Lord Jenkins of Hillhead

Few public figures have had as successful and satisfying a life as Roy Jenkins.

In a long political career, spanning over half a century, he linked the world of Clement Attlee, Herbert Morrison and Hugh Dalton with that of Tony Blair – all of whom he knew well. As a Labour Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer, between 1965 and 1970, he achieved an outstanding reputation. He gained a brief respite from the growing conflict in the Labour Party by becoming Britain's first (and so far only) President of the European Commission in 1976. He then began a remarkable comeback to British politics by being a co-founder in 1981 and, from 1982, first leader of the Social Democratic Party. He was consoled by his defeat as an MP in the 1987 general election by being elected a few months earlier as Chancellor of Oxford University. In old age he enjoyed a renaissance, combining an important role in Oxford and the House of Lords with writing acclaimed biographies and advising the new Labour prime minister Tony Blair. He became an establishment figure and an elder statesman.

In addition, he was an outstanding and prolific historian, essayist and reviewer. The title of his memoirs, A Life at the Centre (1991), reflected a career at the heart of public affairs and adherence to the middle ground in politics, as well as his ease in high society.

For the first half of his career, Jenkins was a key figure in Labour politics. In the 1970s, particularly from 1972, he became a semi- detached member of the party, even when a cabinet minister. For the final half of his life, as a Social Democrat and then a Liberal Democrat, he worked to create a broader centre-left coalition, including but looking beyond the Labour Party. Throughout, he was committed to libertarianism, a mixed economy and internationalism. Unlike his friend and, later, political rival, Tony Crosland, he did not espouse a political philosophy. He seemed to believe that, if you found 20 men and women of liberal disposition, goodwill and minds of their own, government could function almost by instinct; it did not need an ideology.

In Labour Party terms, Roy Jenkins had an ideal background. He was born in South Wales, in 1920, and his father, Arthur Jenkins, was a trade-union official, then an NUM- sponsored MP for Pontypool (1936-46) and also Clement Attlee's PPS from 1940. His father was a remarkable man, winning a scholarship to Ruskin College and then studying at the Sorbonne. The Jenkins home had a large collection of books, as befitted a product of the school of self-improvement. Roy's mother, Hattie, was a magistrate and county councillor, and had a reputation as a snob. He grew up in an ambitious, hard-working and intensely political household. His parents regularly entertained prominent Labour figures who visited the principality. They had high expectations for him, which he fulfilled.

From Abersychan County School, Jenkins went to Balliol College, Oxford, and gained a First in PPE in 1941. Fellow Balliol students were Ted Heath and Denis Healey and Tony Crosland was at Oxford at the same time. There was a book to be written about the friendship, rivalry and ambitions of Healey, Crosland and Jenkins – and it was in 2002: Friends and Rivals, by Giles Radice. During the Second World War Jenkins served with the Royal Artillery and spent time with the codebreakers at Bletchley. He never exploited his Welshness or his mining father. It might have been difficult to do, given his cut-glass accent and social assurance; an Oxford don had referred to him as "Nature's Old Etonian". In the House of Lords he comported himself like a Tory grandee. He even mispronounced the letter R; hence the unkind jibes about "Woy".

In the 1945 general election, Jenkins failed to win Solihull and was then disappointed not to be selected for his father's Pontypool constituency on the latter's death in 1946. Like other Welsh politicians, notably Nye Bevan and Neil Kinnock, he made for the metropolis, where political fame and fortune lay. After a short spell as an MP for Southwark Central, he began in 1950 a 26-year association with Birmingham as MP for the Stetchford constituency. By the 1960s, he was part of a phalanx of able Gaitskellite Birmingham MPs, including Denis Howell, Roy Hattersley and Brian Walden.

Jenkins was lucky enough not to waste the best years of his life in opposition between 1951 and 1964. He regularly represented Labour on television and radio current-affairs programmes and wrote acclaimed history books, including Mr Balfour's Poodle (1954), a study of the pre-1914 Liberal government's clashes with the House of Lords. There were also biographies of Charles Dilke (Sir Charles Dilke: a Victorian tragedy, 1958) and H.H. Asquith (Asquith, 1964), and the last sold very well. He seemed to identify more with the laid-back Asquith than the Welsh Lloyd George.

