Roy Hattersley’s fascination with English Catholicism
From our UK edition
When Margaret Thatcher died a joke did the rounds after her funeral that most of her cabinet, by then in their dotage, had turned up to St Paul’s Cathedral looking at last like their Spitting Image puppets. Roy Hattersley, who died on Saturday, aged far better. In later life the chubby-cheeked, clean-shaven splutterer took on something of a stylish, elderly bearded-hipster look as the Labour grandee embraced his calling as an author. He was fascinated by the motivations of the adherents of the theological system which his father had abandoned The combination of politics and writing is a well-trodden path, although not all who tread it find fame and fortune.
