The Right Honourable The Lord Healey CH MBE PC FRSL
Healey in 1974
Deputy Leader of the Labour Party Deputy Leader of the Opposition
In office 13 November 1980 – 2 October 1983
Leader	Michael Foot
Preceded by	Michael Foot
Succeeded by	Roy Hattersley
Chancellor of the Exchequer
In office 4 March 1974 – 4 May 1979
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson James Callaghan
Preceded by	Anthony Barber
Succeeded by	Geoffrey Howe
Secretary of State for Defence
In office 16 October 1964 – 19 June 1970
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson
Preceded by	Peter Thorneycroft
Succeeded by	The Lord Carrington
Shadow Cabinet posts Shadow Foreign Secretary In office 8 December 1980 – 13 July 1987 Leader Michael Foot Neil Kinnock Preceded by Peter Shore Succeeded by Gerald Kaufman In office 22 July 1970 – 19 April 1972 Leader Harold Wilson Preceded by Michael Stewart Succeeded by James Callaghan In office 7 July 1960 – 30 November 1961 Leader Hugh Gaitskell Preceded by Aneurin Bevan Succeeded by Harold Wilson Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer In office 4 May 1979 – 8 December 1980 Leader James Callaghan Michael Foot Preceded by Geoffrey Howe Succeeded by Peter Shore In office 19 April 1972 – 4 March 1974 Leader Harold Wilson Preceded by Roy Jenkins Succeeded by Robert Carr Shadow Secretary of State for Defence In office 19 June 1970 – 22 July 1970 Leader Harold Wilson Preceded by Geoffrey Rippon Succeeded by George Thomson In office 22 February 1963 – 16 October 1964 Leader Harold Wilson Preceded by Patrick Gordon Walker Succeeded by Peter Thorneycroft Shadow Secretary of State for the Colonies In office 30 November 1961 – 22 February 1963 Leader Hugh Gaitskell George Brown Preceded by James Callaghan Succeeded by Arthur Bottomley
Parliamentary offices Member of theHouse of Lords Lord Temporal Life peerage 29 June 1992 – 3 October 2015 Member of Parliament forLeeds East In office 26 May 1955 – 16 March 1992 Preceded by Constituency established Succeeded by George Mudie Member of Parliament forLeeds South East In office 7 February 1952 – 6 May 1955 Preceded by James Milner Succeeded by Alice Bacon
Personal details
Born	Denis Winston Healey (1917-08-30)30 August 1917 Mottingham, Kent, England
Died	3 October 2015(2015-10-03) (aged 98) Alfriston,East Sussex, England
Resting place	St Andrew's Church
Political party	Labour
Spouse	Edna Edmunds ​ ​ (m. 1945; died 2010)​
Children	3
Alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford
Military service
Branch/service	British Army
Years of service	1940–1945
Rank	Major
Unit	Royal Engineers
Battles/wars	Second World War North African campaign Italian campaign Battle of Anzio
Awards	Member of the Order of the British Empire

Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey^[1] (30 August 1917 – 3 October 2015) was a BritishLabour Party politician who served asChancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979 and asSecretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970; he remains the longest-serving Defence Secretary to date. He was aMember of Parliament from 1952 to 1992, and wasDeputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1980 to 1983. To the public at large, Healey became well known for his bushy eyebrows, his avuncular manner and his creative turns of phrase.

Healey attended theUniversity of Oxford and served as aMajor in theSecond World War. He was later an agent for theInformation Research Department (IRD), a secret branch of theForeign Office dedicated to spreading anti-communist propaganda during the earlyCold War.^[2][3][4] Healey was first elected toParliament in aby-election in 1952 for the seat ofLeeds South East. He moved to the seat ofLeeds East at the1955 election, which he represented until his retirement at the1992 election.

