Denis Healey

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The Lord Carrington
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posts
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In office
8 December 1980 – 13 July 1987
Leader
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Succeeded byGerald Kaufman
In office
20 June 1970 – 19 April 1972
LeaderHarold Wilson
Preceded byAlec Douglas-Home
Succeeded byJames Callaghan
In office
11 October 1959 – 2 November 1961
LeaderHugh Gaitskell
Preceded byAneurin Bevan
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Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
In office
4 May 1979 – 8 December 1980
LeaderJames Callaghan
Preceded byGeoffrey Howe
Succeeded byPeter Shore
In office
19 April 1972 – 4 March 1974
LeaderHarold Wilson
Preceded byRoy Jenkins
Succeeded byRobert Carr
Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
In office
1 April 1964 – 16 October 1964
LeaderHarold Wilson
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byPeter Thorneycroft
Parliamentary offices
Lord Temporal
Life peerage
29 June 1992 – 3 October 2015
Member of Parliament
for Leeds East
In office
26 May 1955 – 16 March 1992
Preceded byConstituency established
Succeeded byGeorge Mudie
Member of Parliament
for Leeds South East
In office
7 February 1952 – 6 May 1955
Preceded byJames Milner
Succeeded byAlice Bacon
Personal details
Born
Denis Winston Healey

(1917-08-30)30 August 1917
Mottingham, Kent, England
Died3 October 2015(2015-10-03) (aged 98)
Alfriston, East Sussex, England
Resting placeSt Andrew's Church
Political partyLabour
Spouse
(m. 1945; died 2010)
Children3
Alma materBalliol College, Oxford
Military service
Branch/serviceBritish Army
Years of service1940–1945
RankMajor
UnitRoyal Engineers
Battles/wars
Awards
Member of the Order of the British Empire

Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey,

FRSL (30 August 1917 – 3 October 2015) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979 and as Secretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970; he remains the longest-serving Defence Secretary to date. He was a Member of Parliament from 1952 to 1992, and was Deputy Leader of the Labour Party
from 1980 to 1983. To the public at large, Healey became well known for his bushy eyebrows, his avuncular manner and his creative turns of phrase.

Healey attended the

Leeds East at the 1955 election, which he represented until his retirement at the 1992 election
.

After Labour's victory at the

new government. During his time as Chancellor, Healey notably sought out an international loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the British economy, which imposed external conditions on public spending.[5][6]

Healey stood a second time for the leadership of the Labour Party in November 1980, but narrowly lost to Michael Foot. Foot immediately chose Healey as his Deputy Leader, but after the Labour Party agreed a series of changes to the rules governing leadership elections, Tony Benn launched a challenge to Healey for the role; the election was bitterly contested throughout most of 1981, and Healey was able to beat the challenge by less than 1%. Standing down as Deputy Leader after Labour's landslide defeat at the 1983 election, Healey remained in the Shadow Cabinet until 1987, and entered the House of Lords soon after his retirement from Parliament in 1992. Healey died in 2015 at the age of 98, having become the oldest sitting member of the House of Lords, and the last surviving member of Harold Wilson's first government formed in 1964.

Early life

Denis Winston Healey was born in Mottingham, Kent, son of William Healey (1886-1977) and Winifred Mary (1889-1988), née Powell. His father- son of a tailor from Glenfarne, County Leitrim, Ireland- was an engineering mechanic who worked his way up from humble origins, winning an engineering scholarship to Leeds University and qualifying to teach engineering, eventually becoming head of Keighley Technical School. The Healeys but moved to Keighley in the West Riding of Yorkshire when he was five.[7] His middle name honoured Winston Churchill.[8]

Healey had one brother, Terence Blair Healey (1920–1998), known as Terry.[citation needed] Healey's family often spent the summer in Scotland during his youth.[citation needed]

Education

Healey received early education at

Fall of France
.

