Nigel Jones, RIP

I was saddened to read of the death of my old work colleague, Nigel Jones, this week. We'd been colleagues at the ill-fated IT Partners, a consultancy setup by the computer manufacturer, ICL, just before the early-nineties recession. Nigel was a really nice guy who had a senior operational role there, whilst I was still pretty wet behind the ears (as they say). One of relatively few to be on paid client work, Nigel was working in the UK and all-over, whilst somehow managing the workload of a county councillor.

I only learned of his death last night, whilst repeating the story of how "a friend of mine became an MP by mistake". This was Nigel, who stood in his local constituency of Cheltenham for the Liberal Democrats in the 1992 election. At that time, Cheltenham was a safe Tory seat, and Nigel was not expecting to change that. However, it was too soon it seems, for the citizens of Cheltenham to accept a black MP, official Tory candidate or not. The rightfully aggrieved losing candidate was John Taylor, who has an interesting later story of his own.

To his shock and horror, Nigel was returned as the MP for Cheltenham.

I can still remember talking to him about his unexpected career move in the office the following week. It was a mixed blessing, he said: an MP's salary was less than he currently had, and although I'm sure he was excited by the challenge, there was the danger of being dumped out at the following election and struggling to re-establish himself in a career where five years out of the business is a long time. He needn't have worried, as Cheltenham returned him again and again, until in 2005 he entered the Lords.

We met by chance a couple of years later on a train to Paddington. He didn't seem to be having much fun: MPs were subject to a lot of abuse, he said; and there wasn't great support for day to day duties. He'd just come from a ceremonial tree-planting ceremony at a Swindon hospital. But there was no hole for it, and the ground was frozen hard. They'd had to implore the press photographers not to show that Nigel was holding the tree just to keep it from falling over, as it couldn't be planted in the ground. Funny story, in its way, though he was to suffer a much worse insult in 2000, when he was attacked by a sword-wielding, mentally ill guy.

Farewell, Nigel.