After Labour's victory at the1964 election, he was appointed to theCabinet by Prime MinisterHarold Wilson as Defence Secretary; he held this role until Labour's defeat at the1970 election, making him the longest-serving Secretary of State for Defence to date. When Labour returned to power after the1974 election, Wilson appointed HealeyChancellor of the Exchequer. He stood for the leadership of the Labour Party in theelection to replace Wilson in March 1976, but lost toJames Callaghan; Callaghan retained Healey as Chancellor in hisnew government. During his time as Chancellor, Healey notably sought an international loan from theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) for the British economy, which imposed external conditions on public spending.^[5][6]

Healey stood a second time for the leadership of the Labour Party inNovember 1980, but narrowly lost toMichael Foot. Foot immediately chose Healey as his Deputy Leader, but after the Labour Party agreed a series of changes to the rules governing leadership elections,Tony Benn launched achallenge to Healey for the role; the election was bitterly contested throughout most of 1981, and Healey was able to beat the challenge by less than 1%. Standing down as Deputy Leader after Labour's landslide defeat at the1983 election, Healey remained in the Shadow Cabinet until 1987, and entered theHouse of Lords soon after his retirement from Parliament in 1992. Healey died in 2015 at the age of 98, having become the oldest sitting member of the House of Lords, and the last surviving member of Harold Wilson's first government formed in 1964.

Denis Winston Healey was born inMottingham, Kent, son of William Healey (1886–1977) and Winifred Mary (1889–1988), née Powell. The family moved toKeighley in theWest Riding of Yorkshire when he was five.^[7] His middle name honouredWinston Churchill.^[8] His father, the son of a tailor fromGlenfarne,County Leitrim, was an engineering mechanic who worked his way up from humble origins, winning an engineering scholarship to Leeds University and qualifying to teach engineering, eventually becoming head of Keighley Technical School.

Healey had one brother, Terence Blair Healey (1920–1998), known as Terry.^{[citation needed]} Healey's family often spent the summer in Scotland during his youth.^{[citation needed]}

Healey was privately educated atBradford Grammar School. In 1936 he won anexhibition scholarship toBalliol College, Oxford, to readGreats. He there became involved inLabour politics, although he was not active in theOxford Union Society. Also while at Oxford, Healey joined theCommunist Party in 1937 during theGreat Purge,^[9] but left in 1940 after theFall of France.

At Oxford, Healey met future Prime MinisterEdward Heath (then known as "Teddy"), whom he succeeded as president of Balliol CollegeJunior Common Room, and who became a lifelong friend and political rival.

Healey achieved adouble first degree, awarded in 1940. He was a Harmsworth Senior Scholar atMerton College, Oxford in 1940.^[10]

After graduation, Healey served in theSecond World War as agunner in theRoyal Artillery before being commissioned as asecond lieutenant in April 1941.^[11] Serving with theRoyal Engineers, he saw action in theNorth African campaign, theAllied invasion of Sicily (1943) and theItalian campaign (1943–1945) and was the military landing officer ("beach master") for the British assault brigade atAnzio in 1944. He was twice mentioned in dispatches during this campaign.^[12]

Healey became anMBE in 1945.^[13]He left the service with the rank ofMajor. He declined an offer to remain in the army, with the rank ofLieutenant colonel, as part of the team researching thehistory of the Italian campaign underColonel David Hunt. He also decided against taking up a senior scholarship at Balliol, which might have led to an academic career.^[14]

Healey joined the Labour Party. Still in uniform, he gave a strongly left-wing speech to the Labour Party conference in 1945, declaring, "the upper classes in every country are selfish, depraved, dissolute and decadent"^[15] shortly before thegeneral election in which he narrowly failed to win theConservative-held seat ofPudsey and Otley, doubling the Labour vote but losing by 1,651 votes.^[16]