At Oxford, Healey met future Prime Minister

Junior Common Room
, and who became a lifelong friend and political rival.

Healey achieved a

double first degree, awarded in 1940. He was a Harmsworth Senior Scholar at Merton College, Oxford in 1940.[10]

Second World War

After graduation, Healey served in the

Italian campaign (1943–1945) and was the military landing officer ("beach master") for the British assault brigade at Anzio in 1944. He was twice mentioned in dispatches during this campaign.[12]

Healey became an MBE in 1945.[13] He left the service with the rank of Major. He declined an offer to remain in the army, with the rank of Lieutenant colonel, as part of the team researching the history of the Italian campaign under Colonel David Hunt. He also decided against taking up a senior scholarship at Balliol, which might have led to an academic career.[14]

Political career

Early career

Healey joined the Labour Party. Still in uniform, he gave a strongly left-wing speech to the Labour Party conference in 1945, declaring, "the upper classes in every country are selfish, depraved, dissolute and decadent"

Pudsey and Otley, doubling the Labour vote but losing by 1,651 votes.[16]

He became secretary of the international department of the Labour Party in 1944, becoming a foreign policy adviser to Labour leaders and establishing contacts with socialists across Europe.

Royal Institute of International Affairs and the International Institute for Strategic Studies from 1958 until 1961. He was a member of the Fabian Society executive from 1954 until 1961. Healey used his position as the Labour Party's International Secretary to promote the Korean War on behalf of British state propagandists,[2][19] used British intelligence agencies to attack Marxist leaders within UK trade unions,[20] and to exploit his position in government to publish his books through IRD propaganda fronts.[21][22]

Healey was one of the leading players in the Königswinter conference that was organised by

West German decision makers. The conference also included other leading British thinkers like Richard Crossman and the journalist Robin Day.[23]

Member of Parliament

Healey was elected to the

He was a moderate on the right during the series of splits in the Labour Party in the 1950s. He was a

Nasserist Egypt, resulting in the Suez Crisis.[26] 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". In the 1963 Labour Party leadership election, 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 Secretary of State for Defence
after the creation of the position in 1964.

Defence Secretary

Following Labour's victory in the

F-111 in lieu.[28][29]

Of the scrapped

apartheid South Africa, to which he supplied nuclear-capable Buccaneer S.2 strike bombers and approved a repeat order. This brought him into serious conflict with Wilson, who had, initially, also supported the policy. Healey later said he had made the wrong decision on selling arms to South Africa.[26]

In January 1968, a few weeks after the

IMF crisis to withdraw the Royal Navy frigates attached to the Five Power Defence Arrangements squadron and the Hong Kong Guard frigate, HMS Chichester.[32] Healey also authorised the removal of the Chagossians from the Chagos Archipelago and authorised the building of the United States military base at Diego Garcia. Following Labour's defeat in the 1970 general election
, he became Shadow Defence Secretary.

Chancellor of the Exchequer

Healey was appointed

Lord Carrington, the Conservative Secretary of State for Energy, had made £10m profit from selling agricultural land at prices 30 to 60 times as high as it would command as farming land.[34] When accused by colleagues including Eric Heffer of putting Labour's chances of winning the next election in jeopardy through his tax proposals, Healey said the party and the country must face the consequences of Labour's policy of the redistribution of income and wealth; "That is what our policy is, the party must face the realities of it".[35]

Healey became

food subsidies, pensions and other benefits.[39]

When Harold Wilson stood down as Leader of the Labour Party in 1976 Healey stood in the contest to elect the new leader. On the first ballot he came only fifth out of six candidates. However, he also contested the second round, coming third of the three candidates but increasing his vote somewhat.

