Rod Richards: Outspoken former Tory leader in Wales who did not pull his punches

Over the course of a colourful and chaotic decade in politics, Rod Richards – the former Conservative leader in Wales who has died of cancer aged 72 – became known for belligerent outbursts and an all-round truculence that earned him the nickname “Rod the Rottweiler”, before his complicated private life curtailed his involvement in British politics in 2002.

Born in Llanelli in 1947, Richards was raised in Carmarthenshire by his parents Lizzie, a nurse, and Ivor, a dockyard engineer. Following an abortive first attempt at a degree and a similarly brief spell training as a royal marine, Richards graduated from university at the second time of asking, taking first-class honours in economics from the University of Wales in Swansea.

After spells as an economic forecaster and then an intelligence officer at the Ministry of Defence, Richards was recruited to work as a newsreader on the newly launched Welsh-language television channel S4C. At the same time, Richards was taking a growing interest in Conservative politics, contesting the Commons seats of Carmarthen and Vale of Glamorgan in 1987 and 1989 respectively, but losing out to his Labour rival on both occasions.

Having called time on his journalistic career to act as an adviser to the Welsh secretary, David Hunt, Richards stood for election once again at the general election of 1992. The deselection of Sir Anthony Meyer – the outgoing MP for the safe Tory seat of Clwyd North West – provided the opportunity, and Richards was duly elected with the largest Conservative majority in Wales.

The zenith of Richards’ time in Westminster came in 1994, with his appointment as under-secretary of state for Wales. Never the diplomat, Richards announced his arrival by referring to Welsh Labour councillors as “short, fat, slimy, and fundamentally corrupt” – remarks for which the Welsh secretary John Redwood felt compelled to apologise.

In 1996, tabloid revelations about an extramarital affair with a much younger woman forced this self-styled family man to resign his ministerial post. A year later he lost his parliamentary seat in Labour’s landslide general election victory, an early end to a position that he would later view with nostalgia as “my niche in life”.

While Richards had been a virulent critic of Tony Blair’s proposals for a national assembly for Wales, its creation provided him with an opportunity for a rapid return to national politics, which he accepted willingly. Standing for election in Clwyd West in May 1999, Richards lost out once again to Labour, but was admitted nevertheless as a “top-up” member under the assembly’s proportional electoral system.

The next six months would prove to be some of the most eventful of Richards’ political career. First, he was chosen to lead the Welsh Conservatives, beating fellow assembly member Nick Bourne. However, when a 23-year-old woman who Richards had attempted to seduce accused him of breaking her arm by throwing her against a parked car, his authority was in pieces. By the time he was acquitted at Kingston Crown Court, Richards had stepped down from his leadership role. His replacement as leader was Bourne – a man who Richards promptly denounced as “a complete prat”, and whose later defeat in the 2011 assembly elections Richards would celebrate in the same breath as the death of Osama Bin Laden five days previously. Perhaps the antipathy was mutual, as in August 1999, a reshuffle under Bourne left Richards as the only Welsh Conservative without a portfolio.

By the end of the year, Richards had had the Conservative whip suspended for abstaining on a budget that the Welsh Conservatives had been whipped to oppose. He chose to sit as an “independent Conservative” until, in 2002, he stood down from the assembly in anticipation of a declaration of bankruptcy, which duly followed in 2003.

Restrictions attached to the bankruptcy – brought on by debts associated with alcoholism – prevented Richards from standing for election for a number of years and effectively ended his career in representative politics. During the same period, his marriage of more than 25 years to Elizabeth, a clinical psychologist – which he had described as an “open marriage” in the wake of earlier tabloid scandals – ended in divorce.

In the years that followed, Richards’ low profile was only occasionally interrupted. In 2008, he accepted a caution over an allegation of assault on a Conservative canvasser. In 2013, he made a partial return to British politics by joining Ukip, but early suggestions that he might seek election as a member of the European parliament for Wales ultimately came to nothing.

While Richards’ irascible public persona made him no small number of political enemies, both in rivals parties and within his own, his close family have spoken of his “quick wit, kindness and love”, and the passion with which he served what he took to be the best interests of his beloved Wales.

He is survived by two sons, a daughter and eight grandchildren.

Rod Richards, politician, born 12 March 1947, died 13 July 2019