I always had a lot of time for Radice, a Labour MP from the social democratic wing who didn't leave for the SDP, instead staying to fight his corner and to attempt the recapture of the party from the left. It all seems a terribly long time ago now, but Radice was then in his mid-forties and approaching his political prime - his departure would have been a serious blow to Labour.
As it was, he ploughed a very lonely furrow through much of the 1980s, resisting an attempted Militant takeover of his constituency party and holding fast to a set of beliefs that were deeply unfashionable.
Elected as an MP in 1973, he was still in the Commons twenty-one years later when Tony Blair became leader and began to implement many of the changes he had long argued for. His relentless espousal of European integration and his argument, in the Southern Discomfort pamphlets, that Labour had to start addressing affluent and aspirational voters in the south, as well as its core supporters in the north, were hugely - if quietly - influential.
In the Diaries he quotes Tony Blair telling him that he was 'a Blairite before Blair', which is probably about right, so long as one can separate Blairite revisionism from Blair the prime minister.
Radice never served in government, but he did play a significant role in developing the role of parliamentary committees. He also wrote the excellent Friends and Rivals (Little Brown, 2002), a triple biography of Tony Crosland, Roy Jenkins and Denis Healey, which is one of the great studies of the social democratic tendency within post-war Labour.
He describes himself as being 'uncharismatic', which is probably true. He is, however, something of an unsung hero. And he had a fabulous head of hair.
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