Deputy Leader of the Labour Party

Labour lost the

Glasgow Herald suggested that this showed that he was the "strongest contender" to succeed Callaghan as Leader of the Labour Party.[41]

When Callaghan stood down as Labour leader in November 1980, Healey was the favourite to win the

Mike Thomas, the MP for Newcastle East defected to the Social Democratic Party (SDP), he said he had been tempted to send Healey a telegram saying he had found "somewhere else to go". Four Labour MPs who defected to the SDP in early 1981 later said they voted for Foot in order to give the Labour Party an unelectable left-wing leader, thus helping their newly established party.[43]

In an essay addressing why Healey did not become Prime Minister (or Labour leader) Steve Richards states that in 1980 Healey, not Foot, was widely expected by the media and many political figures to be the next Labour leader.[44] Richards also notes that of by this point his main rivals as potential leaders from the right of the party from 1976 and earlier, Roy Jenkins and Anthony Crosland, were no longer in contention for the position with the former out of parliament and the latter having died in 1977.[45] However he also argues that while "Healey was widely seen as the obvious successor to Callaghan", and that sections of the media ultimately reacted with "disbelief" at Labour not choosing him to be their leader, the decision to opt for Foot "was not as perverse as it seemed". He argues Labour MPs were looking for a figure from the left who could unite the wider party with the leadership which Healey could not do. Richards believes that Foot was not a "tribal politician" and had proved he could work with those of different ideologies and had been a loyal deputy to Callaghan and so came to be "seen as the unity candidate" which allowed him to defeat Healey.[46]

Healey was returned unopposed as

Constituency Labour Parties
, and Labour MPs to win.

Healey was

Shadow Foreign Secretary during most of the 1980s, a job he coveted. He believed Foot was initially too willing to support military action after the Falkland Islands were invaded by Argentina in April 1982.[26] He accused Thatcher of "glorying in slaughter", and had to withdraw the remark (he later claimed he had meant to say "conflict"). Healey was retained in the shadow cabinet by Neil Kinnock, who succeeded Foot following the disastrous 1983 general election
, when the Conservatives bolstered their majority and Labour suffered their worst general election result in decades. Healey had declined to run as leader to succeed Foot as well as standing down as deputy leader.

Retirement

His views on

Bilderberg Group.[51] He was interviewed on his role as a co-founder of the Bilderberg Group by Jon Ronson for the book Them: Adventures with Extremists.[52][53]

During an interview with

foreign policy than they were in the days of the Cold War", and, "I don't think we need nuclear weapons any longer".[54]

In March 2013 during an interview with the

EU. The advantages of being members of the union are not obvious. The disadvantages are very obvious. I can see the case for leaving – the case for leaving is stronger than for staying in".[56]

Following the death of Alan Campbell, Baron Campbell of Alloway, in June 2013, Healey became the oldest sitting member of the House of Lords.[57] Following the death of John Freeman on 20 December 2014, Healey became the surviving former MP with the earliest date of first election, and the second-oldest surviving former MP, after Ronald Atkins.

Public image

Healey's notably bushy eyebrows and piercing wit earned him a favourable reputation with the public. When the media were not present, his humour was equally caustic but more risqué. The popular impressionist

People's Republic."[58] The controversy may have contributed to a poor performance when he fought for the Labour leadership following Harold Wilson's resignation.[citation needed
]

His long-serving deputy at the Treasury,

] The two remained friends for many years, and Howe died only six days after Healey.

Personal life and death

Healey married

NHS beliefs. Challenged on the apparent inconsistency by the presenter Anne Diamond on TV-am, Healey refused to comment and ended the interview.[64] He then hit journalist Adam Boulton with a jab.[65][66]

Healey was an amateur photographer for many years;[67] he also enjoyed music, painting and reading crime fiction. He sometimes played popular piano pieces at public events.[68] In a May 2012 interview for The Daily Telegraph, Healey reported that he was swimming 20 lengths a day in his outdoor pool.[69] Healey was interviewed in 2012 as part of The History of Parliament's oral history project.[70][71]

After a short illness Healey died in his sleep at his home in Alfriston, Sussex, on 3 October 2015, at the age of 98. He was buried alongside his wife in the graveyard of St Andrew's Church, Alfriston.[72][73] In 2017, his personal archives were deposited at the Bodleian Library.[74]

Honours

Ribbon Name Notes
Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour
12 June 1979 CH
Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire 13 December 1945 MBE
Mentioned in dispatches x 2

In 2004, Healey became the recipient of the first Veteran's Badge.[75]

Legacy

Healey is credited with popularising in the UK a proverb which became known as Healey's

First law of holes.[76][77] This is a minor adaptation of a saying often attributed to Will Rogers
.

