contest between Pardoe and David Steel.

I first pointed to the importance of that contest in a post here from 2014:

One candidate (Steel) was orthodox, sensible and just a little dull. The other (Pardoe) was more charismatic, more open to new ideas and just a little unreliable in his judgement.

So in later contests Paddy Ashdown was a Pardoe and Alan Beith was a Steel. And Chris Huhne was a Pardoe and Ming Campbell and then Nick Clegg were Steels. In all these cases I voted for the Pardoe.

It doesn't always work: in 1999 there were five candidates. I suppose you could make a case for Charles Kennedy being a sort of Social Democrat Steel, but a clear Pardoe failed to emerge.

Can we project this pattern back into past? I don't know, but it tempting to see Asquith as a Steel and Lloyd George as a Pardoe.

And was Jo Grimond a Steel or a Pardoe? He seems to have combined the better qualities of both.

Anyway, I'm pleased to see that John Pardoe is still around.