Former chancellor of the exchequer Denis Healey dies aged 98

Also speaking on social media, Barnsley East MP, Michael Dugher said: “Farewell to #DenisHealey”.

Politicians across the United Kingdom paid tribute to the former chancellor, who was described as a “Labour giant”. “All our thoughts are with his family”.

“His wit and personality transcended politics itself, making him one of the most recognisable politicians of his era”.

Labour’s leader in the House of Lords Baroness Smith of Basildon, said: “Denis was a great man of British politics and a real character with a tremendous sense of fun. A great man and a genuine public servant has left us”, he said.

He served with the Royal Engineers during the Second World War and was made an MBE in 1945, joining the Labour Party shortly after leaving the service.

Born in Mottingham, then in Kent, he moved with his family to Yorkshire and attended Bradford Grammar School before going on to study at Oxford University, where he met the future Conservative Prime Minister Ted Heath.

Mr Cameron said: “W e’ve lost a huge figure of post-war politics”.

But Healey had to face down the wrath of the Labour conference in 1976 and was virtually shouted down as he told his party a few home truths about the scale of spending cuts they must accept to keep Britain solvent, after he had been forced to go “cap in hand” for an emergency loan to the global Monetary Fund as the economy teetered on the brink of collapse.

He took up a Labour peerage in the House of Lords in 1992, following his retirement from the Commons.

Former chancellor Lord Denis Healey has died aged 98, his family said.

Healey’s reputation also obscured a more subtle and reflective side expressed through what he himself called his cultural “hinterland”: a love of poetry, art, photography, and literature.

Healey was an n intellectual and didn’t tolerate fools gladly, if at all, as Neil Kinnock has observed. “That partly explains why he was never leader of the party despite having rich political talent”.

Healey initially supported Tony Blair, whose “New Labour” movement brought the party back to power after a long drought, but he later broke with Blair because of disagreement over Blair’s support for the Iraq war.

Mr Corbyn was joined by politicians across the spectrum in hailing the Labour peer, and said: “Denis Healey was a Labour giant whose record of service to party and country stands as his testament. All our thoughts are with his family on their loss”.

“He maintained his passion and commitment and all of us in the Labour peers group will miss him so much”.