Geoffrey Howe – former UK Chancellor dead at 88

A “quiet hero” of the Thatcher years – former chancellor of the exchequer Geoffrey Howe passed away yesterday of a suspected heart attack. The Tory peer who left the cabinet in 1990 after a devastating resignation speech, was actually viewed as being one of the people who forced Margaret Thatcher out of Downing Street. He died last night after attending a jazz concert with his beloved family.

After his resignation he became Baron Howe of Aberavon, and he continued to be a major player in Government affairs.  He accused David Cameron of putting the UK in peril on his attitude and coined it (his attitude) as “running scared” of his Eurosceptic backbenchers.

George Osborne has apparently benefitted greatly from his “sage advice”, and Prime Minister David Cameron has called him “a revolutionary”

The Observer – a sunday socialist- inclined British Sunday Paper has failed to itemise any chinks in the armour of this tory chancellor.  He did quote Churchill when he resigned but the finer details of his refusal to work under Thatcher can be garnered in any number of journalistic reports.