Section:GDN 1J PaGe:9 Edition Date:190803 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 2/8/2019 16:43 cYanmaGentaYellowblac
Saturday 3 August 2019 The Guardian •
9
Today’s birthdays: Ossie Ardiles,
football manager, 67; Prof Michael
Arthur, provost and president
of University College London,
65 ; Martin Atkins, drummer, 60;
Tony Bennett, singer, 93; Steven
Berkoff , actor and director, 82;
Sean Day-Lewis, writer , 88 ;
Thangam Debbonaire, Labour MP,
53; Stephen Graham, actor, 46 ;
Prof Christine Hawley, architect,
70 ; James Hetfi eld, musician, 56 ;
Lindsey Hilsum, journalist, 61 ;
Simon Keenlyside, baritone, 60 ;
Beverly Lee, soul singer, 78 ; Prof
Ursula Martin, computer scientist,
66; Mark Ormerod, chief executive,
supreme court, 62; Martin Sheen,
actor, 79; Skin, singer, 52 ; Martha
Stewart, broadcaster , 78; Jack
Straw, former Labour MP and
cabinet minister, 73.Tomorrow’s birthdays: Adam
Afriyie, Conservative MP, 54 ;
Moya Brennan, folk singer and
harpist, 67 ; Ian Broudie, musician
and producer, 61 ; Lord (Jack)
Cunningham of Felling, Labour
peer and former minister, 80 ;
Declan Donnellan, theatre director,
66; Prof Peter Goodfellow,
geneticist, 68; Georgina Hale, actor,
76; Martin Jarvis, actor, 78; Lee
Mack, comedian, 51; Steve McCabe,
Labour MP, 64; Jojo Moyes, author,
50; Barack Obama, former US
president, 58 ; Simon Preston,
organist, 81; Klaus Schulze,
composer, 72; Kate Silverton,
broadcaster and journalist, 49;
Mary (Decker) Slaney, athlete, 61;
Prof Frances Stewart, actor and
director, 64.Lord Tordoff
Liberal chairman who
guided the party through
the Jeremy Thorpe aff air
A
s chairman
of the Liberal
party’s national
executive from
1976, Geoff rey
Tordoff , who has
died aged 90, did
much to contain
the turmoil surrounding the party’s
leader, Jeremy Thorpe. It sprang
from allegations made by Thorpe’s
former lover Norman Scott during
the trial in which Andrew Newton,
hired to kill Scott, was convicted
of a fi rearms off ence. Along with
other senior Liberals, Geoff ensured
Thorpe’s resignation as leader and
persuaded the party at large to
accept the inevitable and move on.
He served in the role until 1979,
the year that Thorpe lost his seat
in the general election and was
acquitted of conspiracy to murder.
Geoff never entered the
Commons , despite contesting two
Cheshire constituencies in three
general elections: Northw ich in 1964
and Knutsford in 1966 and 1970. But
he was active behind the scenes and
became a confi dant of David Steel
after he took over from Jo Grimond ,
acting leader from May to July 1976.
T he Liberals were off ered only
occasional peerages to bestow.
Geoff was next on the list when,
in 1981, Steel decided instead to
promote Christopher Mayhew ,
a former Labour MP and well-
known broadcaster. Geoff was
off ered a knighthood by way of
compensation, which he declined.
Another slot became available
that year and he joined the Lords.
There he achieved his full potential,
serving as deputy and then chief
whip of the Liberal peers (1983-
88) and chief whip of the Liberal
Democrats (1988-94). He was then
elected principal deputy chairman
of committees until 2001. After the
sudden death of the Conservative
peer Lord (John) Mackay of
Ardbrecknish Geoff served as
chairman for a further year.
Born in Manchester, Geoff was
the son of Annie (nee Johnson)
and Stanley Tordoff. Stanley
worked for the then avowedly
Liberal Manchester Guardian , and
in debates and mock elections
at Manchester grammar school,
where he was a pupil, Geoff always
represented the Liberals.
However, it was Pat Swarbrick,
an active Young Liberal, who
encouraged him to join the party;
they married in 1953. From then
on, there was no stopping him asa Liberal activist. The Suez crisis,
the appeal of Grimond and his own
europhilia contributed to his zeal.
At Manchester University he
studied chemistry, but too much
time spent on student union
business resulted in academic
failure. By the end of his national
service in 1949 he was a sergeant in
the Royal Army Ordnance Corps.
He next secured a sales job with
Manchester Chemicals, which was
taken over by Shell Chemicals. With
Shell he began to progress up the
management chain. However, his
career stalled, because of his Liberal
party commitments but also because
a director had an abiding hatred of
the Liberals. He kept his job because
his line manager refused to sack
him, and continued until after taking
his seat in the Lords.
In 2013 Pat died and soon
afterwards Geoff moved from
Enfi eld, north London, to Ilkley,
West Yorkshire. He retired from the
Lords in 2016.
He is survived by three daughters,
two sons, eight grandchildren and a
great-grandchild.
Trevor SmithMichael Meadowcroft writes: Geoff
Tordoff was one of the handful of
senior Liberals who behind the
scenes in 1967 tried to prevent
Jeremy Thorpe becoming party
leader. Then, in 1978, during Geoff ’s
time as party chairman , Thorpe
insisted on attending the party’s
conference in Southport, despite
being charged with conspiracy
to murder , and contrary to the
undertaking he had given Steel.
A Liberal candidate tabled a
motion of no confi dence in the
party offi cers for their treatment
of Thorpe. Geoff , Grufydd Evans,
that year’s party president, and I,
as conference committee chair,
decided to take the motion head-on
and to inform delegates of the facts
of political life under Thorpe. We all
agreed to resign on the spot if the
motion was carried.
Delegates were amazed at what
was revealed – the treatment of party
staff ; the existence of private funds;
Thorpe’s preference for attending
elitist functions rather than giving
attention to party campaigns, etc- and the motion was withdrawn
without a vote.
Geoff rey Johnson Tordoff , Lord
Tordoff , political organiser and
working peer, born 11 October 1928;
died 22 June 2019Tordoff never
entered the
Commons
despite
contesting three
elections, but
in the Lords he
achieved his full
potential
PAAnnouncements
In debates
and mock
elections
at school,
he always
stood
for the
LiberalsBirthdays
[email protected]
@guardianobitsSaxony. (His parents divorced
when Karsten was two, his mother
remarrying, to Max Stecher, a
businessman.) After this he studied
theology at the Humboldt University
of Berlin, before taking a job with an
art dealer in Cologne.
With his mother, a teacher and
social worker, the young Karsten had
haunted museums. When he wrote
his own history of museology, The
Curator’s Egg (2000), it was with the
assurance of one who could quote
Marcus Aurelius from memory.
This same sense of history had
allowed Schubert to spot what was
happening in British art before
most British gallerists did. “The
classic pattern had been that you
were watched by dealers for a while
and got an occasional studio visit
and pat on the back,” he said of the
YBAs. “These artists were not willing
to play the game that way. They
wanted to change the rules and take
the initiative.”
It was an outsider’s eye, too,
that enabled him to see British art
in an international, rather than a
local, context. In between giving
exhibitions to artists such as Landy
and Hume, Schubert would show
Americans such as Ed Ruscha and
Germans such as Gerhard Richter.
This lent the YBAs an international
exposure – and status – that a
previous generation of British artists
had lacked.
It is the fate of pioneers often to
be sidelined by history. Although
Schubert did more than any London
gallerist to bring the YBAs to fame,
it was the next generation of dealers
who made money out of them and
were credited with their discovery.
From the mid-1990s on, Schubert
concentrated on artists the rigour of
whose art he particularly liked, most
famously Bridget Riley. Having her
work shown alongside that of artists
30 years her junior re-energised
Riley’s late career. Schubert’s last
gallery , in Lexington Street, Soho,
favoured artists with a strong formal
sense, notably Tess Jaray.
Schubert’s taste was perhaps best
shown by his own collection. In his
fl at in north London were drawings
by Cézanne and Mondrian, hung
side by side with works by Jaray
and Picasso and a Roman bust.
Its bookshelves were lined with
Proust, for whom he had an almost
obsessional fondness. When he
found a book he admired, Schubert
would buy 20 copies of it and send
them to people he liked.
This generosity was repaid.
Diagnosed with cancer in 2015,
he recuperated at Claridge’s, his
hotel bills paid by two friends.
The experience was recorded by
Schubert in a novel, Room 225-6 ,
the proceeds of which help fund
a charity doing research into
robotic surgery.
He is survived by his two half-
sisters, Anja and Clarissa.
Charles Darwent
Karsten Andreas Schubert, art dealer
and gallerist, born 12 August 1961;
died 30 July 2019
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