Alan Watkins

Robert Harris, in his Observer piece, sums up Alan Watkins' passing: "It is a bitter paradox – but not, strictly speaking, an irony, as he would have been the first to point out – that Alan Watkins should have died this weekend, of all weekends. For 47 years, right up until last month, he produced a column on British politics unsurpassed in its wit, its knowledge of parliamentary history and the quality of its prose."