He became secretary of the international department of the Labour Party in 1945, becoming a foreign policy adviser to Labour leaders and establishing contacts with socialists across Europe.^[17] He was a strong opponent of theCommunist Party of Great Britain at home and theSoviet Union internationally.^[18] From 1948 to 1960 he was a councillor for theRoyal Institute of International Affairs and theInternational Institute for Strategic Studies from 1958 until 1961. He was a member of theFabian Society executive from 1954 until 1961. Healey used his position as the Labour Party's International Secretary to promote theKorean War on behalf of British state propagandists,^[2][19] usedBritish intelligence agencies to attack Marxist leaders withinUK trade unions,^[20] and to exploit his position in government to publish his books through IRD propaganda fronts.^[21][22]

Healey was one of the leading players in the Königswinter conference that was organised byLilo Milchsack that was credited with helping to heal the bad memories after the end of the Second World War. Healey metHans von Herwarth, the ex soldierFridolin von Senger und Etterlin and future German PresidentRichard von Weizsäcker and other leadingWest German decision makers. The conference also included other leading British thinkers likeRichard Crossman and the journalistRobin Day.^[23]

Healey was elected to theHouse of Commons as MP forLeeds South East at aby-election in February 1952,^[24] with a majority of 7,000 votes. Following constituency boundary changes, he was elected forLeeds East at the1955 general election, holding that seat until he retired as an MP in 1992. During these years, Healey was close friends with the Rev. CanonErnest Southcott, and Douglas Gabb, who would go on to becomeLord Mayor of Leeds.^[25]

He was a moderate on the right during the series of splits in the Labour Party in the 1950s. He was asupporter and friend ofHugh Gaitskell, Leader of the Labour Party. He persuaded Gaitskell to temper his initial support for British military action in 1956 when theSuez Canal was seized by theNasserist Egypt, resulting in theSuez Crisis.^[26] In1959 he was elected on to theShadow Cabinet where he was made the deputy to theShadow Foreign Secretary,Aneurin Bevan.^[27]

When Gaitskell died in 1963, he was horrified at the idea of Gaitskell's volatile deputy,George Brown, leading Labour, saying "He was like immortal Jemima; when he was good he was very good but when he was bad he was horrid". In the1963 Labour Party leadership election, he voted forJames Callaghan in the first ballot andHarold Wilson in the second. Healey thought Wilson would unite the Labour Party and lead it to victory in the next general election. He didn't think Brown was capable of doing either. He was appointedShadow Secretary of State for Defence after the creation of the position in 1964.

Following Labour's victory in the1964 general election, Healey served asSecretary of State for Defence under Prime Minister Harold Wilson. He was responsible for 450,000British Armed Forces uniformed servicemen and women, and for 406,000 civil servants stationed around the globe. He was best known for his economising, liquidating most of Britain's military role outside of Europe and cancelling expensive projects. The cause was not a fiscal crisis but rather a decision to shift money and priorities to the domestic budget and maintain a commitment toNATO.^[28] He cutdefence expenditure, scrapping the carrierHMS Centaur and the reconstructedHMS Victorious in 1967, cancelling the proposedCVA-01fleet-carrier replacement and, just before Labour's defeat in 1970, downgradingHMS Hermes to acommando carrier. He cancelled the fifth plannedPolaris submarine. He also cancelled the production of theHawker Siddeley P.1154 andHS 681 aircraft and, more controversially, both the production of theBAC TSR-2 and subsequent purchase of theF-111 in lieu.^[29][30]

Of the scrappedRoyal Navyaircraft carriers, Healey commented that to most ordinary seamen they were just "floating slums" and "too vulnerable".^[29][30] He continued postwar Conservative governments' reliance on strategic and tactical nuclear deterrence for the Navy, RAF andWest Germany and supported the sale of advanced arms abroad, including to regimes such as those inPahlavi Iran,Libya,Chile, andapartheid South Africa, to which he supplied nuclear-capableBuccaneer S.2 strike bombers and approved a repeat order. This brought him into serious conflict with Wilson, who had, initially, also supported the policy. Healey later said he had made the wrong decision on selling arms toSouth Africa.^[26]

