Denis Healey (1917-2015) RIP

Denis Healey, the former Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer and the last survivng member of Harold Wilson's 1960s Labour governments, has died at the age of 98. He was a Member of Parliament for 40 years and was the last surviving member of the cabinet formed by Harold Wilson after the Labour Party's victory in the 1964 general election. A major figure in the party, he was twice defeated in bids for the party leadership. Healey became well known for his trademark bushy eyebrows and his creative turns of phrase.

Despite his northern tone, Healey was actually born in south-east London, although his family moved to Yorkshire when he was five. He was educated at Bradford Grammar School. In 1936 he won an exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford - to read Greats - where he was involved in Labour politics, although he was not active in the Oxford Union Society. At Oxford Healey joined the Communist Party in 1937 during the Great Terror but left in 1940 after the fall of France. Also at Oxford, Healey met future Conservative Prime Minister Teddy Heath (as he was then known), whom he succeeded as president of Balliol College Junior Common Room, and who was to be a lifelong friend and political rival. Healey achieved a double first degree, awarded in 1940.

After graduation, he served in the Second World War with the Royal Engineers, in the North African Campaign, the Allied invasion of Sicily and the Italian Campaign, and was the military landing officer for the British assault brigade at Anzio. He was made an MBE in 1945. Leaving the service with the rank of major after the war – he declined an offer to remain as a lieutenant-colonel – Healey joined the Labour Party. Still in uniform, Healey gave a strongly left-wing speech to the Labour Party conference in 1945, shortly before the general election in which he narrowly failed to win the Conservative-held seat of Pudsey and Otley, doubling the Labour vote but losing by 1,651 votes. Following this, he was made secretary of the international department of the Labour Party, becoming a foreign policy adviser to Labour leaders and establishing contacts with socialists across Europe. From 1948 to 1960 he was a councillor of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, and of the International Institute for Strategic Studies from 1958 until 1961. He was a member of the Fabian Society executive from 1954 until 1961.

Healey was elected to the House of Commons as MP for Leeds East at a by-election in February 1952, with a majority of 7,000 votes, after the incumbent MP Major James Milner left the Commons to accept a peerage.

He supported the moderate side in the Labour Party during the series of 1950s splits. He was a supporter and friend of Hugh Gaitskell and, when Gaitskell died in 1963, he was horrified at the idea of Gaitskell's volatile deputy, George Brown, leading Labour, saying "He was like immortal Jemima; when he was good he was very good but when he was bad he was horrid". He voted for James Callaghan in the first ballot and Harold Wilson in the second. Healey thought Wilson would unite the Labour Party and lead it to victory in the next general election. He didn't think Brown was capable of doing either. He was appointed Shadow Defence Secretary after the creation of the position in 1964.

When Labour won the 1964 election Healey served throughout the government as Secretary of State for Defence, and when Labour returned to power in 1974 he became Chancellor during a period of economic crisis and industrial strife. Healey had to make savage cuts to public spending, raise taxes dramatically and even had to arrange a massive IMF loan.

His bushy eyebrows and persona made him very popular with the public, helped in no small way by Mike Yarwood's "silly billy" impression. Healey never said it originally but it became so widespread he began to use it!. When Jim Callaghan stood down after the 1979 election defeat, Healey was defeated (by just ten votes) by Michael Foot in the leadership election as the party shifted noticeably to the left leading to a catastrophic election defeat in 1983 (Healey had also been defeated when Wilson stood down in 1976).

He served as deputy Leader in opposition from 1980 to 1984 (defeating Tony Benn by less than 1%) and shadow Foreign Secretary under Neil Kinnock before returning to the back benches and stepping down as an MP in 1992. He was elevated to the House of Lords, and in 2013 became the oldest sitting member.

He was married to Edna Edmunds for 65 years until her death in 2010. The couple had three children, one of whom is the broadcaster, writer and record producer Tim Healey.

Healey was an amateur photographer for many years, enjoying music and painting and reading crime fiction. He sometimes played popular piano pieces at public events. In a 2012 interview for The Daily Telegraph, Healey reported that he was still swimming twenty lengths a day in his outdoor pool, despite being in his 95th year, and that he was missing his wife "very much indeed".

Whatever your political views - that's some C.V.
What's striking for me is the stuff he did BEFORE he became an MP.
His was probably the last generation of MP's that had some idea of what life was like outside the House of Commons from personal experience and not just getting it from "briefings" and Spin Doctors. Whether you agreed with what he and others of his generation (on both sides of the House) did in power during the 1960s & 70s or not, they seemed to at least have some knowledge of "the real world" and conditions for their constituents etc : memories of the 1930s Depression and inequality, conditions for the working population and etc.
What do current MP's do now before they get elected ? Public relations and "working in the media", or more likely, working for other politicians. And we wonder why they're out of touch. Says it all.

Exactly - he was a giant compared to today's political pygmies

The Greatest Eyebrows since Robin Day

98's a colossal age, fitting for a colossal giant of a politician, maybe the greatest leader Labour never had (through their own fault).

Also a colossal intellect, and no mean shakes with a camera.

RIP

Definitely a colossus in British politics...

RIP

The Labour party needs someone of his stature now, he would tell Jeremy Corbyn to stop being a " silly Billy " RIP

He failed to become leader of the Labour Party in 1976 after being defeated by James Callaghan.
But he was surprisingly beaten by Michael Foot in 1980

There's just no politians like this these days. Spitting image would be so rubbish.

Whatever your political affiliation there was much to admire about him and quite frankly we need more politicians of his calibre and attitude.

You can disagree with his politics but you can't deny he was a proper conviction Politician and a Universe apart from the self-serving scum we're lumbered with today.

His Military record alone sets him apart from most of his colleagues and if i was to say anything remotely negative about him, it would be that his cancelling of the TSR-2 project was a grave error. The Aircraft was a World beater and everyone knew it except for him.