'When he spoke, people listened': tribute to Colin Pickthall
Colin Pickthall: 13 September 1944 – 27 December 2025 | Image by: Allstar Picture Library Ltd / Alamy
4 min read
Loyal, dependable and comfortable in his own skin, Colin Pickthall was a quiet man – but a wise one
Colin Pickthall, who died on 27 December 2025, was Labour MP for West Lancashire from 1992 until 2005. When Labour took power in 1997, he served as my parliamentary private secretary (PPS) for the best part of eight years, during my time as home secretary and then foreign secretary. It’s impossible for me to think of anyone better to have done this job.
I say ‘job’. The post certainly involved a lot of work, but there was no additional salary. Despite this PPSs were part of the ‘payroll vote’ and were expected to vote with the government however controversial the issue.
Colin was one of those people who knew exactly who they were – and was comfortable in his own skin. If he harboured any ambition to get onto the ministerial ladder, he never expressed it to me. Colin was a quiet man but a wise one – he wasn’t someone who needed constantly to hear his own voice. When he did speak, people listened.
The textbooks say that a PPS acts as the ‘eyes and ears’ of his or her minister. That’s accurate but doesn’t convey the full flavour of what a good PPS could do. Colin spent a lot of his time talking to colleagues, ‘feeling the wind’. If he thought I was in the process of leading the government over a cliff of my own making, he’d tell me in robust terms. He attended my regular Monday lunchtime meetings in my department, and made a big difference to our discussions.
If he thought I was in the process of leading the government over a cliff of my own making, he’d tell me in robust terms
A tedious but essential role of the PPS at that time was to find a compliant backbencher to put down a ‘planted Parliamentary Question’, the only vehicle then available for a minister to make a written announcement to the Commons. It required complete reliability, and great diplomatic skills, especially if the subject matter was controversial. But Colin never let me down.
I taxed his loyalty on quite a few issues, not least hunting. I was never in favour of hunting, but I was bored by the issue, and irritated that it was taking up so much oxygen in the Commons. (The Home Office had responsibility for this.) We agreed to differ. As was typical of Colin, there was no rancour whatever from him.
In 2000, out of the blue, Colin suddenly found himself the subject of a police investigation into his election expenses, along with three local party members. Colin decided he should resign as my PPS, which I reluctantly accepted. Happily, and as I expected, the police found nothing untoward. Their investigation was closed, and I was able to reinstate him promptly.
Colin came from Ulverston, on the Furness peninsula. Now in Cumbria, it was originally part of the historic county of Lancashire. Born in September 1944, he went to Ulverston Grammar School, and then to Lancaster University, from where he obtained a Masters on ‘The Influence of Socialism on 20th Century Poetry’. He taught English at a large comprehensive in Kirkby, Merseyside, and then lectured at Edge Hill FE College.
He had stood for the marginal Conservative seat of West Lancashire in 1987, but lost by a small margin. However, a couple of years later, he won a seat on Lancashire County Council, just sufficient for Labour to take control by one vote. He won the parliamentary seat in 1992.
It was characteristic of Colin that by 2005, when he was approaching 61, he decided to stand down. He told me of his intention to move back to his beloved home area of Ulverston to see much more of his family. He had married his wife Judy, a Canadian, in 1973. They had two daughters, Alisoun and Jenny.
Jack Straw is former Labour MP for Blackburn