In January 1968, a few weeks after thedevaluation of the pound, Wilson and Healey announced that the two large British fleet carriers HMSArk Royal and HMSEagle would be scrapped in 1972. They also announced that British troops would be withdrawn in 1971 and the British military and navy bases inSouth East Asia, "East of Aden", closed, large facilities inMalaysia and Singapore and thePersian Gulf and theMaldives.^[31][32] The next Prime MinisterEdward Heath slowed the implementation of the policy, with 5/6 frigates on station East of Suez until 1976, when Healey as Chancellor used theIMF crisis to withdraw the Royal Navy frigates attached to theFive Power Defence Arrangements squadron and theHong Kong Guard frigate,HMS Chichester.^[33] Healey also authorised the removal of theChagossians from theChagos Archipelago and authorised the building of theUnited States military base atDiego Garcia. Following Labour's defeat in the1970 general election, he became Shadow Defence Secretary.

Healey was appointedShadow Chancellor in April 1972 afterRoy Jenkins resigned in a row over theEuropean Economic Community (Common Market). At the Labour Party conference on 1 October 1973, he said, "I warn you that there are going to be howls of anguish from those rich enough to pay over 75% on their last slice of earnings".^[34] In a speech in Lincoln on 18 February 1974, Healey went further, promising he would "squeeze property speculators until the pips squeak". He alleged thatLord Carrington, the Conservative Secretary of State for Energy, had made £10m profit from sellingagricultural land at prices 30 to 60 times as high as it would command as farming land.^[35] When accused by colleagues includingEric Heffer of putting Labour's chances of winning the next election in jeopardy through his tax proposals, Healey said the party and the country must face the consequences of Labour's policy of theredistribution of income and wealth; "That is what our policy is, the party must face the realities of it".^[36]

Healey becameChancellor of the Exchequer in March 1974 after Labour returned to power as a minority government. His tenure is sometimes divided intoHealey Mark I andHealey Mark II.^[37] The divide is marked by his decision, taken with Prime MinisterJames Callaghan, to seek anInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) loan and submit theBritish economy to IMF supervision. The loan was negotiated and agreed in November and December 1976, and announced in Parliament on 15 December 1976.^[38][39] Within some parts of the Labour Party the transition from Healey Mark I (which had seen a proposal for awealth tax) to Healey Mark II (associated with government-specifiedwage control) was regarded as a betrayal. Healey's policy of increasing benefits for the poor meant those earning over £4,000 per year would be taxed more heavily. His first budget saw increases infood subsidies,pensions and other benefits.^[40]

WhenHarold Wilson stood down asLeader of the Labour Party in 1976, Healey stood in thecontest to elect the new leader. On the first ballot he came only fifth out of six candidates. However, he also contested the second round, coming third of the three candidates but increasing his vote somewhat.

Labour lost thegeneral election to the Conservatives, led byMargaret Thatcher in May 1979, following theWinter of Discontent during which Britain had faced a large number of strikes. On 12 June 1979, Healey was appointed aMember of the Order of the Companions of Honour.^[41] He won the most votes in the1979 Shadow Cabinet elections which followed andThe Glasgow Herald suggested that this showed that he was the "strongest contender" to succeed Callaghan asLeader of the Labour Party.^[42]

When Callaghan stood down as Labour Party leader in November 1980, Healey was the favourite to win theleadership election, decided by Labour MPs. In September, an opinion poll had found that when asked who would make the best prime minister if Healey were Labour leader, 45% chose Healey over 39% for Thatcher.^[43] However, he lost toMichael Foot. He seems to have taken the support of the right of the party for granted; in one notable incident, Healey was reputed to have told the right-wingManifesto Group they must vote for him as they had "nowhere else to go". WhenMike Thomas, the MP forNewcastle East defected to theSocial Democratic Party (SDP), he said he had been tempted to send Healey a telegram saying he had found "somewhere else to go". Four Labour MPs who defected to the SDP in early 1981 later said they voted for Foot in order to give the Labour Party an unelectable left-wing leader, thus helping their newly established party.^[44]

