Patrick Hannan RIP

A few months ago, I received a copy of Patrick Hannan's latest book, A Useful Fiction: Adventures in British Democracy. I wasn't entirely sure what to make of it, but was quite sure that a second edition wouldn't be far behind.

Unfortunately, BBC Wales reports that the work will be his last: he has died at the age of 68, after a short illness. At a time when Welsh politics is in a state of flux, with a new First Minister in the way, with a One Wales Coalition, and uncertainty over what precisely the future holds for the constitutional status of Wales, this is one bad, bad time to lose one of the country's most authoritative voices. But that is what Welsh journalists and Welsh audiences must now face up to - when politics is at its most chaotic, they're missing someone who could help them make sense of it all. Try and imagine a Scotland without Brian Taylor, and I think that's the broad equivalent of where Welsh political reporting is today.

Condolences to his family, friends and colleagues.