My happiest memory of him is at the Alternative Summit that took place alongside the G8 Summit in Birmingham in May 1998. This was so long ago that the Alternative Summit produced, not a Bluesky account, but a daily printed newspaper.
David was the editor, and he asked me to come to Birmingham to write a column for him each day. I remember him being in his element as he dealt patiently with crises and contributors, and ordered taxis, only to keep them waiting while he solved some new problem. Clad in a pale linen suit, he resembled a very English Tom Wolfe.
It was when he asked me to write for Lib Dem News, the weekly newspaper published by the party until 2012, that I first got to know David. As an editor he was always encouraging, and when I noticed that he removed all the brackets I put in my writing, I stopped using them.
David was an immensely productive writer, yet always thoughtful and entertaining. His label on this blog brings up dozens of links to explore. I can't promise they will all work now, but many of them will.
He had the ability to notice social trends early and to sense where they might lead. You see this in what was perhaps his best book - The Tyranny of Numbers: Why counting can’t make us happy, which was published in 2001, the heyday of Blairite targets and benchmarking.
For an introduction to David's work and personality, I recommend you listen to the documentary he made for BBC Radio 4 in 2015: Clinging On: The Decline of the Middle Classes.
I knew David had been unwell for some time, but news of his death still came as an awful shock. My thoughts are with his wife Sarah and their sons Robin and William.
That's a very interesting radio programme - and I reckon the problems have got a lot worse over the last 10 years.
ReplyDeleteOh no, I am really sad to hear this news. David was a rarity, sadly, amongst Liberal Democrats in writing fluently and interestingly and being able to communicate liberal values to people outside the party. One of the problems with community politics in my view is that it places a premium on activism at the expense of thought. Liberalism is an ideology that has to adapt to changing circumstances, but we desperately need people who can articulate the relevance of liberalism in an ever more complicated world. I will re-read 'The Tyranny of Numbers' in his memory.
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