obituaries DAVID HARTLEY/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK By the 1990s, he devoted his Phil Bassett


Phil Bassett, who has died of cancer at the age of 64, was a leading chronicler of the union scene during the turbulent 1980s when the labour movement faced a Thatcher government determined to curtail union power. Phil ‘Bertie’ Bassett first worked for the FT, starting as labour reporter and becoming editor during a period when labour and industrial journalists were as influential – some would argue more influential – than political correspondents. After 10 years at the FT, he had


brief periods with the Sunday Correspondent and the BBC before joining The Times where, during the 1990s, he covered not only labour but also the broader industrial scene. He was a ‘moderniser’, recognising during lengthy disputes in the civil service, water and rail industries culminating in the titanic miners’ strike and Wapping dispute that the unions were never going to be the same again. In 1986, he wrote Strike Free: New Industrial Relations in Britain. All this was while Blair and


Brown were building the New Labour project. It came as no surprise when, after the 1997 election victory, he went to work in Downing Street for Alastair Campbell as head of the No 10 research and information unit. He was trusted by Tony Blair – indeed, the then Labour leader was a hospital visitor when Phil first experienced health issues, overcoming leukaemia in the early 1990s.


He moved from Downing Street


to work for Charles Falconer, then secretary of state for constitutional affairs, and became Labour’s chief of staff in the Lords. He resigned in 2014. A serious and thoughtful


journalist, Phil was also a lot of fun. I spent many days and sometimes weeks with him, on the road and in the bars, covering disputes and union conferences. The excitement of the CPSA in Southport was once too much to bear, so we went on the boating lake with the inevitable result that I fell in as he ‘manoeuvred’ the boat. For a few years, we together led the Labour and Industrial Correspondent Group which, because of its influence, was briefed and entertained by senior political, union and industry leaders. He startled the ‘old guard’ in the group when we began the annual ceremony of the ‘Golden Bollock’ – an award to the reporter who had made the biggest published mistake – with the opening bars of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’.


In the early 1980s, during the


civil service strikes, Phil met Liz Symons, an official of the IRSF tax collectors’ union who went on to become general secretary of the First Division Association, the senior civil servants’ union. I think that I might have witnessed the first blossoming of what was to become a long-term partnership during a strike at the Shipley tax office. Liz became Baroness Symons and


served as a minister in several departments in the Labour government. The couple had a son, James, and married in 2001.


Dave Felton


attention to journalism. He reported from more than 50 countries, including stints in various parts of the former Yugoslavia as civil war raged. In 1999, he was sent to Sri Lanka as The Daily Telegraph’s correspondent, before being expelled from the county in 2001. Desirous of a quieter life, he sold his helmet, bullet-proof vest and satellite phone via one of The Freelance’s more memorable small ads. Following that, he lectured and


dealt in eastern art from the gallery he ran in Coldingham, Berwickshire. With his silk cravat, received


Paul Harris


Paul Harris, who has died after a short illness, was a successful journalist as well as authoring more than 40 books. He also ran his own publishing house. Born in 1948, he published books


while an undergraduate at Aberdeen University. He was a DJ for a pirate radio station in his early 20s and later worked for Capital Radio. For many years, publishing was his passion. He used commercially oriented books of old photographs and work on annuals for DC Thomson to finance the establishment of a publishing house. By the early 1980s, as Paul Harris Publishing, he was bringing important works to print such as Peter Savage’s Lorimer and the Edinburgh Craft Artists, which did much to solidify the Edwardian architect’s reputation in the wider world.


His next great project was the


renovation of Whittinghame House, the neo-classical mansion in East Lothian. It had been home to prime minister Arthur Balfour’s family but by the time of Harris’ involvement, decades as a school had left the vast house in a deteriorating position. Harris co-ordinated several owners through a complex renovation. He ended up with a beautiful apartment of his own, although by no means the largest in the house. Inevitably, he told the story in a book.


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pronunciation and country-house lifestyle, he was a singular addition to the regulars at Edinburgh Freelance Branch meetings. At least during the ‘90s, it was only foreign assignments that kept him away. The breadth of his experience meant that his contributions could be as illuminating as they were iconoclastic, even if, like many good journalists, he generally kept what he really thought to himself. He retained, nonetheless, the persistent charm that had made him a successful seller of books. Edinburgh Freelance Branch


secretary Mark Fisher paid tribute to him. “Beneath Paul’s dapper dress and impeccable manners was the wild spirit of journalistic adventure. He had an outward- looking engagement in global politics thanks to a formidable track record as a war correspondent. He was also blessed with a gung-ho sense of good humour. I can just imagine him smiling when he chose the word ‘conflict’ as an email address.” He leaves his second wife Sulee and daughter Lucy.


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