Ann Maria Neal
It is with great sadness that we advise our readers that Anni passed away on September 16th. She was a key member of the CLEMANTICS editorial team and we are struggling to come to terms with losing her. She provided us with so much – ideas, critique, intelligence. She had a unique blend of optimism and wisdom, which was underpinned by her life-long commitment to social justice in all its forms.
Anni regularly saved us from ourselves when we got things wrong. She was, de facto, final arbiter of what was right or wrong for the blog. She was always ready with a timely admonishment: 'You can't put that in' when we strayed from what CLEMANTICS was about. Equally she would encourage us to persist when we were struggling with a half-baked offering.
Anni never gave up hope that the Tories would be shown to be the bunch of self-interested chancers and shysters, which they undoubtedly are. It is a shame that she is not here to share the delicious schadenfreude of KamiKwasi and Trussed-up Truss and polls, which show that on present count the Tories would be left with only 3 MPs.
We loved her. We miss her.
