My old friend and colleague Phil Shaddock passed away in September. It was Phil who first got me involved in politics; and dear lord we had some laughs. I said, ‘oh for f*ck’s sake, Phil’ so often he joked it was his new name. The man was politically incorrect to his fingertips; and yet people were incredibly fond of him. He suffered from shocking class snobbery at the City Council in Portsmouth, where we were both Fratton ward councillors, but it was water off a duck’s back to him. He was a working class boy who made it to become the Leader of Council.
Read morePhil Shaddock RIP - the Man Who Ate the Raffle Prize
This is the last photograph I ever took of Phil. We were in my house in Fratton, in front of a book case in my kitchen. We’d been talking about the old days, and Lee Hunt, and all sorts of things. I’d left the Lib Dem Group long before and couldn’t stand his mate Hancock, but Phil didn’t give a f*uck. We were mates. And he let me take this photograph.