Roy Hattersley, the former Labour deputy leader who served under Neil Kinnock for nine years, has died at the age of 93. The Sheffield-born politician entered Parliament in 1964 as MP for Birmingham Sparkbrook, overturning a Tory majority of 900, and held the seat for 33 years through eight general elections.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer described Hattersley as “a giant of the Labour movement”, adding: “Through decades of service, including as deputy leader and a minister, he never lost his belief in a more equal Britain. My thoughts are with his wife Maggie and his family.”
“Former Labour deputy leader Roy Hattersley dies at 93; Starmer calls him a 'giant of the Labour movement'”
Hattersley served as a cabinet minister under James Callaghan as secretary of state for prices and consumer protection from 1976, after holding posts as employment minister, deputy to Denis Healey in defence, and minister of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs under Harold Wilson. When Labour was thrust into opposition in 1979, he vocally opposed the party’s shift to the left. As deputy leader from 1983 to 1992, he encouraged Labour to embrace multilateral disarmament, the market economy and the European Union.
Neil Kinnock said he was “deeply saddened” by Hattersley’s death. “Roy was a socialist of deep conviction, a dedicated democrat who believed that liberty should be unqualified by anything but responsibility and never by background or fortune,” Kinnock said. “He was fluent and courageous in expressing these beliefs in speech and writing and wrote countless columns and published 20 books.”
Deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell said Hattersley had “shaped the Labour Party and British politics. He was a giant of our movement and of that generation of politicians. I met him a few times and he was always kind, thoughtful and full of sound advice.” Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said he had spent a “life devoted to politics, public duty and writing”. Alistair Campbell described Hattersley as “Labour through and through” and “a loyal and hard working deputy to Neil at a vital time in Labour history”.
Hattersley was made a life peer as Baron Hattersley of Sparkbrook in 1993, four years before he left the Commons. After retiring, he published more than 20 books, including biographies of John Wesley and David Lloyd George, and became a columnist and broadcaster. He was famously lampooned for his lisp by a puppet on ITV’s Spitting Image, but later said it “put the spit into Spitting Image”. On one occasion, he was replaced on TV’s Have I Got News For You with a tub of lard after pulling out with little notice.
Born in Sheffield in 1932, Hattersley joined the Labour Party at age 12 and was elected to the city council in 1956. He married Molly Loughran before they divorced in 2013, then wed his literary agent Maggie Pearlstine, who survives him.