The Observer carried an obituary yesterday about one of Britain’s foremost drugs campaigners, Mike Goodman. Lester Holloway remembers him during his days as a local politician
It was with great sadness that I learnt of the death of Mike Goodman, an irrepressible campaigner for drugs law reform and a former council leader and barrister.
I knew him from Hammersmith and Fulham where he was an inspiring figure to me, someone whose talent shone brightly inside and outside the town hall.
An utterly brilliant orator who could be furious, forensic and side-splittingly hilarious all at the same time, he almost seemed too good for local politics, and indeed he was.
By the age of 39, in 1994, he was already heading to pastures new with the charity Release, campaigning for better drugs education and a change in the law. It was in this role he would become a nationally-renowned expert in drug law reform.
But, as a young Labour activist in Shepherds Bush, I will always remember Goodman as a role model. Someone who was very approachable and had a natural way with the public. He was enormously popular and respected by voters in his ward and council officers alike. In many ways he was the ideal councillor.
Born of Jewish parents, the fact that he was visibly of an ethnic minority and succeeding by virtue of his talent made a big impression on me, a young activist of colour.
Another factor that really defined Goodman was his independence of mind. He was a socialist, but you could not put him in a box. He was his own man to his fingertips. This was his undoing as a local politician when he was ousted as council leader, but it looked to me like a blessing in disguise, as he was able to devote himself to being a drugs campaigner.
Goodman made his mark wherever he went, and I remember with fondness the impression he left in Hammersmith and Fulham, and on me personally.
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