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Former Plaid Cymru leader Lord Elis-Thomas was the first person to hold the role of Presiding Officer in the Welsh Assembly.
Go from a maverick to a member of the political establishment. During a career that involved 12 years as the Welsh Assembly’s first Presiding Officer, the equivalent of the Speaker of the House of Commons, he was never far from controversy and criticism. Sometimes the criticism came from his own party, particularly when he accepted a peerage and attacked Welsh language nationalism.
Eventually, he would quit Plaid Cymru and sit as an independent member in Cardiff Bay.
Some might not have liked the way he held forth on controversial topics while holding an office that demanded neutrality.
But he saw it as his job to stand up for a fledgling legislature – a job that sometimes needed an outspoken figure.
