ABSTRACT
I am grateful for the chance to pay public tribute to Patrick. He has not yet become a monument. It is too soon for that. He is still a missing person. And we miss him still. We miss his reactions to new scholarship. What would he have had to say about 2005’s extraordinary slew of books on the end of the Roman world and the start of the Middle Ages? We miss his reactions to current events. What would he have had to say about recent scandals that have rocked the world of cricket? We can perhaps guess this one, as we can perhaps guess what he would have had to say on the so-called war on terror and the political issues of today. He certainly would have had firm opinions on it all. Some of us will be able to remember political arguments with him on a whole range of topics. I will not be alone in recalling his claim that the Social Democratic Party was the future of British politics. And, in a weird way, he has turned out to be right on that. If the grandeur of a new vision of politics in Britain was translated in the event into the improving of pavements in the west end of Glasgow, that simply reminds us that all history is ultimately local history. Patrick was a citizen. This could mean writing long angry letters about the Hutton Report or fearlessly discussing Ireland, Israel and abortions in Glasgow bars, still, I am afraid, a dangerous pastime.