In popular culture

Film, television and theatre

After Dark
in 1989

Healey is the only Chancellor of the Exchequer to have appeared on

Saturday Live. He was portrayed by David Fleeshman in the 2002 BBC production of Ian Curteis's The Falklands Play. He appeared on The Dame Edna Experience in the song and dance number "Style" alongside actor Roger Moore
.

Healey was satirised in the ITV series

, in which the antagonist known as the Collector is distinguished by having similarly bushy eyebrows to Healey.

In 1994, Healey appeared in a TV advertisement for Visa Debit cards. This was banned by the Independent Television Commission as it contained a reference to a scandal, subsequently revealed to be a fabrication, involving Norman Lamont's personal life. Healey had appeared in an advert for Sainsbury's in the previous year.[80]

Music

During Led Zeppelin's 1975 and 1977 concert tours, Robert Plant facetiously dedicated the song "In My Time of Dying" to Healey for the tax exile issues the band was facing. During Yes's recording of what was to become the album Tormato (1978), there was an outtake called "Money", on which the Yes keyboardist at the time, Rick Wakeman, provides a satirical voice-over parodying Healey.[81]

Bibliography

Healey's publications include: Healey's Eye (photography, 1980), The Time of My Life (his autobiography, 1989), When Shrimps Learn to Whistle (1990), My Secret Planet (an anthology, 1992), Denis Healey's Yorkshire Dales (1995) and Healey's World (2002).

