Ted Heath dies

A bit late, but it would be wrong to let the passing of Ted Heath on Sunday go without marking it. Reputedly a lonely man at the end of his life, he retained little interest in politics after leaving the Commons after 51 years as an MP. His refusal to move up to the Lords alone marked him out as a unusual figure on the Tory benches. In NI he pleased few having, in the space of less than a year, brought in internment and pro-rogued the Stormont parliament. Bloody Sunday also occured on his watch. Brian Walker considers his contribution.My own chiefest memories of his three and a half years in the top job were of power, postal worker and miners strikes, the three day week and television shutting down at 9.30 every night. But for most people of my age at the time, his best days were shared by the tv impersonator Mike Yarwood, whose political double act of Wilson and Heath was never the same after he was deposed by Margaret Thatcher in February 1975.

Anthony HOward recalls his career in The Times yesterday. And perhaps more sympathetically Bill Deedes remembers the man.

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