Michael Meadowcroft's Guardian obituary of Diana Maddock

Michael Meadowcroft has written an obituary of the Liberal Democrat peer Diana Maddock, who won a famous and unlikely by-election victory at Christchurch in 1993.

He writes:

Maddock ... had considerable organising ability and a great skill in recruiting party workers, as well as in persuading others to take on jobs. It was this proficiency that almost kept her in a backroom role rather than becoming the byelection candidate. 

Following the death of the Conservative MP for Christchurch, Robert Adley, in May 1993, the Conservative party moved the byelection writ almost immediately and Maddock was quickly engaged in telephoning potential candidates. 

However, a number of those she phoned told her that she ought to stand herself, and eventually, at the last minute, she contacted party headquarters to put her name forward.

My own favourite memory of Diana Maddock is of delivering Good Morning leaflets with her on polling day in the 1995 Littleborough and Saddleworth by-election.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Part 2

Read the first part of his lordship's latest diary here.

Thursday
In all honesty, it is chiefly for the sake of Thurso’s grandfather, my old friend Sir Archibald Sinclair, that I am undertaking this journey. He led the Liberal Party between 1935 and 1945, and was altogether a splendid fellow. He was orphaned at the age of five but (despite my family’s best efforts) was brought up at Thurso Castle by his own grandfather Sir Tollemache Sinclair. He too was a splendid fellow, who had pulled down the sixteenth century castle and had a new one built to his design. He had a passion for the orchestra – a superior sort of mechanical organ – and could often be heard belting out some such tune as "Ride of the Valkyries" on the latest model.

I have to confess that the steam organ here at the Hall – which Professor Webb once managed to blow up with too enthusiastic a rendition of Kumara – was installed after I heard Sir Tollemache’s machine in full voice. Yes, the Sinclairs are altogether splendid fellows and I shall do whatever is needed to rescue poor Thurso.

Friday
I arrive in Berwick Upon Tweed, only to find it besieged by the hairier members of the Scottish National Party. I am told that they are plotting to seize the town and bear off Alan Beith and Lady Maddock so that they can exhibit them in Edinburgh, forcibly dress Beith in a kilt and oblige the lovely Diana to spend the rest of her life cooking porage for SNP backbenchers at Holyrood.

Well, the Nationalists shall not have Berwick nor Beith nor Lady Maddock: they are as English as cricket and corporal punishment. I hand out my supplies of orchard doughties to the brave Berwickians, together with some Bonkers Patent Exploding Focuses (for use in marginal wards) that I happen to have in the boot, and the Scots are soon put to flight.

Saturday
To Inverness Zoo at last, where I find Thurso disconsolately shelling peanuts while being groomed by a charming lady gorilla. "I’ve told them that I am the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross," he says, "but they just laugh." I complain of his treament to a passing keeper, but he very reasonably replies: "Sir, if I believed every hard-luck story I heard from an animal in this zoo, our cages would soon all be empty."

Having sacrificed my orchard doughties to help raise the Siege of Berwick, I am forced to employ guile rather than brute force, but a couple of crisp Bank of Rutland notes soon have the desired effect – once I have obtained an undertaking from Thurso that he will not be putting up for this year’s Liberal Democrat Moustache of the Award. I also secure the release of the charming lady gorilla as I have her in mind as our candidate in a ticklish council by-election in Lincolnshire – the voters like the touchy, feely approach nowadays.

Sunday
I write these words in the trophy room at Brig O’Dread with a tumbler of Auld Johnston at my elbow. The charming lady gorilla occupies the armchair on the other side of the roaring fire and Thurso is doing the washing up after our well-earned dinner. I felt it was the least he could do.