In an essay addressing why Healey did not become Prime Minister or Labour leader,Steve Richards states that in 1980 Healey, not Foot, was widely expected by the media and many political figures to be the next Labour leader.^[45] Richards also notes that by that point, his main rivals as leaders from the right of the party,Roy Jenkins andAnthony Crosland, were no longer in contention for the position, with the former out of Parliament and the latter having died in 1977.^[46] However, he also argues that while "Healey was widely seen as the obvious successor to Callaghan", and that sections of the media ultimately reacted with "disbelief" at Labour not choosing him to be their leader, the decision to opt for Foot "was not as perverse as it seemed". He argues that Labour MPs were looking for a figure from the left who could unite the wider party with the leadership, which Healey could not do. Richards believes that Foot was not a "tribal politician" and had proved he could work with those of different ideologies and had been a loyal deputy to Callaghan and so came to be "seen as the unity candidate" which allowed him to defeat Healey.^[47]

Healey was returned unopposed as deputy leader to Foot, but the next year was challenged byTony Benn under the new election system, one in which individual members and trades unions voted alongside sitting members of Parliament. The contest was seen as a battle for the soul of the Labour Party, and the long debate over the summer of 1981 ended on 27 September with Healey winning by 50.4% to Benn's 49.6%.^[48] The narrowness of Healey's majority can be attributed to theTransport and General Workers' Union (TGWU) delegation to the Labour Party conference. Ignoring its members, who had shown two-to-one majority support for Healey, it cast the union's block vote (the largest in the union section) for Benn. A significant factor in Benn's narrow loss, however, was the abstention of 20 MPs from the left-wingTribune Group,^[49] which split as a result. Healey attracted just enough support from other unions,Constituency Labour Parties, and Labour MPs to win.

Healey wasShadow Foreign Secretary during most of the 1980s, a job he coveted. He believed Foot was initially too willing to supportmilitary action after theFalkland Islands were invaded byArgentina in April 1982.^[26] He accused Thatcher of "glorying in slaughter", and had to withdraw the remark (he later claimed he had meant to say "conflict"). Healey was retained in theshadow cabinet byNeil Kinnock, who succeeded Foot following the disastrous1983 general election, when the Conservatives bolstered their majority and Labour suffered their worst general election result in decades. Healey had declined to run as leader to succeed Foot and stood down as deputy leader.

Healey's views onnuclear weapons conflicted with theunilateral nuclear disarmament policy of the Labour Party. After the1987 general election, he retired from the Shadow Cabinet, and in 1992 stood down after 40 years as a Leeds MP. In that year he received alife peerage asBaron Healey, ofRiddlesden in theCounty of West Yorkshire.^[50] Healey was regarded by some – especially in the Labour Party – as "the best Prime Minister we never had".^[51] He was a founding member of theBilderberg Group.^[52] He was interviewed on his role as a co-founder of the Bilderberg Group byJon Ronson for the bookThem: Adventures with Extremists.^[53][54]

During an interview withNick Clarke onBBC Radio 4, Healey was the first Labour politician to publicly declare his wish for the Labour leadership to pass toTony Blair in 1994, following the death ofJohn Smith. Healey later became critical of Blair. He publicly opposed Blair's decision to use military force inKosovo,Afghanistan, andIraq.^[26] In the spring of 2004, and again in 2005, he publicly called on Blair to stand down in favour ofGordon Brown. In July 2006 he argued, "Nuclear weapons are infinitely less important inour foreign policy than they were in the days of theCold War", and, "I don't think we need nuclear weapons any longer".^[55] As defence secretary, Healey had been designated to take control of theBritish nuclear deterrent should the Prime Minister have been incapacitated; he later said that "though I am convinced that nuclear weapons prevented a world war, I could never have authorised their use".^[56]

