My colleague and friend Geoff Bish, who has died aged 77, played a pivotal role in the Labour party’s turbulent times in the 1970s and 80s. As its research head he drafted key documents such as Labour’s Programme, 1982, and strove to get acceptance for the idea of a more coherent and interventionist Labour government.
In particular, he argued for active industrial policies to reverse de-industrialisation and bring about full employment. Geoff’s unique achievement was to establish a constant input into policymaking from the party outside parliament when Labour was in government in the 70s – a process not truly matched before or since.
As secretary to the NEC’s powerful home policy committee chaired by Tony Benn, which was midwife to the Alternative Economic Strategy, while also being joint secretary to the TUC/Labour party liaison committee that agreed the “social contract”, he must have often found himself between a rock and a hard place.
Born in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, to Edith (nee Ruckley), a shop assistant, and Ernest, an electrician, Geoff went to primary school in Hersham before attending Walton County secondary modern in 1950. In 1952 he won a place at Woking grammar school, leaving after his O-levels to train as an engineering draughtsman with British Rail.
In 1962 Geoff went travelling around the world and on his return decided not to go back to BR but to pursue his education. He obtained trade union funding to do A-levels at Newbattle Abbey College near Edinburgh, then read philosophy, politics and economics at Bristol University (1965-68).
After a spell in the research department of the engineering union AUEFW, he joined the Labour party’s research department in 1968. He became its head in 1974, then director of policy in 1985. I met him in 1976 when he interviewed me for a job as education policy researcher, in which I stayed until 1989.
Geoff continued to lead Labour’s policy work until his departure in 1992. His survival in this role for so long in such a volatile period is testimony to his deep political commitment, and the respect held for him on all sides of the Labour movement. He had a great sense of humour, laughing vigorously at others’ political gaffes but also at himself. During the disastrous 1983 general election campaign he could be found in his office singing Wild Thing by the Troggs.
He had no time for convention for its own sake, but believed in decency and consideration. He was respectful but never deferential, uncompromising but never intolerant, serious but never self-righteous.
Geoff’s first marriage to Jan Watson ended in divorce. He married his partner, Jane (nee Duffield), a solicitor and teacher, in 2003. She survives him, as does their son, Angus, and his children from his first marriage, Saranne, Tanya and Dominic.
