Denis Healey
Edward Pearce
480pp, Little, Brown, £30
Denis Healey: an intellectual who matched Roy Jenkins, a proven administrator with undeniable courage, and a useful street politician. Why, then, was Michael Foot leading Labour to ignominy in 1983, and why was the party so perverse in neglecting Healey? These are the questions Edward Pearce seeks to answer, and he has good qualifications for the job. A Europhile and former Labour parliamentary candidate, his career as a Westminster columnist has given him an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Labour movement.
Healey is a compelling subject. Academic brilliance at Balliol was followed by a distinguished war record. He entered politics as a Transport House "backroom boy", namely as international secretary of the Labour party. His political career was dominated firstly by foreign affairs and defence and then, from the 1970s onwards, by economic issues; Pearce considers both aspects in depth.
As international secretary, Healey was a valued adviser to his patron, Ernest Bevin. They must have been a formidable partnership. The late 1940s were crucial in developing Healey's views. The elimination of the social democratic parties in eastern Europe, particularly in Czechoslovakia, confirmed his fears of Soviet Russian expansion, and there was the anxiety that France and Italy, with their large communist parties, would defect to Moscow. Healey saw the vital importance of the US and the Nato alliance; he was always a committed "Atlantacist" and only a qualified "European". His delayed arrival at Westminster, via a byelection in 1952, was soon compensated by rapid promotion, and he was shortly answering debates from the front bench.
To be Labour spokesman on defence in the 1960s was a beleaguered task. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament sharply divided the party. Healey was unmoved by its idealism, and never compromised his commitment to partnership with the US. At the same time, he ridiculed the Tory military grandeur that had led to a series of expensive - and abandoned - weapons systems.
The United Kingdom was then having to adjust to the realities of its world role after the Suez fiasco. This prompted great debate about defence procurement and the need (or otherwise) for aircraft carriers and aircraft such as the TSR2 and the F111. Healey demonstrated his ability to think strategically and act decisively, leading Admiral Hill-Norton ruefully to conclude: "Healey's strength was his mind, his determination and his courage."
Defence is not a good career beginning for a Labour politician, but after the 1970 election Healey was moved to shadow chancellor of the exchequer. It was in this role, first in opposition and after 1974 in government, that Healey left his mark. Many find his early behaviour puzzling. The 1970s were the period of high inflation, and Labour's unconvincing response was the broken reed of the "social contract" by which the trade unions preached pay restraint in return for greater government spending on welfare. Healey's first budget, after the narrow victory of February 1974, was breathtakingly opportunistic and irrelevant - reducing indirect taxes to produce a phoney retail price index. It may have been intellectually indefensible, but Edward Heath felt unable to divide against it.
Success in the October 1974 election enabled a new Healey to emerge. Pearce argues that he lacked economic training, and that time and experience at the Treasury was needed to bring about his move away from Keynesian economics. I have a more generous explanation. Healey had the immediate task of acknowledging Labour's unreal spending policies, and he had to use his first budget primarily to win votes. He was too wily to be an apprentice.
From 1975 onwards there was the never-ending drama that saw Healey, generally supported by Callaghan, curbing public expenditure, using interest rates to affect monetary growth, selling off public assets and, in particular, reducing public-sector borrowing. It was the early dawn of monetarism.
This period was attended by growing Labour demoralisation, accentuated after the election defeat of 1979. Pearce comprehensively chronicles these later years. It was a time of agony for Labour, with a dearth of ideas and a wealth of factious personalities. In that situation, could Healey have emerged as leader? Pearce does not argue that he lacked opportunity, but that there was a "shortfall on ruthless will". Perhaps, but I would rather speculate what might have happened if Callaghan had chosen to hold the general election in 1978 and squeaked in. Then, I believe, Healey would eventually have become prime minister, and would have carried further forward the IMF programme and used his authority to check the unions. It would have been sound money without the handbag, but with two fingers for good measure. What a mischievous thought!
Lord Biffen is former chief secretary to the Treasury and leader of the House of Commons.
