Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey of Riddlesden

Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey of Riddlesden (born August 30, 1917, Mottingham, Kent, England—died October 3, 2015, Alfriston, East Sussex) was a British economist, statesman, writer, and chancellor of the Exchequer (1974–79).

Healey grew up in Keighley, Yorkshire, and had a brilliant academic career at Balliol College, Oxford. He was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1945 for his distinguished service in the Royal Engineers during the North African and Italian campaigns of World War II. Immediately following the war, he took a job in the Labour Party secretariat. Healey was head of its international department for seven years before becoming a member of Parliament in 1952. The Foreign Office seemed his natural destination, but instead he was minister of defense for six years (1964–70) and then chancellor of the Exchequer when Labour returned to power in 1974.

Healey pushed through tough, even harsh, measures in successive budgets during a period of worldwide economic distress. His attempts to persuade the powerful trade unions to accept limits on wage increases were only partly successful, and union strikes in 1978–79 were largely responsible for the defeat of the Labourites in 1979 and the victory of the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher.

Although he narrowly lost his bid to become party leader in 1976 and again in 1980, Healey used his position as deputy leader (1980–83) to engage in numerous battles with the party’s left wing. His opposition to the party’s endorsement of unilateral British nuclear disarmament cost him considerable support in the party, and he lost his deputy leadership post after the Tory victory in the 1983 election. In the fall of 1983 he became Labour’s shadow foreign minister. He retired from the party leadership in 1987. Healey was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1979 and was created a life peer in 1992.

Healey’s books include The Curtain Falls: The Story of Socialists in Eastern Europe (1951), Neutralism (1955), A Neutral Belt in Europe (1958), NATO and American Security (1959), The Race Against the H Bomb (1960), and Healey’s Eye (1980). He also published the autobiography The Time of My Life (1989) and several photography collections.