DAVID BELLOTTI, who has died aged 71, was the first MP to be elected under the banner of the newly formed Liberal Democrats; he won Eastbourne in a shock defeat for the Conservatives at a by-election caused by the IRA’s assassination of Ian Gow in July 1990.
That Gow’s murder failed to bring out a sympathy vote for the Tories served to underline how unpopular the party had become after the poll tax debacle. On October 18 1990 Bellotti secured a majority of 4,550, a swing of more than 20 per cent; within a matter of weeks Margaret Thatcher had resigned as prime minister.
For Paddy Ashdown, who had become party leader after the merger of the Liberals and the Social Democrats in 1988, Bellotti’s success was the first evidence that the new party was registering with the electorate. “The Liberal Democrats are now established as a decisive force for defeating the Conservatives,” he declared.
Yet Bellotti’s time in Westminster was short-lived, and perhaps notable only for him raising the issue of the paucity of mental health care in the country. In April 1992 he was defeated by the Conservatives’ Nigel Waterson. He returned to local government and embarked on a torrid time as chief executive of Brighton & Hove Albion FC.
There the kindly view might be that he was out of his depth. Many of the club’s fans took a less charitable view, particularly when, with the Seagulls mired in debt and heading south in the league, he changed their articles of association and sold their Goldstone ground without an alternative venue lined up.
Passions ran so high that at some matches Bellotti had to be escorted to the directors’ box with a police guard, where he would be subjected to torrents of verbal abuse; a game against York in April 1996 had to be abandoned when protesters invaded the pitch demanding his resignation; and there was even a march against him through the centre of Brighton.
David Frank Bellotti was born on August 13 1943 and educated at Exeter School. He took diplomas in youth service and counselling, completing a part-time MA in education policy at the University of Sussex.
He worked for the Civil Service and then the YMCA, winding up in Hove, where he joined the Liberals. He first stood at Eastbourne in the 1979 general election, losing by 26,000 votes, and joined East Sussex County Council. He turned his attention – unsuccessfully – to the Hove constituency in 1983 and 1987, but after Gow’s death the Liberal Democrats were impressed by his long association with the area and he was selected for the by-election.
Bellotti always argued that by selling Brighton’s ground there had been no intention to benefit himself and his fellow directors; he was instead buying time with the club’s creditors. Eventually the club was bought by Dick Knight, a local businessman. After two seasons sharing a ground with Gillingham, 75 miles away, the Seagulls moved to Withdean and, in 2011, to Falmer.
Bellotti reinvented himself as a Lib Dem constituency organiser, resurfacing in Bath at the end of the 1990s, where he ran several successful election campaigns. Late at night he would be cloistered in the constituency office photocopying election material; by day he would calmly field anxious calls from council candidates in need of reassurance. Even when the local party made him redundant he kept his cool. He was councillor for Bath and North East Somerset (and chairman 2008-9), while being a presence at Lib Dem national conferences.
Thin, bespectacled, balding and meek in appearance, David Bellotti was kind and generous with his time. Faced with more serious challenges he could filibuster with the best of them, wearing down opponents with his attention to minutiae. His absence from last month’s election in Bath, where the Lib Dems lost both the parliamentary seat and control of the council, made the local campaign a duller, less gossipy occasion.
Bellotti was thrice married. In 1965 he married Sheila Jones, with whom he had a son and a daughter. The marriage was dissolved. He married Jennifer Compson in 1973, with whom he had a son; that marriage was also dissolved. In 1996 he married Jo Brown, who survives him with their son and daughter. David Bellotti, born August 13 1943, died June 10 2015