Ian Aitken, who has died aged 90, was one of the outstanding Left-wing journalists who found a happy berth on the Daily Express under Lord Beaverbrook (to whom he was not related). He went on to be an esteemed political editor of the Guardian.
Close to Michael Foot both in ideology and habitat – he lived most of his life in Highgate – Aitken started and finished his career on Tribune. Knowing Labour’s high command as he did, Aitken’s judgments on them were always worth reading. In 1973, for example, he opined: “There is no point in beating about the bush. Denis Healey is a thug. A jolly thug, an entertaining and witty thug, even a generous and friendly thug. But a thug for all that, at least...