It’s been a bad, bad few days for long-standing party activists, with the sudden death of Julian Cummins the latest.

Julian was chair of the Yorkshire & Humberside regional party (as it then was) when I was in York and first got involved at a regional level. His enthusiastic leadership of the regional party had a major impact on focusing the party’s resources on Parliamentary seats that could be won, and therefore he too had a share in the credit for the victories in Harrogate and Sheffield Hallam in 1997.

There is more about his career on the regional party’s website. Julian also wrote me by far the nicest “thank you” letter I’ve received in the party when I moved from York to Exeter. A very kind and talented man.