“He was a very quiet and gentle man. He was also a deep thinker and had huge courage, and in those early Thatcher governments he was, in many ways, the quiet hero”.
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Former Conservative Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine, who described Lord Howe as “one of my oldest political friends and colleagues”, said: “He was that most admirable of characters, a politician of great integrity”. His family said Howe died after enjoying a jazz concert with his wife Elspeth.
Chancellor George Osborne posted on Twitter: “I will miss Geoffrey Howe”.
The main factor in Sir Howe’s resignation speech was the differing opinions over Europe between himself and Lady Thatcher.
Later, he quoted, with evident satisfaction, the Daily Mail’s comments: “Howe put his finger on the real weakness of Mrs Thatcher’s premiership – her inability to unite the party over Europe, or even to convince it that she is doing her best to keep it together”.
He was elected MP for Reigate in 1970 and represented East Surrey from 1974 following boundary changes.
However, the prime minister’s perception that she had been ganged up on led to a poisoning of relations with her then foreign secretary.
“He was not afraid to stand up for what he believed in and famously demonstrated this in his historic confrontation with Mrs Thatcher”.
Born in South Wales in 1926, Lord Howe of Aberavon (as he later became known) was educated in England at Winchester College. Howe’s passing comes a week after the death of Denis Healey, one of his Labour opponents in Thatcher-era ideological battles and his predecessor as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
‘It’s rather like sending our opening batsmen to the crease only for them to find that before the first ball is bowled, their bats have been broken by the team captain.
Howe, who had previously served as chancellor in Thatcher’s government, stepped down as a member of parliament and joined the House of Lords.
He was also Foreign Secretary while the government was under pressure to stop gay civil servants serving in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office – though he conceded the issue was “difficult”.
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But tensions over Europe eventually drove him to quit the government in November 1990, famously deploying a cricketing simile in his parting shot in the House of Commons.
