Many people like to think of themselves as radical.  Few actually are.  David Boyle - Radix’s Policy Director from 2016 when the think tank was founded, until June 2024 – who died last week, was the exception.   

At the same time, David was incredibly humble and would be the last person to think of himself as in any way remarkable.  I had the sense that he was often genuinely - if pleasantly – surprised by the interest that others took in his unique and innovative way of thinking.

Nobody wrote better and more engagingly than David, often about quite complicated subjects from coproduction to town-planning.  He spotted trends, that the rest of us missed: he was writing in the 1990s about alternative currencies long before crypto became ‘a thing’, and about political authenticity in 2003.   

Like many of us he was frequently irritated by the ‘computer says no’ attitude of customer services which turned him into a campaigner against the targets culture and the failures of Southern Rail, but unlike others his response was not just to complain but to identify policy solutions and promote them to government.  

Although I first met David when he and I were working at the Liberal Democrats in the 1990s and then serving on the party’s policy committee together, it wasn't until I joined him at Radix that I really got to know him.  David had previously co-founded the think tank with Joe Zammit-Lucia and Nicks Silver and Tyrone in 2016 to ensure the continuance of radical liberal thinking after the near death of the Lib Dems at the previous general election.  

Although a liberal (small and frequently capital L) to the core he was never tribal and enjoyed sharing ideas across the political spectrum.  Like Radix (latterly Radix Big Tent), the co-operative New Weather Institute, which he also helped to found, and the New Economic Foundation, for whom he frequently wrote, worked cross-party and David really didn’t care who made use of his ideas as long as someone did.  It was rare to meet anyone in the think tank world with whom he had not at one time or another collaborated, and much of Radix’s early reputation was bound up with his.  

Amongst his papers for Radix were Tickbox (2020) and the brilliantly titled Whatever Happened to Doing? (2019), co-authored with the now Lib Dem MP, Steffan Aquarone, which sought to explain the culture of risk aversion in public service.  Both papers were in part a response to his experience in 2013 of conducting an independent review for the Treasury and the Cabinet Office on public demand for choice in public services.   While widely praised little happened, which frustrated (but did not surprise) David.

He continued to write copiously, not just policy papers and news articles, but histories and historical thrillers, short stories and poems, and his ability to turn his hand to almost anything was deeply irritating to those of us who work more slowly and more narrowly, to so much less effect.

Imagine, therefore, his frustration as in recent years his Parkinsons-like illness made it increasingly hard for him to type, while its impact on his vocal cords limited the value of voice recognition technology and his ability to communicate the endless thoughts buzzing round that massive brain.  

The ideas were certainly all still buzzing and the obstacle was getting them down.  He was generous enough to introduce us to his long-term friend and colleague, Lesley Yarranton, with whom he worked to put pen to paper in later years, before retiring from Radix Big Tent almost exactly a year ago, although he continued to find numerous ways to work right up to his death.   

Amongst his many generous traits was that he always thought the very best of those around him, and I was deeply flattered that he assumed I was as widely read as him and could keep up with him, even when he had in fact left me far behind.  

He has left me behind again, and Radix Big Tent and I will be much the worse for that, but so much the better that he was here in the first place.

Ben Rich

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