Denis Healey

Denis Healey (1974)

Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey , CH , MBE , PC (born August 30, 1917 in Mottingham , Kent ; † October 3, 2015 in Alfriston , Sussex ) was a British Labor politician.

Life

Healey's middle name honors Winston Churchill . Healey was educated at Bradford Grammar School and Balliol College, Oxford . In Oxford he began to be interested in politics and in 1937 joined the Communist Party of Great Britain , which he left three years later. In Oxford he also met the later Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath , with whom he had a lifelong friendship despite all political differences.

During World War II , Healey served with the Royal Engineers in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy . He was the landing officer of the British attack brigade during the landing at Anzio ( Operation Shingle ). After the war he left the military with the rank of major and joined the Labor Party. Shortly before the general election, he delivered a rousing and left-wing speech to the convention, but narrowly lost the constituency of Pudsey and Otley. He was appointed International Secretary of the Labor Party.

When Major James Milner 1952 Peer was knighted, whose constituency was free and Healey in the constituency Leeds South East in the House of Commons voted. During the 1950s he supported the party rights of the Labor Party and was particularly involved in foreign policy issues. From 1952 to 1954 and again from 1963 to 1965 he was also a member of the Advisory Assembly of the Council of Europe . During the second period he was also a member of the Assembly of the Western European Union .

Government member

When Labor won the general election in 1964, he joined the cabinet as Secretary of Defense , to which he was a member for almost six years. In this role, he had to reduce defense spending and discontinue the TSR-2 aircraft program and end the Suez adventure .

In 1966, his ministry issued a Defense White Paper which outlined a dramatic reduction in British military bases east of the Suez Canal. All bases that were held against local resistance should be abandoned. This included the handover of Aden to a Marxist guerrilla movement in 1967. In the course of securing the remaining bases, the indigenous people of Diego Garcia were deported according to this plan in order to secure the base according to the new doctrine. During the opposition years in the early 1970s, Healey played the role of shadow finance minister . He has often been (incorrectly) quoted as saying that under a Labor government "the rich would be taxed until the pipes creak". In fact, he stated at the 1973 Labor Congress: "I warn you that the rising cries of pain from the rich that a top tax rate of over 80% would be enough will come."

In March 1974, Healey became Chancellor of the Exchequer . Healey's tenure as Chancellor of the Exchequer is occasionally split into Part I and Part II. The boundary between these two parts is set when Healey, together with Prime Minister James Callaghan, made the decision to ask for an IMF loan and submit the UK economy to the IMF review. Sections of the Labor Party viewed the move from Healey Part I (which proposed a property tax ) to Healey Part II (combined with a special government wage control) as a betrayal of the party's left ideals. After the election victory of the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher in May 1979, Geoffrey Howe succeeded him as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

person

Healey's bushy eyebrows and his soft-spoken esprit gave him an advantageous public reputation. The parodist Mike Yarwood coined the catchphrase "Silly Billy" (= crazy Billy), which Healey took over and used frequently. Yet his direct language caused hostility. He attacked some of the left-wing opponents of his policy in early 1976 "out of this little Chinese spirit," implying that they were Maoists , but he insulted the Chinese community. The controversy over this remark contributed to his defeat in his struggle to succeed Harold Wilson as party leader.

Those who knew him well commented on his ruthless efficiency as Chancellor of the Exchequer. His long-serving deputy in the Treasury, Joel Barnett , replied to a comment from third parties that "Denis Healey was selling his own grandmother", jokingly, "No, he would make me do it for him".

Fight for party leadership

Healey was traded as the favorite for the Labor Party presidency in 1980 to succeed James Callaghan , who was elected exclusively by Labor Group members. However, he ran his election campaign so complacent that he saw the support of party rights as assured. Four Labor MPs of the time, later referred to as the Gang of Four, later stated that they had voted against Healey to install a left-wing leader in the Labor Party and thus found their own party, the Social Democratic Party, which they founded shortly afterwards Party , promote.

After his defeat by Michael Foot he became his deputy, but was challenged the following year by Tony Benn under the new suffrage, which included individual members and the unions with their block voting rights. This election campaign weakened the Labor Party throughout the summer of 1981 and ended with a wafer-thin lead of Healey with 50.426% against Benn with 49.574%. Two years later, after Labor lost again to Thatcher, Healey resigned from the party’s vice chairmanship.

Healey served as shadow secretary of state for much of the 1980s - a position he coveted. In February 1985, in this capacity, he turned against the SDI plans of the USA and British support from Thatcher. His ability to campaign dynamically has been widely praised. After the general election in 1987, he resigned from the shadow cabinet. He also resigned as a Member of Parliament from Leeds in 1992 and was named a life peer as Baron Healey of Riddlesden in the County of West Yorkshire that same year .

After the sudden death of John Smith , he supported Tony Blair as party leader, but later criticized him.

Others

In 1954 Denis Healey founded the Bilderberg Group together with Joseph Retinger , David Rockefeller and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands , which later became the Bilderberg Conference .

In 1970 he received the order against the seriousness of the Aachen Carnival Association.

Denis Healey has been the oldest member of the House of Lords since Baron Campbell's death on June 30, 2013 .

Web links

• Denis Healey at Hansard (English)
• Lord Healey . House of Lords as of October 5, 2015
• Denis Healey: Obituary of former Labor minister . British Broadcasting Corporation , October 3, 2015

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Douglas Martin: Denis Healey, Fixture in Labor Party, Dies at 98. In: The New York Times , October 3, 2015 (English). Retrieved October 4, 2015.
2. ^ Piers Brendon: The Decline and Fall of the British Empire. Reading, 2008 pp. 505-507
3. ↑ Jon Ronson: Who pulls the strings? (part 3) . The Guardian , March 10, 2001, accessed May 2, 2011.