A friend whose opinion I respect asked me why I was writing a biography of George Thomas, saying there are more major Welsh politicians to write about.

That may be so, but my view is that Thomas represents a kind of politics that persists to this day and should be consigned to history.

Some have dismissed him as a kind of one-off pantomime villain whose significance doesn’t merit further study. Such an approach is, I believe, misguided.

His legacy lives on in the Brexit vote and the rise of the populist Right.

Understanding George Thomas, and the appeal he had for many people, helps us understand why achieving a fairer, more equal society remains so difficult to this day.

Much is made of the poverty of his upbringing in Tonypandy, and he was certainly not averse to mentioning it himself in later life.

But his circumstances were more complicated than the norm.

The cover of "In Search of George Thomas"
The cover of "In Search of George Thomas"

His maternal grandfather had migrated to South Wales from the west of England, and made a reasonable living from his building business.

It was the dissolute behaviour of his father that made life for the family tougher than it need have been.

His love for his mother made him into a loyal member of both the Methodist Church and the Labour Party, but the Church’s opposition to alcohol, let alone homosexuality, forced him to dissemble, and concealment became an essential part of his make-up.

He had the capacity to be a charming companion, but he also had a malicious side and bore grudges.

Once in Parliament he gravitated to the left of the party. He went on a hazardous fact-finding mission to Greece under the auspices of a Communist front organisation and became involved with a group of MPs who were manipulated by the Soviet Union and its satellite countries in Eastern Europe.

Both at the time and years later when he was writing about these experiences, he sought to give the impression that he had been no more than naïve.

Yet there is evidence in Thomas’ archive which shows he was wholly aware of the group’s links with Warsaw Pact embassies, from which he received copious quantities of propaganda.

Vote for George - The late George Thomas , Lord Tonypandy, on the election trail in Cardiff, 1955
Vote for George - The late George Thomas , Lord Tonypandy, on the election trail in Cardiff, 1955

It is also fanciful to imagine that Stalin would have been prepared to fly a number of Labour MPs from Moscow to meet him at a Black Sea resort for no more than a casual chat.

He only distanced himself from the group after receiving warnings from senior Parliamentary colleagues that his career would be damaged if he carried on.

The Aberfan disaster in 1966 was a testing moment for him, and he let the community down badly at its time of need.

Putting to one side his wholly inappropriate slavering over the Royal Family, into which he tried to draw a grieving mother, his acceptance of the Government line that the benefit fund for the village should pay towards the cost of removing the tip was grossly insensitive and unjust.

For many Welsh nationalists, Thomas’ ultimate sin was his involvement with the Investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales in 1969, when he was Secretary of State for Wales.

When Labour bounced back in February 1974, he was bitterly disappointed when his sponsor, Harold Wilson, failed to reappoint him as Secretary of State because he had been persuaded that Thomas’ perceived anti-Welsh stance was losing the party support and seats.

Thomas was furious, believing Wilson had misread the political runes.

George Thomas, Viscount Tonypandy, pictured at Cardiff Castle during the launch of his book "My Wales" - 22nd October 1985
George Thomas, Viscount Tonypandy, pictured at Cardiff Castle during the launch of his book "My Wales" - 22nd October 1985

The huge defeat of the pro-devolutionists in the first referendum to establish a Welsh Assembly five years later suggests that Thomas was perhaps more attuned to the mood of the nation as a whole than his colleagues.

He was unforgiving towards the party that had given him his political career. During his time as Speaker, Thomas was antagonistic towards Labour, as well as being an admirer of Margaret Thatcher.

He was comfortable to join the ranks of the Establishment and cosy up further to the Royal Family, whose members he had got to know at the time of the Investiture.

His acceptance of an hereditary peerage at the time of his retirement as Speaker represented a new low for those on the left who had watched his political trajectory with dismay.

For Thomas, however, it was an honour that he enabled him to live the myth of a poor boy who was able to attain high rank by working hard.

We know from the patronage he extended to those wanting recognition on the honours list and to young men whose cause he took up that reality was different from the myth.

Former speaker of the House of Commons George Thomas, known later as Viscount Tonypandy
Former speaker of the House of Commons George Thomas, known later as Viscount Tonypandy

In his final years he became a strange thing for a Welshman – a Little Englander whose simultaneous hatred for the European Union and Welsh devolution became almost pathological.

A politician who began his career with radical credentials, Thomas eventually became an apologist for reactionary views wrapped up in the Union Jack.

If the narrow victory of the Yes campaign in the second devolution referendum in 1997 prompted Thomas to die, the vote for Brexit in June 2016 gave him some posthumous cachet.

There remain too many politicians like George Thomas, ready to pretend that Britain is a great power built on an empire that makes it superior to all other European countries.

It’s a populist tactic which works, and which prolongs an unrealistic view of the world among many of our fellow citizens.

However, publicity associated with the 50th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster exposed his betrayal of the community to a younger generation that is not so deferential as its predecessors.

Even more damaging is that on an age which has woken up to the evils of predatory sexual behaviour towards the young, Thomas’ carefully cultivated image of an upstanding Christian of strong moral rectitude can be seen as a sham.

Restrained by his fear of exposure, he may not have been the most prolific of sexual predators but he was certainly one of the most hypocritical.

George Thomas may have been dead since 1997, but his legacy - as a sycophant supreme - has yet to be extinguished. His personal reputation, however, now lies in ruins.