My friend and party colleague Richard Stokes, who has died aged 100, was a brilliant politician who achieved an executive position only at the age of 81 when he became leader of Slough borough council as the Liberal head of a four-party coalition.
Brought up as a socialist in Southport, where he was a neighbour of my family on the same housing estate, Richard was originally a Labour party member, and in 1952 stood as a token candidate in the Birkdale West ward, the safest Conservative seat. He duly completed the statutory expenses return, listing “Two pence - the cost of a stamp to send in the return”.
Also in 1952, Richard was shortlisted for the local candidature but withdrew after believing that party HQ would not approve him. He was vindicated when in the same year he failed to get on the shortlist for the Blackpool South constituency, with Labour HQ stating “his views on defence policy were incompatible with national policy”.
Richard was not the typical statist socialist but was more libertarian, describing himself as an “anti-nuclear, pacifist republican”. It was not until 1964 that he finally contested a parliamentary election, unsuccessfully fighting Spelthorne.
In 1978 Richard moved to Slough. He joined the local Labour party and in 1983 was elected to the borough council. However after four years he left Labour, stating that it “bore no resemblance to the party he knew from the north of England”. He was then courted by Slough Liberals, and elected eight times with that party. I met him again during this time after a gap of many years.
In 2004 Labour lost its majority on the council and Richard put together a four-party coalition of Liberals, Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Independents that ran the council successfully for four years.
Born in Southport, to Richard Stokes, a commercial traveller, and Leonora (nee Sancto), Richard attended the local grammar, King George V school, and although he got credits in all seven matriculation subjects, family economics prevented him from continuing his education. He never forgave the system for its lack of support for working-class children.
In 1940 Richard became a radio navigator for the RAF. After the second world war he went to Manchester University where he obtained a BA in social administration. In 1950 he joined the Royal Cotton Commission, as a welfare and personnel officer. This was the beginning of a series of similar appointments with Littlewoods, Glaxo and finally, in 1974, as group personnel director for the Burton Group, before becoming self-employed as a human resources consultant in 1978.
He kept up his consultancy work into his 80s, and retired from Slough council in 2012. Aside from his political activities he was a fine poet and also a wine connoisseur.
Richard married twice, both marriages ending in divorce. Two daughters, Lorraine and Lesley, from his first marriage, to Sally McNeil, predeceased him. He is survived by his partner of 26 years, Elizabeth Streeter, a schoolteacher, a daughter, Carrie, from a previous relationship, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
