We recorded this week's edition of The For The Many podcast before we heard the very sad news this morning that Tessa Jowell had died.

So I thought Jackie it would be quite appropriate if we just paid our own little tribute to her separate from our main podcast.

I suppose the news wasn't wholly unexpected, but when you hear it,

it kind of is, isn't it? Of course, we've known that Tessa has been seriously ill. You know,

she has, in true Tessa style, done nothing to hide it. And in fact, of course, has appeared in

Parliament, has appeared on the media with her sort of last campaign to improve

cancer treatment for other people suffering from cancer and particularly from the brain

cancer that she suffered from. But nevertheless, she's such a, even in her illness and in that

campaign, she was so vital and full of sort of joy and purpose that it does,

it sort of struck me very much this morning when I sort of woke up and read that news about

her death, but the world felt a little bit duller and sadder because she was gone.

I think she's one of the few people in the political world that hasn't really

got any enemies. I think everybody liked her, whether they were Conservative Labor, Lib Dem.

Even I've seen UKIP people tweeting today about how popular she was. And there aren't many

politicians that could say that. That's absolutely true. Having been with her in Parliament,

I know that

quite a lot of the success of the policy initiatives that she achieved was because she was able

to win support across parties. Of course, you know, she was Labour through and through and an enormously

sort of stalwart pillar of the new Labour government from 1997 onwards.

But if you think, you know, about the Olympics, which a lot of people will see as one of her

greatest achievements, it was because she was able to work so well with Sebco, with others

across the political divide. You know, remember, the coalition government continued to give her a role in the Olympics

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