Jenkins was now a literary figure in his own right and a darling of the liberal broadsheets. Their admiration increased further when he sponsored the Obscene Publications Act in 1959. This allowed a defence of literary merit in cases of obscene libel and was exploited successfully by lawyers defending Penguin's publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1960. In these years he was nearly lost to politics. In 1963, doubtful about his prospects under Harold Wilson, the new Labour leader, he was briefly attracted by the offer of editorship of The Economist.

As a young Labour MP, Jenkins fell under the spell of Hugh Gaitskell, even before the latter became party leader in 1955. He shared Gaitskell's judgements on all but one of the big issues of the day – membership of Nato, retention of nuclear weapons and acceptance of the mixed economy (all of which divided him from the left) – and was also a close friend of the leader. The exception was Europe, which he supported strongly. He was one of the inner core of Gaitskellites and one of the "Hampstead set". There was much cynical comment about the members' social backgrounds and life styles as well as their politics.

When Gaitskell came out against British membership of the European Community in his speech to the 1962 Labour conference, the two men disagreed and hardly spoke for several weeks. However, Gaitskell was Jenkins's political hero, combining intelligence and principle, and relations were being restored in the weeks before Gaitskell's death in January 1963. Soon, the Jenkinsites succeeded the Gaitskellites. A link between the two men was Bill Rodgers (later Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank), who became an organiser, whip and devoted lieutenant for Jenkins for the rest of his career. Jenkins had a remarkable capacity for attracting strong loyalty; he stuck to his friends and they remained steadfast.

He was not surprised when he was not included in Harold Wilson's first Cabinet in October 1964. Wilson had political debts to pay and the Cabinet was already top-heavy with ex-Gaitskellites. Jenkins was appointed to Aviation, outside the Cabinet, and then rose quickly. His first task was to persuade the Cabinet that, for legal reasons, it could not cancel plans to build the expensive Anglo-French Concorde supersonic aircraft. Soon afterwards, he turned down a move to Education and a seat in Cabinet; his heart was set on the Home Office. A year later he became Home Secretary, a post which had not enhanced the reputations of his immediate predecessors. Jenkins was determined to change the outlook of the department and not allow officials, particularly the dominating Permanent Secretary, Sir Charles Cunningham, to restrict his policy options.

Jenkins amply fulfilled the high expectations of liberals. He found parliamentary time for Private Members' Bills to ease the laws on abortion, theatre censorship and homosexuality. To his supporters the measures promoted civility, but to his opponents and later Thatcherites the measures ushered in the permissive society and all its evils. He also introduced majority verdicts in jury trials and began a much-needed programme of amalgamating local police forces. Jenkins had a lasting impact on the philosophy of the Home Office, and this was strengthened later in the areas of race relations and sex discrimination. He was given high marks by officials in all his departments for giving clear directions, delegating, and being decisive. He defied pressures from Harold Wilson and others to introduce restrictions on live theatre by threatening to resign.

But it was the pressures on sterling which made the headlines and undermined the Labour government. When the pound was finally devalued in November 1967, a discredited Chancellor, James Callaghan, swapped jobs with Roy Jenkins on 29 November. To his credit, Jenkins had wanted to devalue from the start of the government. His appointment at once made him Harold Wilson's heir apparent and he had overtaken others of his generation, such as Crosland, Healey and Tony Benn. He and Wilson were locked together in an uncomfortable alliance; his success or failure at the Treasury would determine the political fates of both.

At the Treasury, Jenkins gradually gained a reputation as an iron Chancellor, like Labour's Philip Snowden and Stafford Cripps before him. He was, however, slow to take the measures necessary to make devaluation work, namely increasing taxes and cutting public spending, and redirecting resources from consumption to exports. By the time of the 1970 general election, however, he had achieved a remarkable economic turnaround, a big increase in exports and the balance of payments in impressive surplus. But living standards for ordinary people showed only a tiny improvement and the pent-up wage pressures exploded under the successor government of Ted Heath.

Jenkins was subsequently blamed by some in the party for not having a traditional "giveaway" pre-election Budget and so losing Labour the 1970 general election. In retrospect, he felt that he should have delivered a slightly more expansionist Budget. But his reputation as a Chancellor who managed to balance the Budget attracted admiration across the political spectrum. His standing was particularly high when set against the records of his predecessor and of his successor, Tony Barber.

Between Wilson and Jenkins relations were often uneasy. Wilson was almost paranoid about plots and suspected the ambitions of Jenkins or, more often, those of his supporters. Many Labour MPs were convinced in 1968 and 1969 that without a change of leader a Labour defeat was certain at the polls. Jenkins was the name most often mentioned and the opportunity for winning the leadership was never again as favourable. The Jenkinsites were almost a party within a party.

In the immediate aftermath of the 1970 general-election defeat, Jenkins's stock was still high and he was elected deputy leader of the party. But Europe was the timebomb. The Heath government picked up the outgoing Labour government's application to enter the European Community. Jenkins had no doubts that a Labour government would have accepted the terms negotiated, were it still in office. But many in the Labour Party, particularly outside Parliament, were opposed to entry. A weak Harold Wilson tried to hold the ring between the supporters and opponents of entry.

In October 1971 in the Commons vote on the term of entry, Jenkins was one of 69 Labour MP s who defied a three-line whip and voted with the Heath government. It was a remarkable spectacle as Labour's deputy leader and other members of the Shadow Cabinet voted with the Tories. Jenkins was elevated in the media into a politician of principle. Many of his colleagues were jealous of his good press, none more so than Wilson. There was much muttering about the activities of Jenkins's special adviser, John Harris (later Lord Harris of Greenwich). Jenkins relied on Harris for media and political advice for much of his ministerial career. (Harris ended up as Chief Whip to Jenkins when the latter was Leader of the Lib Dems in the Lords.) The breaking point for Jenkins came when the Shadow Cabinet accepted Tony Benn's expedient of calling a referendum on membership of the EC. This was a concession too far to the antis for Jenkins and he resigned as deputy leader in April 1972. He also objected in principle to the referendum because it reduced the authority of Parliament and could be used to block the passage of progressive measures.

Harold Wilson, surprisingly returned to government in March 1974, made Jenkins Home Secretary in the new administration. The two most senior posts were already committed to Denis Healey and Jim Callaghan, although Wilson played until the last minute with the idea of returning Jerkins to the Treasury. The next two and a half years were dispiriting for Jenkins. He could not defend his government's posture of renegotiating the terms of membership of the EC and then subjecting them to a referendum. He deplored the growing influence of left-wing unions over economic policy and the short- termism which prevented the Government from pursuing a vigorous anti-inflation policy.

The party was moving to the left and his brand of social democracy was no longer fashionable. The political middle ground was being invaded by Tony Benn and Margaret Thatcher. As president of the pro-EC campaign in the 1975 referendum he enjoyed working with David Steel and William Whitelaw from the other parties.

In the aftermath of the Birmingham bombing, Jenkins as Home Secretary introduced the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act. This provided for exclusion orders and detention without charges for up to 48 hours. He brought in anti-discrimination legislation concerning race and gender. He also protected his friends in government, just as Michael Foot did his on the opposite wing. Reg Prentice, Education Secretary, was informed on a ministerial visit to Stockholm that he was being moved to a post outside the Cabinet. He immediately telephoned Jenkins, who made it clear to Wilson that he would resign if Prentice was demoted. Although Prentice was moved to Overseas Development he remained in the Cabinet.

When Wilson himself unexpectedly resigned in March 1976, Jenkins at last had the opportunity to bid for the leadership. It was too late. Plans for him to be offered the Presidency of the European Commission were already pretty advanced. Increasingly, he was seen as a factional figure. He finished a disappointing third, with 56 votes, on the first ballot. Callaghan, the man with fewest enemies, eventually emerged as the winner on the third ballot. Between 1968 and 1971 Jenkins had been favourite to succeed Wilson. But he had since lost ground, largely as a result of his resignation as deputy leader, which appeared to critics to place Europe above the interest of the party. In truth, he also lacked the killer instinct where the leadership was concerned.

Roy Jenkins would probably have stayed in British politics had the Foreign Secretaryship been on offer. Callaghan, however, gave him no encouragement. In fact, given the febrile state of the party on Europe, Jenkins's appointment would have been a red rag to the left. Callaghan considered that party management would be easier with Roy Jenkins out of the way. Callaghan was quite prepared to promote Roy Hattersley, Bill Rodgers, David Owen and Shirley Williams and keep John Harris at the Home Office, but he regarded a number of Jenkinsites as mischievous.

Jenkins soon departed to Brussels. The economic recession meant that this was not a good time to promote new schemes of integration. But in October 1977 in a major speech in Florence he relaunched the concept of monetary union. This was followed the next year by the decision to set up the European monetary system. He had a reasonable relationship with the French President, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, after an ugly row over his own status of the President of the Commission and whether he could attend EC summits, and a good one with the German Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt. He was unmoved by Margaret Thatcher's tirades at summits, as she demanded "her" money back from the European budget.

Well before the end of his presidency, his mind was turning back to British politics. He kept in close touch with his political friends and in the 1979 BBC Dimbleby lecture ("Home Thoughts from Abroad") he called for a realignment of British politics, one that would see the emergence of the "radical centre". He and the Liberal leader, David Steel, decided that a new party would be the best vehicle to attract disillusioned Labour MPs. The bad blood in the Labour Party was such that a number of right-wingers felt alienated, and Jenkins joined the "Gang of Three" (David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers) who launched the Social Democratic Party in January 1981; they were joined by over 20 Labour MPs.

Although he was widely recognised as the leading figure in the new party, it was not until March 1982 that Jenkins entered Parliament as Member for Glasgow Hillhead and then beat Owen in the leadership election among members by 57 per cent to 43 per cent.

In the 1983 general election Jenkins was Prime Minister-designate for the alliance of the SDP and Liberals. But he did not shine in the heightened exposure of the campaign. In the middle of it there was a secret and botched attempt, prompted by David Steel, to get him to step down as leader. In the end he settled for a lower profile. He resigned as SDP leader immediately after the election and was succeeded by David Owen, with whom relations had become strained as the latter resisted closer relations with the Liberals. Jenkins lost his Hillhead seat in the 1987 general election. His return to the House of Commons had not been a success. His entry in 1982 had coincided with the outbreak of the Falklands War and it was David Owen, as foreign affairs spokesman, who made the pace for the new party.

Earlier in 1987 he had been in his element in campaigning for the chancellorship of Oxford University. He was a convincing winner over Ted Heath and the historian Lord Blake, who divided the Conservative vote between them. The duties were largely ceremonial, but Jenkins enjoyed the opportunities and the platforms the post gave him for dining in colleges and public speaking. He was also an active fund-raiser for the university.

The two posts he would never relinquish, he used to say, were the Oxford chancellorship and the presidency of the Royal Society of Literature, to which he was elected in the following year, succeeding Sir Angus Wilson. For all these activities were combined with an extraordinary literary productivity. Gladstone, his 700-page biography of W.E. Gladstone, sold remarkably well and won the Whitbread award for biography in 1995. He wrote book-length biographies of Stanley Baldwin (Baldwin, 1987) and Harry Truman (Truman, 1986) and an account of his time as President of the European Commission, European Diary 1977-1981 (1989). He also wrote a book of portraits of Chancellors of the Exchequer from Randolph Churchill down to Kingsley Wood (The Chancellors, 1998), and countless essays on diverse subjects. In 2001, having passed his 80th year and survived a heart operation, he produced his massive Churchill, which drew the admiration of professional historians and figured in the best-seller lists. His last book, Twelve Cities: a personal memoir, essays on Cardiff, Birmingham and Glasgow, Paris, Brussels, Bonn and Berlin, Naples and Barcelona, Dublin, New York and Chicago, was published two months ago.

As a writer he was at his best in providing elegant, incisive personality portraits, often drawing on his own experience of political life. There was something rather old-fashioned about his loving interest in his subject's connections with great families and attendance at the élite public schools and universities. He wrote easily, in longhand, and made few corrections to early drafts. An early riser, he worked solidly until lunch. Until the end, he continued to produce book reviews, essays and lectures and to maintain his contacts with a wide range of centre-left political figures in the US and on the Continent.

In his late seventies he became a friend of Tony Blair. The two men shared an interest in constitutional reform, breaking down the Labour Party's tribalism, and encouraging co-operation between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, goals which Jenkins had promoted for over 20 years. It was appropriate that Blair invited Jenkins to chair a committee on electoral systems, which recommended a form of PR in late 1998.

There are many consistencies in Roy Jenkins's political career. His views on most subjects were more radical than those of many "moderate" politicians. But he also possessed a sense of timing and what was possible. He was principled to the point of being prepared to resign, as over Europe in 1972; he had also resigned from Labour's front bench in 1961, again over the European issue. Along with Ted Heath he was one of a handful of senior politicians who were genuine Europeans. But he was also a risk-taker and helped to split two political parties.

Jenkins believed that the Labour Party had to reach out beyond its declining constituencies and was a link with the liberal intelligentsia, respectable working-class, and middle-class supporters. He was not prepared to bend to the populist authoritarian voices in and out of the party, or compromise his own or his family's life style – he was amused at the "prolier than thou" styles affected by some of his middle-class Labour colleagues. Although the party was committed to comprehensive education, he had a son at Winchester until 1965 (who then chose to go to Holland Park Comprehensive School).

He liked good food and good wine and enjoyed non-Labour company. His patrician manner sometimes made aristocrats feel socially inferior. His taste for claret and the dining tables of the good and the great, notably upper-class women and rich American widows, invited ridicule, particularly in the 1970s. He enjoyed croquet and tennis and was extremely competitive at both. Some of his remarks were not directed at the ordinary voter. He compared Labour's 1997 election "no risks" campaign to an elderly butler carrying a precious Ming vase from one end of the room to the other.

It was easy to caricature Roy Jenkins as somebody who was more at home with his books in his house in East Hendred in the Oxford countryside, equipped with a croquet lawn, or perhaps at one of his London clubs. Wilson made a flip remark that Jenkins had been a good Chancellor "up to 7pm". This said more about Wilson than Jenkins. As Chancellor, he had a heavy load of committee work and regularly put in a 12-hour day. For much of his Labour Party life Jenkins despised Wilson: he thought he lacked purpose and principle, in contrast to Gaitskell. In later years he thought more kindly of him.

In fact, Jenkins was a formidable politician, on his day among the top half-dozen parliamentary performers in the past half-century. Although his oratory seemed to come easily it was the product of many hours of preparations. Diaries of colleagues (often critics) show him to be influential in Wilson's Cabinets. Political obsessives found it difficult to understand how he could be so successful in politics yet be so active and interested in other fields. The truth was that Roy Jenkins was a man of politics, who took Parliament and administration seriously, but had a hinterland as well. He was remarkably disciplined and well organised, balancing his time between politics, writing and family. He kept up a busy life, doing what he enjoyed and was good at, and on the same patterns until his eighties. He combined his historical sweep and European vision with a detailed knowledge of railway timetables and local weather, close observance of people's characteristics, a liking for gossip and precision in language.

In 1945 he married Jennifer, daughter of Sir Parker Morris, a town clerk and the inventor of the "Parker Morris Standards" for room space and ceiling height in dwellings. She was also a public figure in her own right, particularly interested in the environment, and was the Chairman of the National Trust and the Consumers' Association. They had three children.

Dennis Kavanagh