One of the last of the big political beasts of my (relative) youth has now departed.

He held office as Defence Secretary for 6 years but was more famous as a Chancellor of the Exchequer excoriated by the left for his adoption of wage controls in 1976 and immortalised in a song – to the tune of What a Friend We Have in Jesus – about the Callaghan Government which contained the line, “All the bad was done by Healey, all the good by Tony Benn.” But Healey in a deaperate bind. There had been an oil price rise of 400%. Imagine today’s politicians coping with that.

His obituaries on the television skipped over his war record to concentrate on his political career. But one of the most striking things I ever heard about him was that he was the Beachmaster (for the British sector) at the Anzio Landings a job of no small responsibility. He’s worth an obituary for that alone.

Denis Winston Healey: 30/8/1917–3/10/2015. So it goes.

Two in two days. First Bob Crow, then Tony Benn. Are there any prominent left wingers left in the UK?

I must say it has been faintly sickening to hear those who had nothing good to say about them in their lifetimes come out with all sorts of praise now they are safely dead. I did think it was unwise of David Cameron to say of Tony Benn, “There was never a dull moment listening to or reading him, even if you disagreed with him,” as it invites invidious comparisons.

Anthony Wedgwood Benn, as Viscount Stansgate, was the first person in the UK to renounce a peerage. This was in order to retain his seat as an MP which as a peer eligible to sit in the House of Lords he could not under the law as it stood. Had his elder brother not been killed on active service in the Second World War his campaign to be allowed this would not have been necessary and that law might still be in place. Ironically Benn’s success in getting the law changed afforded Alec Douglas Home the opportunity to do just the same with his peerage and so become Prime Minister – an office Benn himself never achieved.

Benn has been represented in today’s news coverage as somehow unwilling to come to terms with politics as it unfolded. Another way of saying this would be to say he was not a trimmer. Instead he stuck to the principles of fairness he had long espoused. I note here that a certain other conviction politician broadly contemporaneous with Benn was lauded for not being a trimmer. Funny old world, eh?

Mind you, if you’re anti-establishment in the UK you seldom receive a good press. (Unless you are recenty deceased, obviously.)

Robert (Bob) Crow : 13/06/1961 – 11/3/2014.
Anthony Neil Wedgwood (Tony) Benn : 3/4/1925 – 14/3-2014.
So it goes.