He was a "Silly Billy"

[Guy Profumo]

Denis Healey dies at the age of 98.

[Duncan Gardner]

He was a "Silly Billy"

Lost leader the Tory Party never had

RIP

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

He was a "Silly Billy"

RIP.

Here's one of his "greatest hits" from 1978:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/historic_moments/newsid_8185000/8185778.stm

[Borracho]

He was a "Silly Billy"

We'll all be told over the next couple of days what a great guy he was, but he kicked the Chagos islanders off their own land.

[MsD]

He was a "Silly Billy"

It's funny, because it's true! (the dead sheep joke).

Really spot on with that one.

I liked Denis Healey so much, I grabbed at him with both hands when he was giving out our degree certificates. I was having a panic attack with the heat and the crowd and he had such a lovely familiar reassuring friendly smiley avuncular face and such waggly brows, it was like meeting Santa. So I went in with both hands and hung on a bit too long, looking, my brother likes to tell me, really funny and a bit manic.

Not one of my cooler moments. But what the hell - me and Denis, it was real.

RIP

[tee rex]

He was a "Silly Billy"

He wrote in his memoirs that Labour lost in 1970 after Britain (sic) had been knocked out of the World Cup. I liked that, and him for it.

He was actually a political failure, but now seems like a giant.

[Geoffrey de Ste. Croix]

He was a "Silly Billy"

A totemic figure of the right wing of the Labour Party.

Healey was the absolutely crucial figure in the monetarist turn pre-Thatcher and the move away from full employment as the central motivating concern of post war administrations of all hues, and to this day it remains unclear what was behind his absolute insistence that the UK had no alternative than to accept the IMF loan and its draconian conditions in 1976.

Popular narrative has it that Callaghan had no alternative to the IMF loan, but it is not as clear-cut as that. Nicholas Kaldor at the Treasury for instance bombarded Healey with structural plans to avoid the IMF loan but on every single measure except for public expenditure cuts Kaldor was rebuffed. Kaldor resigned in protest. Alternatives also came from Tony Crosland and also of course the left wing of the Party. Despite Healey admitting that US Treasury Secretary Bill Simon who was involved in the negotiations “was far to the right of Genghis Khan”, he accepted wholesale the IMF’s demands for the loan. There are a number of conflicting reasons argued as to why Healey accepted the IMF demands- from naiveté to his absolute hatred of the Bennites to his long established links with the Bilderberg Group.

Healey was the British convener at the very first Bilderberg meeting in 1954 and in his memoirs, Healey makes much of the financial contacts he made due to his Bilderberg meetings, including David Rockefeller, head of Chase Manhattan and other Wall Street and London City concerns.

Throughout the mid 1970’s, city figures were in close contact with the IMF either with Healey’s tacit consent or without his knowledge. It remains contested. What cannot be contested is that Healey along with Callaghan’s son in law and monetarist supporting economist Peter Jay cajoled and persuaded Callaghan to take the fateful decision to meet all of the IMF’s structural demands. Indeed it was Jay who wrote Callaghan’s famous “That option no longer exists” speech given at the 1976 Labour Party conference.

The fateful decision was taken at a stormy all night cabinet meeting on 1st-2nd December 1976 in which Tony Crosland condemned the IMF’s monetarism as “crazy” and “destructive of what he believed his entire life”. Nicholas Kaldor looking back believed that Callaghan was purposely shielded from the economic alternatives such as Kaldor himself had suggested. Healey had sledgehammered the IMF loan through and the rest as they say is History.

Was it his contacts in the city, his fear of the secret state taking over should an alternative be pushed through, his genuine hatred of the Bennites and the left wing or a combination of all that motivated him? It may never be clear, but what is clear is that Healey is one of the most crucial political and economic figures of the last 50 years.

[NHH]

He was a "Silly Billy"

Michael Crick in ridiculous political obsessive mode:

Healey loved music, poetry, literature, photography and food. "Isn't grub wonderful?" he once said to a colleague while tucking into lunch

The state of it.

[Guy Profumo]

He was a "Silly Billy"

Duncan Gardner wrote: Lost leader the Tory Party never had

RIP

The Labour Party. And then the SDP. Which. To his credit, he didn't join.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

He was a "Silly Billy"

I was about to ask exactly the question Guy's alluded to: Why DIDN'T he join the SDP? You'd have thought he would have led it. And maybe, just maybe, packed more of a punch in the 1983 election, giving voters a more recognisible face to go for inbetween the extremes of Thatcher and Foot.

[Guy Profumo]

He was a "Silly Billy"

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote: I was about to ask exactly the question Guy's alluded to: Why DIDN'T he join the SDP? You'd have thought he would have led it. And maybe, just maybe, packed more of a punch in the 1983 election, giving voters a more recognisible face to go for inbetween the extremes of Thatcher and Foot.

Because he was a committed member of the "broad church" Labour Party.

A true social democrat.

(Which. At the time was I. No longer)

[Lucy Waterman]

He was a "Silly Billy"

He and Owen didn't like each other at all.

Also on that: the SDP wouldn't have been created without the staggering personal vanities of Owen and Jenkins. I'm not saying that's the only reason it came into being, but it was a necessary condition (Rodgers wasn't like that at all, not sure about Williams). Healey was reasonably free of ego for a senior statesman.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

He was a "Silly Billy"

I've never quite understood what substantial distinctions there can have been between the "Gang of Four" SDP founders on the one hand, and the Liberal Party of the time on the other hand, as to make it necessary for them to found a new party rather than simply defect to the Liberals. Which makes me wonder if it was simply an Owen & Jenkins ego thing.

