Tribune – Comment, news and reviews from Britain's democratic left

Elizabeth Thomas, who has died at the age of 90, was literary editor of Tribune and the New Statesman. Elizabeth was born at Croydon, Surrey, and educated at St George’s School, Harpenden, and Girton College, Cambridge, where she read classics and met George Thomas, to whom she was happily married for 53 years until his death in 1994. She worked for Tribune from 1949 to 1971, first as secretary to the editor, Michael Foot, then as a writer and finally, for 10 years, as literary editor, following in the footsteps of George Orwell. She organised many public poetry readings and encouraged writers such as Seamus Heaney, Brian Patten, Stevie Smith and Anthony Thwaite. She spent six years at the New Statesman, including a stint as literary editor, before rejoining Michael, now Leader of the House of Commons, as his special advisor.