Sir Menzies Campbell’s death means the loss of one of the most inconspicuously interesting people I’ve known in politics, not to mention one of the nicest. Ming, who led the Lib Dems from 2006 to 2007, had naturally faded from the limelight in recent years, but there was a time when he was everywhere. He was a regular on Question Time and anywhere else that big subjects – especially foreign affairs – were discussed.

The headlines on his death, at the age of 84, will naturally refer to him as ‘former Lib Dem leader’ but really that role was only a small part of his story, and one of the least interesting. Not that it was always easy to get to that wider story. I had a small role in helping him write his autobiography, published in 2008 under the rather telling title: Ming Campbell: my aut

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