The British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, yesterday led tributes to his Foreign Office Minister, Mr Derek Fatchett, who died suddenly last night, aged 53, following a massive heart attack.
Mr Fatchett died in Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, after being taken ill earlier in the evening. He had lived in the area since he was a lecturer at Leeds University, and leaves a widow, Anita, and two sons.
The news stunned Westminster. Mr Fatchett had on Saturday hosted the daily government briefing on Kosovo with the Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook.
Mr Cook said of Mr Fatchett: "He was a very effective Minister. In the early days he managed to secure, along with others, the ceasefire in the Sudan, which allowed some supplies to get through to those in greatest hunger.
"He had a real commitment to getting his sleeves rolled up and getting things done."
He was born in Lincoln in August 1945 and educated in the city before going on to the University of Birmingham and the London School of Economics.
He was elected MP for Leeds Central in June 1983. At the last election he won a massive 20,689 majority.
His career saw him move from the left of the party into the Kinnockite and then Blairite mainstream, and he quit the left-wing Campaign Group in 1985.
He rose in the Parliamentary Labour Party as a whip and then education spokesman, marshalling opposition to Tory reforms. In 1992 Mr Fatchett was switched to the industry team headed by Mr Cook, who became his closest ally in the party's highest echelons.
As head of Panel 2000, he oversaw a group of 25 representatives of "Cool Britannia" who pledged to help promote the country overseas.
He was keen to change the type of people the Foreign Office recruited - traditionally seen as "Sir Humphrey"-type mandarins - and ordered that the dominance of Oxbridge-educated civil servants should be addressed.