Journalist, gifted linguist and European business editor of the Guardian who was dismayed by Brexit
The journalist David Gow, who has died aged 80 from a heart attack, served as the Guardian’s authoritative education editor, European business editor, and Germany correspondent. After his time on the paper he remained active in considering social and economic issues from a leftwing perspective.
David started his career at the Scotsman as a graduate trainee in 1969. The following year, Edward Heath’s Conservatives came to power and Britain started negotiating entry to the European Economic Community. David was appointed the paper’s first European correspondent, then labour correspondent, and later its London editor over a period interrupted by a spell at Thames Television’s Weekend World.
Britain joined the EEC in 1973, and on visits to Brussels, David met Sue Lewis, a member of the cabinet of George Thomson, one of Britain’s European commissioners. She had worked for Harold Wilson at 10 Downing Street; David was later to resist suggestions in Labour circles that he might want to be an aide for one of Wilson’s successors, Neil Kinnock. In 1980 David and Sue married and had a daughter, Gemma.
