Since our last issue, one of Progress’ patrons, Professor Ben Pimlott, has sadly passed away. By way of tribute, we publish on p.21 a piece by his former colleague, Bernard Crick. As Crick argues, Pimlott was not simply a much-admired academic and historian of the Labour party, but was also very much an activist – as both a three-times parliamentary candidate and a leading light in the Fabian Society. Pimlott also helped to argue the party back from the insanity of the late 1970s and early 1980s. But perhaps the way we should remember him most was as an individual possessed of an independent mind: loyal to, but not uncritical of, the Labour party and its governments.
