When Stuart Weir, who has died aged 85, turned editor of the New Statesman in 1987, he made democracy a key theme of his tenure. The Conservative occasion underneath Margaret Thatcher had simply received its third basic election, having used the absence of checks in an unwritten structure to abolish metropolitan authorities, curtail commerce union rights and undermine civil liberties.
The weekly journal turned a platform for debate but additionally a car for launching Constitution 88, a marketing campaign motion initiated by Stuart. Between January and November 1988 he deliberate and organised a 1,500-person name to make Britain a constitutional democracy with “residents not topics”. It was supported by 350 distinguished figures and finally 10,000 extra signatories.
Stuart made Anthony Barnett director of Constitution 88. It grew to turn out to be essentially the most complete marketing campaign for constitutional reform in trendy British political historical past due to the help of the Labour politicians John Smith and Gordon Brown, after which Tony Blair’s New Labour authorities, which handed such core calls for because the human rights and freedom of data acts in addition to establishing a Scottish parliament and Welsh meeting.
The failure of ministers to comply with by on Constitution 88’s ambition to interrupt away from cupboard authorities, in Barnett’s view, led to dramatic coverage failures such because the Iraq invasion and Brexit.
Stuart went on to co-create the Democratic Audit organisation alongside the Human Rights Centre on the College of Essex. He was the primary director, and with David Beetham produced a groundbreaking examine Political Energy and Democratic Management in Britain (1999), which used a collection of rigorous standards and requirements for assessing the true high quality of democracy. Democratic Audit noticed itself as the primary organisation to essentially assess how a lot energy was being shared with odd individuals.
This work has since been utilized in greater than 20 nations. Stuart himself acted as a democratic and rights marketing consultant in Malawi, Namibia and elsewhere in addition to performing as a global observer on the basic election of Iraqi Kurdistan in 1992.
Stuart, who turned a visiting professor at Essex from 1999, edited and co-wrote a raft of books together with The Three Pillars of Liberty: Political Rights and Freedoms within the UK (2003), co-authored with Constitution 88 coverage marketing consultant Francesca Klug, and the now prime minister, then barrister, Keir Starmer.
This e book measured British compliance with worldwide human rights requirements and recognized 42 violations and 22 near-violations for concern. It boasted of being the primary evaluation of each the political and authorized techniques for securing political freedom within the UK as a complete.
Stuart had come to the broader problem of democracy by way of an curiosity within the malfunctioning state profit system. In 1971 he had been employed by Frank Area because the director of a brand new welfare rights workplace on the Youngster Poverty Motion Group (CPAG). There he performed a key function in establishing a welfare rights officers group that for the primary time gave a nationwide voice to native authority welfare rights work.
Following CPAG, he was founding editor of Shelter’s housing journal, Roof (1975-77), then was employed to be deputy editor on the weekly journal New Society. In 1984 he accepted a proposal to edit the Labour occasion’s inhouse New Socialist publication, a choice he regretted. By no means one to keep away from calculated threat, Stuart discovered himself buffeted between proper and left factions of the Labour occasion and was finally sacked after writing an article advocating tactical voting on the eve of the 1987 basic election.
The topics he tackled have been at all times critical however Stuart, who turned a great good friend of mine attributable to our shared background of journalism and campaigning, wore his information calmly and pursued his objectives with a mix of dedication, humour and mischievous iconoclasm.
Born in Frimley, Surrey, to Robert Weir, an engineer, and Edna (nee Lewis), Stuart was educated at Peter Symonds college in Winchester, Hampshire. He then studied trendy historical past at Brasenose Faculty, Oxford.
Beginning his journalism profession on the Oxford Mail (1964-67), Stuart turned the diarist for the Instances (1967-71), which, he mentioned, was “in all probability the simplest job I ever had, in addition to the perfect paid”. It additionally supplied him a few of his favorite anecdotes, culled from interviews with individuals comparable to John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix.
Stuart didn’t simply write or take into consideration the democratic course of, he engaged with it early on, profitable election as a councillor within the De Beauvoir ward of the London borough of Hackney (1972-76). There he took on an epic – and profitable – battle in help of the area people towards his personal council to cease a lot of the world being bulldozed for a contemporary property.
Later in life he settled in Cambridge, the place he based and chaired the Cambridge Commons, a grassroots organisation dedicated to breaking down the town-and- robe divide.
Stuart was married twice, first in 1963 to Doffy Burnham, with whom he had two sons, Dominic and Seth. That marriage led to divorce, and in 1987 he married Liz Bisset, with whom he had two daughters, Sophie and Georgia, and a son, Sean.
Liz and his kids survive him, as do eight grandchildren and a brother, Alan.
