In a note published in The Times on October 19, supplementing its obituary of the former Labour Deputy Leader, Alistair Lexden recalled a little incident in which he unwittingly assisted Tory Party funds.
As editor of the Conservative Party’s publications in the 1980s I once had cause to be extremely grateful to Denis Healey. My duties included the production of a fat tome entitled The Campaign Guide, which set out facts and figures on every area of policy from Esperanto to nuclear weapons from a Tory point of view. A copy of the 1983 edition found its way into Healey’s hands. He was quoted in the press as saying that, “a candidate of any party could make a decent speech on any subject using this book”. Sales, which up until that point had been extremely modest, suddenly jumped.