Denis Healey RIP

[NickFitz]

98. Not a bad innings.

He was beachmaster at the Anzio landings, which basically involved catching the German shells and throwing them back.

In the1970s 1965 a National Front British Movement heckler at a public meeting called him unpatriotic and cowardly. He jumped off the stage, decked the guy with a single punch, and had to be dragged off him by his Special Branch minders

EDIT: Correction to year; pre-NF; also, the fascist had taken to the stage to get punched. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Jordan

[TykeMerc]

I had no idea the bloke was still alive, I remember him being far from a young bloke when I was a kid and he was Chancellor.

Member of quite a lefty type of Government, I think he was in the cabinets of several Wilson ones and a Callaghan (sp?), but my perception is that he wasn't like the current day slime mold life long career politicians, that could be childhood memories though.

Oh well out for 98, not a bad innings as mentioned. RIP.

[xoggoth]

wasn't like the current day slime mold life long career politicians

Yeh. I have fairly favourable memories of the chap too. Maybe I was a bit more lefty in those days. Or perhaps because the Conservative government under that b* Heath was so awful it made Wilson and co seem much better.

[swamp]

Wasn't it Healey, who in the mid-70s, started the attack on self-employed workers which led to a rule change around employers' NI liabilities being transferred to the hiring company in certain cases?

This of course led to the widespread use of one-man-band limited companies for contractors, starting in the early 80's, after an agency was landed with an NI bill of a few £m.

Link:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...ployed&f=false

[Flashman]

Didn't mind him.

Screwed the British defence industry when he was Defence Minister in the 1960's though

[SueEllen]

You mean he was a conviction politician unlike the current bunch.

[vetran]

You mean he was a conviction politician unlike the current bunch.

you mean modern politicians that should be convicted?

[SueEllen]

you mean modern politicians that should be convicted?

Watching England lose to Australia isn't probably the best time to post.

[EternalOptimist]

His eyebrows should be preserved for the nation. In a museum or something

[Sysman]

Apart from the bin job on the TSR2 he was mostly harmless.

And he'd done stuff other than PPfeckingE at Oxbridge before going into politicks.

I remembered him for the phrase "Tax the rich until the pips squeak" so tapped it into the search box.

I got this instead:

"In a speech in Lincoln on 18 February 1974, reported in The Times the following day, Healey went further, promising he would "squeeze property speculators until the pips squeak" and said Lord Carrington, the Conservative Secretary of State for Energy, had made £10m profit from selling agricultural land at prices 30 to 60 times as high as it would command as farming land. He was later widely reported as saying that Labour would "tax the rich until the pips squeak", which Healey denied. "

I could never quite forgive for him for what turns out to be a misquote. He's just gone up in my estimation.

Posthumously of course.

And of course who could forget the savaged by a dead sheep quip?

he likened being attacked by the mild-mannered Sir Geoffrey Howe in the House of Commons to being "savaged by a dead sheep"