Former British PM Jim Callaghan dies

James Callaghan

LONDON - Former Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan, who presided over a chaotic winter of strikes that opened the door to Margaret Thatcher's radical free market reforms, has died on the eve of his 93rd birthday.

His family said Callaghan, known as "Sunny Jim" for his avuncular character, died at his home in southern England just 11 days after the death of Audrey, his wife of 67 years.

"Jim Callaghan was one of the giants of the Labour movement, whose long and active life almost spans the history of the party he served so superbly," said Tony Blair, the country's first Labour Party prime minister since Callaghan.

"In later times I sought his counsel many times and found his judgement and common sense invariably sound."

Political opponents as well as friends paid tribute to Callaghan. Former Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath, Thatcher and current Conservative leader Michael Howard all praised him for his decency and kindness.

Queen Elizabeth sent a message of condolence to Callaghan's family and Prince Charles described him as "a remarkable man".

Callaghan, from a modest working-class background and, unusually for a prime minister, lacking any university education, became prime minister in 1976 after the surprise resignation of Labour leader Harold Wilson.

But he lasted just three years before the strong ties he had nurtured with the trade union movement all his life unravelled chaotically through the bitter winter of 1978-9, when a battery of pay strikes plunged the country into misery.

Some said it was misjudgment in timing that lost him the election of May 1979 to the Conservative Party.

The defeat paved the way for Thatcher's free-market revolution and 18 years of Conservative government.

ALL FOUR TOP JOBS

Callaghan was the only man to have held all four top offices of state -- prime minister, foreign secretary, home secretary and chancellor of the exchequer.

He spent a total of 32 years as a front bench spokesman, in government and opposition and was the country's oldest surviving prime minister.

"Jim Callaghan was an inspiration to many in the Labour Party," