Editing Denis Healey (section)

===Deputy Leader of the Labour Party===
Labour lost the [[1979 United Kingdom general election|general election]] to the Conservatives, led by [[Margaret Thatcher]] in May 1979, following the [[Winter of Discontent]] during which Britain had faced a large number of strikes. On 12 June 1979, Healey was appointed a [[Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour]].<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=47868 |date=15 June 1979 |page=7600  |supp=y}}</ref> He won the most votes in the [[1979 Labour Party Shadow Cabinet election|1979 Shadow Cabinet elections]] which followed and ''[[The Glasgow Herald]]'' suggested that this showed that he was the "strongest contender" to succeed Callaghan as [[Leader of the Labour Party (UK)|Leader of the Labour Party]].<ref name="GH15061979">{{cite news |last1=Parkhouse |first1=Geoffrey |title=Shore steps up as Owen is demoted |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19790615&printsec=frontpage&hl=en |access-date=8 January 2019 |work=The Glasgow Herald |date=15 June 1979}}</ref>

When Callaghan stood down as Labour Party leader in November 1980, Healey was the favourite to win the [[1980 Labour Party leadership election (UK)|leadership 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.<ref>'Mr Healey tops opinion poll in leadership vote', ''The Times'' (8 September 1980), p. 3.</ref> However, he lost to [[Michael 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-wing [[The Manifesto Group|Manifesto Group]] they must vote for him as they had "nowhere else to go". When [[Michael Thomas (politician)|Mike Thomas]], the MP for [[Newcastle upon Tyne East (UK Parliament constituency)|Newcastle East]] defected to the [[Social Democratic Party (UK)|Social 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.<ref>Crewe, Ivor and King, Anthony, ''SDP: The Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party'' (Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 74–75.</ref>

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.<ref name="SRichardspp100-101">{{cite book |last1=Richards |first1=Steve |title=The Prime Ministers We Never Had; Success and Failure from Butler to Corbyn |date=2021 |publisher=Atlantic Books |location=London |isbn=978-1-83895-241-9 |pages=100–101}}</ref> Richards also notes that by that point, his main rivals as leaders from the right of the party, [[Roy Jenkins]] and [[Anthony Crosland]], were no longer in contention for the position, with the former out of Parliament and the latter having died in 1977.<ref name="SRichardsp116">{{cite book |last1=Richards |first1=Steve |title=The Prime Ministers We Never Had; Success and Failure from Butler to Corbyn |date=2021 |publisher=Atlantic Books |location=London |isbn=978-1-83895-241-9 |page= 116}}</ref> 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.<ref name="SRichardspp116-119">{{cite book |last1=Richards |first1=Steve |title=The Prime Ministers We Never Had; Success and Failure from Butler to Corbyn |date=2021 |publisher=Atlantic Books |location=London |isbn=978-1-83895-241-9 |pages=116–119}}</ref>

Healey was returned unopposed as deputy leader to Foot, but the next year was challenged by [[Tony 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%.<ref>{{Cite news |date=28 September 1981 |title=Right-winger wins British election |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8324169/denis_healey/ |newspaper=The Galveston Daily News |location=Galveston, TX |agency=[[United Press International]] |via=[[Newspapers.com]] |access-date=1 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190102005317/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8324169/denis_healey/ |archive-date=2 January 2019 |url-status=live }} {{Open access}}</ref> The narrowness of Healey's majority can be attributed to the [[Transport 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-wing [[Tribune (magazine)|Tribune Group]],<ref>{{cite book|title=Labour's Future: Socialist or SDP Mark 2?|author=Eric Heffer|publisher=[[Verso]]|year=1986|pages=28–29|author-link=Eric Heffer}}</ref> which split as a result. Healey attracted just enough support from other unions, [[Constituency Labour Parties]], and Labour MPs to win.

Healey was [[Shadow Foreign Secretary]] during most of the 1980s, a job he coveted. He believed Foot was initially too willing to support [[Falklands War|military action]] after the [[Falkland Islands]] were invaded by [[Argentina]] in April 1982.<ref name="davidmckie"/> 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 the [[Shadow Cabinet of Neil Kinnock|shadow cabinet]] by [[Neil Kinnock]], who succeeded Foot following the disastrous [[1983 United Kingdom general election|1983 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.