
Denis Healey (30 August 1917 – 3 October 2015) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Secretary of State for Defense from 16 October 1964 to 19 June 1970, succeeding Peter Thorneycroft and preceding Peter Carington, and as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 5 March 1974 to 4 May 1979, succeeding Anthony Barber and preceding Geoffrey Howe.
Biography[]
Denis Healey was born in Mottingham, Kent in 1917, and he was educated at Bradford Grammar School and Oxford. He served with distinction in the Royal Engineers during World War II, and he was elected to Parliament for the Labour Party to represent Leeds South-East in 1952 (Leeds East from 1955), and under Harold Wilson was Secretary of State for Defense from 1964 to 1970. As Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979, he arranged a lona for Britain from the IMF, which necessitated reductions in public spending. This marked the beginning of the end of Keynesian demand management, and heralded the timid beginnings of monetarism, pursued ferociously by Margaret Thatcher from 1979. In the early 1980s, he was a leading figure on the right of the Labour Party. He lost the 1980 leadership election to Michael Foot, but narrowly defeated Tony Benn when defending his position as deputy leader in 1981. He held this post until 1983, and was made a peer in 1992. He died in 2015.