I first met Malcolm Wicks when we were both waiting to be interviewed to run the new Institute for Public Policy Research. Neither of us got the job, but we became instant friends. As children of the 1950s we even discovered that we shared the same unhappy fate of being supporters of Wolverhampton Wanderers.
We pitched up together at the House of Commons in 1992 as new Labour MPs, forming a group that set about rethinking the party's ideas. Malcolm combined social policy expertise with an emphasis on its practical application. For the next 20 years, every discussion of policy and ideas in which Malcolm participated involved him saying at some point: "That's all very well, but let me tell you what they are saying in Croydon."
Malcolm was liked and respected by all who knew him, in every party. He personified decency. He also managed to combine a serious devotion to public service and human betterment with an impish wit and sense of fun.
He was rightly proud of what he achieved as a minister and impatient with those who disparaged what politics could do. I encouraged him to write this up, which he did in an article, What Ministers Do, which appears in the current issue of the Political Quarterly. It concludes with these words: "I am obviously too close to the action to be entirely objective, but my ministerial experience runs counter to the fashionable and cynical view of government. My experience is that central government can be a major force for good, that things can change for the better, and that lives can be improved and enhanced. Unfashionable perhaps, but it is my testimony."