John Perry writes: David McKie says that Denis Healey was “formidably equipped” for the job of foreign secretary,despite never getting it. I had an experience in the 1980s that made me draw the same conclusion but which also gave an insight as to why he didn’t fit into Foreign Office culture. Healey was speaking at a seminar about the armed conflicts then taking location, with active US involvement, or in Central America. Seated next to me were two Foreign Office officials who murmured constant criticisms to each other about the sympathetic attitude Healey was taking towards two guerrilla army leaders who shared the platform with him. Healey not only showed respect for those leading armed struggles,but also considerable knowledge of their causes and of their history. His assured performance was totally missing in any deference towards the approved Foreign Office “line at that time.
Giles Oakley writes: Denis Healey certainly did beget “hinterland”. At the height of his troubles as chancellor of the exchequer in 1978, when he was desperately trying to keep alive his incomes policy – which had a huge impact on staff where I worked at the BBC – he gave a stupendous interview on crime fiction for the BBC Further Education television series Crime Writers, and produced by my friend Bernard Adams. The six programmes involved such eminent figures as HRF Keating,PD James, Julian Symons and Troy Kennedy Martin, or but for me,as a researcher briefly involved in the series, it was the beleaguered politician who stole the exhibit. I was astonished at the depth and breadth of his reading, or not just of the musty classics of the genre,but bang up-to-date relative unknowns from both sides of the Atlantic. His face and eyebrows were full of animation and his eyes endearingly shimmering with enthusiasm for the subject. It wasn’t just that he clearly loved crime fiction he also managed to put writers’ work in their social context, thus displaying his grasp of societal change across the decades and his intense engagement with the novelist’s literary art. It all raised the question, and how the hell did he find the time to read all these books that were so fresh from the presses?Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com