Denis Healey was the first Chancellor of the Exchequer that I can ever remember. The 1970s when I was growing up seemed like very scary times and he seemed to be a wise and calm presence in all of that. It was only later that I truly understood the pressure he must have been under, even greater than Alistair Darling faced in 2008. Balancing the competing requirements of the International Monetary Fund and the trade unions and labour movement was not an easy job.
I remember that epic political battle between him and Tony Benn for the Deputy Leadership of Labour. It seemed to me as a 13 year old to go on for ever, far longer than the Labour leadership election seemed in 2010 or this year. The result when it came was knife-edge thin.
It seemed like such a nasty, hostile fight then, but it was good to hear that the two men were personally reconciled and that Tony Benn had been a great support to Healey five years ago when his wife Edna died. In fact, Healey had campaigned for Benn in Chesterfield during the 1984 by-election, saying at the time that:
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