References

  1. ^ "House of Lords, Official Website – Lord Healey". Retrieved 5 July 2013.
  2. ^ a b Lashmar, Paul; Oliver, James (1988). Britain's Secret Propaganda War 1948–1977. Phoenix Mill: Sutton Publishing. p. 43.
  3. ^ Defty, Andrew (2005). Britain, America and Anti-Communist Propaganda 1945-1953: The Information Research Department. E-book version: Routledge. p. 3.
  4. S2CID 159855506
    – via JSTOR.
  5. ^ [1] Archived 20 November 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ [2] Archived 20 August 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  7. ^ Hookham, Mark (3 December 2008). "Denis Healey: 'The best Prime Minister we never had'". Yorkshire Evening Post. Archived from the original on 5 December 2008. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
  8. ^ Kaufman, Gerald (13 March 2000). "Debates for 13 Mar 2000 (pt 20)". Hansard. London, England, UK: House of Commons. Retrieved 31 January 2009.
  9. .
  10. ^ Levens, R.G.C., ed. (1964). Merton College Register 1900–1964. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 312.
  11. ^ "No. 35163". The London Gazette (Supplement). 13 May 1941. p. 2801.
  12. ^ David McKie (3 October 2015). "Lord Healey obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
  13. ^ "No. 37386". The London Gazette (Supplement). 13 December 1945. p. 6064.
  14. ^ Healey 1989, p. 69.
  15. ^ M. Andrews. 'Life in the shadow of Victory' in History Mag (BBC), January 2015, pp. 31–2.
  16. .
  17. .
  18. ^ Lawrence Black, "'The Bitterest Enemies of Communism': Labour Revisionists, Atlanticism and the Cold War." Contemporary British History 15#3 (2001): 26–62.
  19. ^ Jenks, John (2006). British Propaganda and News Media in the Cold War. Edinburgh: Edinburgh. p. 105.
  20. ^ Lashmar, Paul; Oliver, James (1988). Britain's Secret Propaganda War 1948-1977. Sutton Publishing. p. 86.
  21. ^ Lashmar, Paul; Oliver, James (1988). Britain's Secret Propaganda War 1948-1977. Sutton Mill: Sutton Publishing. p. 100.
  22. ^ Jenks, John (200). British Propaganda and News Media in the Cold War. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. pp. 70–71.
  23. ^ Long Life: Presiding Genius, Nigel Nicolson, 15 August 1992, The Spectator, Retrieved 28 November 2015 ]
  24. ^ "1952 By Election Results". Archived from the original on 25 February 2012. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
  25. ^ Alf Goes To Work (1960)
  26. ^ a b c d McKie, David. "Lord Healey obituary". The Guardian. London.
  27. ^ Edward Longinotti, "Britain's Withdrawal from East of Suez: From Economic Determinism to Political Choice." Contemporary British History 29#3 (2015): 318–340. DOI
  28. ^ a b D. Healey, Time of My Life (Penguin, 1990).
  29. ^ a b 1966 Defence Review.
  30. ^ "What Now for Britain?” The State Department’s Intelligence Assessment of the “Special Relationship,” 7 February 1968 by Jonathan Colman.
  31. .
  32. Armilla Patrol
    in 1979/80
  33. ^ The Times, Tuesday, 2 October 1973; p. 1; Issue 58902; col A.
  34. ^ The Times, Tuesday, 19 February 1974; p. 4; Issue 59018; col D.
  35. ^ The Times, Thursday, 18 October 1973; p. 2; Issue 58916; col C.
  36. ^ Michael StewartThe Jekyll and Hyde Years: Politics and Economic Policy since 1964 (1977).
  37. ^ [3] Archived 20 November 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  38. ^ [4] Archived 20 August 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  39. ^ Eric Shaw, The Labour Party since 1945 (1996).
  40. ^ "No. 47868". The London Gazette (Supplement). 15 June 1979. p. 7600.
  41. ^ Parkhouse, Geoffrey (15 June 1979). "Shore steps up as Owen is demoted". The Glasgow Herald. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
  42. ^ 'Mr Healey tops opinion poll in leadership vote', The Times (8 September 1980), p. 3.
  43. ^ Crewe, Ivor and King, Anthony, SDP: The Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party (Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 74–75.
  44. .
  45. .
  46. .
  47. Verso
    . pp. 28–29.
  48. ^ "No. 52979". The London Gazette. 2 July 1992. p. 11141.
  49. ^ Sale, Jonathan (4 May 2006), "Passed/failed: An education in the life of Denis Healey, Labour peer", The Independent, archived from the original on 15 August 2007, retrieved 28 April 2009
  50. ^ Ronson, Jon (10 March 2001). "Who pulls the strings? (part 3)". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 4 July 2009.
  51. OCLC 47831472
    .
  52. . Retrieved 16 December 2019.
  53. ^ "UK needs no nuclear arms – Healey". BBC News. 7 July 2006. Retrieved 13 January 2007.
  54. ^ Rafael Behr, ‘Denis Healey: “Thatcher was good-looking and brilliant”’, New Statesman (26 March 2013).
  55. ^ Michael Crick, ‘Healey: case for leaving Europe stronger than staying’, Channel 4 (9 May 2013).
  56. ^ "House of Lords, Official Website – Who is the oldest sitting Member of the House of Lords?". Retrieved 5 July 2013.
  57. ^ Denis Healey. The Time of My Life, Penguin 1990, p. 444.
  58. ^ "ECONOMIC SITUATION, HC Deb 14 June 1978 vol 951 cc1013-142". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). 14 June 1978.
  59. ^ "Water way to splash out for charity". Oxford Mail. 17 May 1999. Retrieved 30 September 2015.
  60. ^ "Come on Lads: Canteen songs of World War Two" Archived 3 October 2015 at the Wayback Machine, Beautiful Jo Records website . Retrieved 13 September 2008.
  61. ^ "Denis Healey's wife, Edna, dies aged 92". BBC News Online. BBC. 23 July 2010. Retrieved 23 July 2010.
  62. ^ "Denis Healey at 90", BBC News.
  63. ^ "BBC Politics 97". bbc.co.uk.
  64. ^ "Adam Boulton: Sky's political editor on the channel's relaunch". The Independent. London. 24 April 2006.
  65. ^ Burrell, Ian (15 May 2010). "Adam Boulton: Just don't tell him what he thinks". The Independent. London.
  66. ^ Open2.net – Denis Healey & Photography Archived 5 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  67. National Museum of Science and Industry
    , May 1987, retrieved 28 April 2009
  68. ^ Interview, Bryony Gordon, The Daily Telegraph (London), 8 May 2012, Accessed same day.
  69. ^ "Oral history: HEALEY, Denis Winston (1917–2015)". The History of Parliament. Retrieved 14 July 2016.
  70. ^ "Lord Denis Healey interviewed by Mike Greenwood". British Library Sound Archive. Archived from the original on 5 March 2017. Retrieved 14 July 2016.
  71. ^ "Labour's Denis Healey dies at 98". BBC News. 3 October 2015. Retrieved 3 October 2015.
  72. ^ "Denis Healey Dies Aged 98". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. Retrieved 4 October 2015.
  73. ^ Ffrench, Andy (28 July 2017). "Archive of Labour politician Denis Healey is deposited at the Bodleian". The Oxford Times. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  74. ^ Military medals: a matter of honour www.journaloftradingstandards.co.uk, accessed 2 November 2020
  75. .
  76. ^ "Interview: Denis Healey; Healey's First law of holes is to stop digging". New Statesman. 9. 8 November 1986.
  77. ^ "Denis Healey: The big man behind the big eyebrows". Yorkshire Post.
  78. ^ Spitting Image (1984) – Series 1, Episode 12 | Full Episode, retrieved 3 April 2021
  79. ^ Macintyre, Donald; Williams, Rhys (17 March 1994). "ITC bans Healey joke in advert". The Independent. London. Retrieved 2 October 2015.
  80. , pp. 24–25.


