Denis Healey was a big man - of stature and political impact.

Most people below the age of 45/50 probably cannot recall him at the height of his career.

Denis Healey was in a special generation of great politicians that our country used to have – in both main governing parties. A giant in the Labour Party and that at a time when there were many of them – Wilson, Jenkins, Callaghan, Crosland, Foot, Benn and several others. I consider it a great privilege to have known and enjoyed the company of them all.

Just like Roy Jenkins he was often described as the best Prime Minister this country never had - today is not the time to debate their relative merits for that description 

Healey was an intellectual, a street -fighter and a powerful debater. As Defence Secretary under Harold Wilson and later Chancellor in Callaghan’s Government he had to contend with major issues especially the economic crisis that overwhelmed the Callaghan administration. He was deputy leader of the Labour Party in the !980’s  when the party was in the process of tearing itself apart. There was a period when many political observers wondered whether he was going to join with Jenkins and set up the SDP.

Denis Healey was not just a politician – his love of photography and poetry has been well recorded.

He had a witty and dry sense of humour who could destroy an opponent’s argument with classic one-liners and a few of those have withstood the test of time. One in particular  -   ‘when you’re in a hole stop digging’

Famously he compared the House of Lords to the ‘home of the living dead’.

At times he was quite fierce about Mrs Thatcher dubbing her ‘Attila the Hen’ and describing her attitude towards Europe as ‘shuffling along like an old bag lady muttering imprecations at anyone who catches her eye’

The of course there was another quote that has stood the test of time when he compared debating with Geoffrey Howe as being like ‘debating with a dead sheep ‘

But he also turned his attention to politicians in his own party. John Prescott received some attention from me and said of him that he has ‘the face of a man who clubs baby seals’

Denis Healey became deputy leader of the Labour Party by the narrowest of majorities in a contest for the position with Tony Benn and once said ‘Healey without Benn is like Torvill without Dean – I can’t get the bugger off my back’

He lived to a grand old age and the book ‘The Time of My Life’ is well worth reading.