In March 2013 during an interview with theNew Statesman, Healey said that if there was areferendum on British membership of the EU, he would vote to leave.^[57] In May, he further said: "I wouldn't object strongly to leaving theEU. The advantages of being members of the union are not obvious. The disadvantages are very obvious. I can see the case for leaving – the case for leaving is stronger than for staying in".^[58]

Following the death ofAlan Campbell, Baron Campbell of Alloway, in June 2013, Healey became the oldest sitting member of theHouse of Lords.^[59] Following the death ofJohn Freeman on 20 December 2014, Healey became the surviving former MP with the earliest date of first election, and the second-oldest surviving former MP, afterRonald Atkins.

Healey's notably bushy eyebrows and piercing wit earned him a favourable reputation with the public. When the media were not present, his humour was equally caustic but more risqué. The popular impressionistMike Yarwood coined the catchphrase "Silly Billy", and incorporated it into his shows as a supposed "Healey-ism". Healey had never said it until that point, but he adopted it and used it frequently. Healey's direct speech made enemies. "At a meeting of the PLP I accusedIan Mikardo of being 'out of his tiny Chinese mind' – a phrase of the comedienneHermione Gingold, with which I thought everyone was familiar. On the contrary, when it leaked to the press, theChinese Embassy took it as an insult to thePeople's Republic."^[60] The controversy may have contributed to a poor performance when he fought forthe Labour leadership followingHarold Wilson's resignation.^{[citation needed]}

Healey's long-serving deputy at the Treasury,Joel Barnett, in response to a remark by a third party that "Denis Healey would sell his own grandmother", quipped, "No, he would get me to do it for him". On 14 June 1978, Healey likened being attacked by the mild-manneredSir Geoffrey Howe in theHouse of Commons to being "savaged by a dead sheep".^[61] Nevertheless, Howe appeared and paid warm tribute when Healey was featured onThis Is Your Life in 1989.^{[citation needed]} The two remained friends for many years, and Howe died only six days after Healey.

Healey marriedEdna May Edmunds on 21 December 1945, the two having met at Oxford University before the war. The couple had three children, one of whom is the broadcaster and writer Tim Healey.^[62][63] Edna Healey died on 21 July 2010, aged 92.^[64] They were married for almost 65 years and lived inAlfriston, East Sussex.^[65] In 1987, Edna underwent an operation at aprivate hospital – this event drawing media attention as being seemingly at odds with Healey's pro-NHS beliefs. Challenged on the apparent inconsistency by the presenterAnne Diamond onTV-am, Healey refused to comment and ended the interview.^[66] He then punched journalistAdam Boulton with ajab.^[67][68]

Healey was an amateur photographer for many years;^[69] he also enjoyed music, painting and reading crime fiction. He sometimes played popular piano pieces at public events.^[70] In a May 2012 interview forThe Daily Telegraph, Healey reported that he was swimming 20 lengths a day in his outdoor pool.^[71] Healey was interviewed in 2012 as part ofThe History of Parliament's oral history project.^[72][73]

After a short illness, Healey died in his sleep at his home inAlfriston,Sussex, on 3 October 2015, aged 98. He was buried alongside his wife in the graveyard of St Andrew's Church, Alfriston.^[74][75] In 2017, his personal archives were deposited at theBodleian Library.^[76]

Ribbon	Name	Notes
	Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour	12 June 1979	CH
	Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire	13 December 1945	MBE
	Mentioned in dispatches x 2

In 2004, Healey became the recipient of the firstVeteran's Badge.^[77]

Healey is credited with popularising in the UK a proverb which became known as Healey'sFirst law of holes.^[78][79] This is a minor adaptation of a saying often attributed toWill Rogers.

Healey is the only Chancellor of the Exchequer to have appeared onBBC One'sMorecambe and Wise Show.^[80] In 1986 he appeared in series one ofSaturday Live. He was portrayed byDavid Fleeshman in the 2002 BBC production ofIan Curteis'sThe Falklands Play. He appeared onThe Dame Edna Experience in the song and dance number "Style" alongside actorRoger Moore.

Healey was satirised in the ITV seriesSpitting Image, his caricature mainly focusing on his famous eyebrows, with the real Healey appearing in the twelfth episode of the programme's first series in 1984 briefly noting the show was late coveringthat year's European elections.^[81] The iconic eyebrows were similarly parodied in the 1977 serialThe Sun Makers from the Britishscience fiction television seriesDoctor Who, in which the antagonist known as the Collector is distinguished by having similarly bushy eyebrows to Healey.

In 1994, Healey appeared in a TV advertisement forVisa Debit cards. This was banned by theIndependent Television Commission as it contained a reference to a scandal, subsequently revealed to be a fabrication, involvingNorman Lamont's personal life. Healey had appeared in an advert forSainsbury's in the previous year.^[82]

DuringLed Zeppelin's 1975 and 1977 concert tours,Robert Plant facetiously dedicated the song "In My Time of Dying" to Healey for thetax exile issues the band was facing. DuringYes's recording of what was to become the albumTormato (1978), there was an outtake called "Money", on which the Yes keyboardist at the time,Rick Wakeman, provides a satirical voice-over parodying Healey.^[83]

Healey's publications include:Healey's Eye (photography, 1980),The Time of My Life (his autobiography, 1989),When Shrimps Learn to Whistle (1990),My Secret Planet (an anthology, 1992),Denis Healey's Yorkshire Dales (1995) andHealey's World (2002).

• Healey, Denis.The time of my life (London: Michael Joseph, 1989),
• Pearce, Edward, and Denis Healey.Denis Healey: a life in our times (Little, Brown, 2002).

• Black, Lawrence. "'The Bitterest Enemies of Communism': Labour Revisionists, Atlanticism and the Cold War."Contemporary British History 15.3 (2001): 26–62. Healey was a bitter enemy.
• Callaghan, John.The Labour Party and foreign policy: a history (Routledge, 2007).
• Dell, Edmund.The Chancellors: A History of the Chancellors of the Exchequer, 1945–90 (HarperCollins, 1997) pp. 400–48, covers his term as Chancellor.
• Dell, Edmund.A hard pounding: politics and economic crisis, 1974–1976 (Oxford UP, 1991).
• Heppell, Tim, and Andrew Crines. "How Michael Foot won the Labour Party leadership."The Political Quarterly 82.1 (2011): 81–94.
• Insall, Tony.Haakon Lie, Denis Healey and the Making of an Anglo-Norwegian Special Relationship 1945–1951 (Unipub, Oslo, 2010).
• Pearce, Edward. "Denis Healey" in Kevin Jefferys, ed.Labour Forces: From Ernie Bevin to Gordon Brown (2002) pp. 135–54.
• Radice, Giles.The Tortoise and the Hares: Attlee, Bevin, Cripps, Dalton, Morrison (Politico's Publishing, 2008).
• Reed, Bruce, and Geoffrey Lee Williams.Denis Healey and the policies of power (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1971).

Wikiquote has quotations related toDenis Healey.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toDenis Healey.

• Hansard 1803–2005:contributions in Parliament by Denis Healey
• Appearances onC-SPAN
• Denis Healey atIMDb
• Births England and Wales 1837–1983
• Interview about nuclear strategy in Europe for theWGBH-TV series,War and Peace in the Nuclear Age, 1986
• The old bruiser who remained the boy next door, William Keegan,The Observer, 3 December 2006, interview and retrospective
• Denis Healey at 90, Elinor Goodman,BBC News, 30 March 2007
• "Desert Island Discs".Desert Island Discs. 14 June 2009.BBC News.Radio 4.
• Portraits of Denis Healey at theNational Portrait Gallery, London
• Interview as part of the History of Parliament oral history project

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