  • Healey, Denis. The time of my life (London: Michael Joseph, 1989),
  • Pearce, Edward, and Denis Healey. Denis Healey: a life in our times (Little, Brown, 2002).

Further reading

  • Black, Lawrence. "'The Bitterest Enemies of Communism': Labour Revisionists, Atlanticism and the Cold War." Contemporary British History 15.3 (2001): 26–62. Healey was a bitter enemy.
  • Callaghan, John. The Labour Party and foreign policy: a history (Routledge, 2007).
  • Dell, Edmund. The Chancellors: A History of the Chancellors of the Exchequer, 1945–90 (HarperCollins, 1997) pp. 400–48, covers his term as Chancellor.
  • Dell, Edmund. A hard pounding: politics and economic crisis, 1974–1976 (Oxford UP, 1991).
  • Heppell, Tim, and Andrew Crines. "How Michael Foot won the Labour Party leadership." The Political Quarterly 82.1 (2011): 81–94.
  • Insall, Tony. Haakon Lie, Denis Healey and the Making of an Anglo-Norwegian Special Relationship 1945–1951 (Unipub, Oslo, 2010).
  • Pearce, Edward. "Denis Healey" in Kevin Jefferys, ed. Labour Forces: From Ernie Bevin to Gordon Brown (2002) pp. 135–54.
  • Radice, Giles. The Tortoise and the Hares: Attlee, Bevin, Cripps, Dalton, Morrison (Politico's Publishing, 2008).
  • Reed, Bruce, and Geoffrey Lee Williams. Denis Healey and the policies of power (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1971).

External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
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