One of my favourite factoids ever is that when Roy Jenkins was President of the European Commission, such was his fondness for the luxuries of office that he was known in Brussels as Le Roi Jean Quinze. (Although, to be fair, that's such a great name gag, inviting to be made, that he may not have deserved it.)

[Satchmo Distel]

He was a "Silly Billy"

I think the Liberal 'brand' was weak (with no govt experience) and had a disaster in 1979, whereas the Gang of Four were former ministers, including a Home Secretary.

There was also a feeling that a 'true' Liberal had to be someone who had fought in the local trenches for the party and worked their way up from the base.

Healy was the first Chancellor who I heard give a budget speech on TV. The BBC took the radio feed and put it on BBC 1 with a stock photo of the Commons. A few years later Not The Nine O'Clock News did a spoof of this format when Howe was chancellor. I think the first Budget that had live TV pictures was with Nigel Lawson, then later I recall Kenneth Clark. After that I'd lost interest.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

He was a "Silly Billy"

Liberal 'brand' was weak

ha ha, you could say that, what with the contract killer dog shooting and so on in the then recent past.

[Satchmo Distel]

He was a "Silly Billy"

Not The Nine O'Clock News again did a spoof of David Steele's "prepare for government" speech followed by (IIRC) footage of some toddlers.

[NHH]

He was a "Silly Billy"

There was a strong left-element of the Liberal party who considered themselves left of Labour (the Michael Meadowcroft, Tony Greaves element), and a right-of-centre phalanx (best represented by Cyril Smith). I expect Steel, being a bit of an opportunist at heart, would have happily had them, but as philosophies, Liberalism always had a wariness for the state which the SDP types embraced (their issue was that it had gone too far in Labour's post-79 policy platform).

[Guy Profumo]

He was a "Silly Billy"

Lucy Waterman wrote: He and Owen didn't like each other at all.

Also on that: the SDP wouldn't have been created without the staggering personal vanities of Owen and Jenkins. I'm not saying that's the only reason it came into being, but it was a necessary condition (Rodgers wasn't like that at all, not sure about Williams). Healey was reasonably free of ego for a senior statesman.

Not convinced about the "staggering personal vanity" of Jenkins.

He knew he was good - because he was.

Owen? He was just a git.

[Lucy Waterman]

He was a "Silly Billy"

I dunno, Guy. If Jenkins was as great as he thought he was, he'd have bent the Party to his will. Instead of buggering off with that clown Owen.

[Land Waster]

He was a "Silly Billy"

Evariste Euler Gauss wrote:

One of my favourite factoids ever is that when Roy Jenkins was President of the European Commission, such was his fondness for the luxuries of office that he was known in Brussels as Le Roi Jean Quinze. (Although, to be fair, that's such a great name gag, inviting to be made, that he may not have deserved it.)

In a similar vein, he once claimed in an interview that he had never lunched alone. Which is some achievement.

[tee rex]

He was a "Silly Billy"

Jenkins had left the government (and Britain, and the Labour party) well before the 1979 election. He was a "Liberal" who, like many others, had seen British politics as a two party system post-WW2, and for decades that was true. There was no point in any ambitious politician joining anyone else. As a liberal Home Secretary (first time round) his choice seemed justified.

Divisions over Europe in the early 1970's was when he mentally left Labour. Whereas Healey and Callaghan (and Crosland before he died) weren't even contemplating leaving a party they were wedded to, emotionally as much as philosophically. It's not just a left/right axis: quite a few Labour people stayed in the party and were to the right of Shirley Williams.

Owen was a guy who got lucky far too young, and then believed his own press cuttings.

[Bored Of Education]

He was a "Silly Billy"

Green Calx wrote: We'll all be told over the next couple of days what a great guy he was, but he kicked the Chagos islanders off their own land.

Good point, very well made. Of course, no-one has done anything about them since either but he started it.

Benn seemed to somewhat forgive him towards the end and they became great friends but I think that you get older and run out of piss and vinegar, that tends to happen. Been was also quite pally with Heseltine.

[ad hoc]

He was a "Silly Billy"

My most vivid memory of Healy was during the 83 election , on Question Time (I think) he expressed the view that Thatcher had "gloried in the slaughter" of the Falklands. Which she absolutely obviously had, and nobody could possibly deny it. Yet, there was a media frenzy and the next day he was forced to withdraw it and apologise. The already fairly cynical 17 year old me became aware, before I even had the chance to vote, that parliamentary politics was all about lies and bullshit and honesty and the truth had no place in it. A lesson that has stuck with me until today.

[ad hoc]

He was a "Silly Billy"

I googled that phrase and got thislink first up, which covers the story, and makes David Owen look even more of a total fucking dick "Healey will live to regret this" he condescendingly uttered, hooping that he could get a job in a future Thatcher cabinet... http://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/06/03/labor-party-interjects-falklands-as-british-campaign-issue/075bd4b1-837c-4287-b1e9-2d56cec02442/

PS Do the US press/WaPo still misspell the name of the Labour Party?

[Lucy Waterman]

He was a "Silly Billy"

This was great:

There are far too many people,” he declared at the party conference that followed Labour’s third successive defeat in 1959, “who want to luxuriate complacently in moral righteousness in opposition ... We are not just a debating society. We are not just a socialist Sunday school. We are a great movement that wants to help real people at the present time. We shall never be able to help them unless we get power. We shall never get power until we close the gap between our active workers and the average voter in the country."