Inane Ramblings of a History Graduate: The Prime Minister Who Never Was

It is often said that Denis Healey was the greatest Prime Minister that never was. I would agree. This blog is littered with worlds in which he became Prime Minister at some point in the 1970s or 1980s.

And I genuinely believe that Britain would have been a better place for it.

But instead, history conspired to deprive Denis Healey of the ultimate prize. But the legacy he leaves is of a life lived to the full. A West Yorkshire schoolboy, an Oxford student politician as Europe began the slide to war, an officer in the Royal Engineers during the Second World War, a firebrand leftist who built links with half of Europe's political left, Harold Wilson's defence minister as Britain's commitment East of Suez came to an end, Chancellor of the Exchequer during the 1970s economic storm, the bulwark of the Labour moderates as the party came close to collapse in the 1980s... there are many Denis Healeys.

Outside of politics, he had his famous 'hinterland,' interests ranging from poetry to photography to swimming to music. He appeared on the Morecambe and Wise Show Christmas special, and alongside Dame Edna Everidge. And in the graphic novel Watchmen, he was named as Britain's Prime Minister. Never has a politician defied the stereotype so fully, and demonstrated that the best politicians are those with a real life.

And today he has passed away. A link with the past has gone into the twilight.

Normally I would try and find a single quote to sum up someone. But for Healey this is impossible. He really was too great, and his acid tongue too sharp.

But I can find two:

I am going to negotiate with the IMF on the basis of our existing policies, not changes in policies, and I need your support to do it. [Applause] But when I say "existing policies", I mean things we do not like as well as things we do like. It means sticking to the very painful cuts in public expenditure [shouts from the floor] on which the Government has already decided. It means sticking to a pay policy which enables us, as the TUC resolved a week or two ago, to continue the attack on inflation. [Shout of, "Resign".]

Denis Healey before the Labour conference in 1976, justifying his decision to enter negotiations with the IMF before a hostile Labour party.

And, most tellingly for today:

What almost halved the support for the Labour Party was the feeling that it has lost its traditional common sense and its humanity to a new breed of sectarian extremism

Denis Healey's take on the 1983 general election.

For more brilliant Healeyisms:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/denis-healey-dies-the-best-quotes-and-quips-from-the-labour-giant-a6678361.html