Denis Healey

Denis Healey is one of the most important politicians of the late 20th century. If he missed the party leadership and premiership, he was an abler figure than many who have held both. In office, Healey spent six years struggling with defence costs. As Chancellor, 1974-79, he met Britain's second greatest financial crisis of the century, faced a crashing currency and a visitation of the IMF and brought us through with currency strengthened and crisis seen off. Inside the Labour Party, he fought Tony Benn a struggle, nominally for the deputy leadership, actually for the party's survival as a national force. By a sub-fraction he won and Labour survived. Edward Pearce argues in this biography that Healey, a man of intellect and great culture, retains the qualities of the soldier he once was: loyalty and bravery, and the ability to face crisis with courage, stamina and humour.