Michael Cockerell: Self - Reporter

Quotes 

• Michael Cockerell - Reporter : David Owen thought that in the end, say in 1980, that you didn't have the guts to take on the left wing of the party.

  Denis Healey : Absolute balls!

  Michael Cockerell - Reporter : Why do you think David Owen says these kind of things?

  Denis Healey : Well he was a very self-centred person, actually. The interesting thing about him, as I wrote in my book, is he was good-looking, he was intelligent, he had immense charm, and all these presents were given him by the good fairy. And then the bad fairy came along and tapped him on the shoulder and said "But you'll be a shit". And he was, of course. He couldn't get on with anybody in the end, as you know.

• Michael Cockerell - Reporter : Do you have a thought about death?

  Denis Healey : [chuckling]  Not terribly keen on it! But no I don't think about death at all, really.

  Michael Cockerell - Reporter : Because some people do.

  Denis Healey : I know and I always remember when I was at Edna's funeral and the clergyman said to me "Don't worry, Denis, you'll meet her again later". Well I half believe that because Edna, to me, is still up in the sky the whole time, but as I say, I don't believe in theology, but I do believe in the spirit. And what the spirit involves regarding death - much too early to say.

• [summing up Denis Healey] 

  Michael Cockerell - Reporter : Denis Healey was sometimes described as the best Prime Minister Labour never had. Though he helped save Britain from bankruptcy, throughout his career his capacity to divide the party and country was greater than his ability to unite them. And while he sometimes lost his temper, he never lost his talent to surprise.

  [Denis Healey, now aged 95, walks unsteadily towards the camera and suddenly without warning pulls a face and groans at the camera] 

• Michael Cockerell - Reporter : Do you regret that you never became Prime Minister?

  Denis Healey : Erm... I do a little bit now. I never wanted to be Prime Minister at the time, when I was in politics, because I wanted to *do* something rather than *be* something. But of course Prime Ministers have to do a hell of a lot as well as being a lot. And I wish now that I had gone on.

• Michael Cockerell - Reporter : Denis Healey's last words to me, after we'd spent the afternoon filming with him at the age of 95, were "Now, you, sod off, and I'll nod off."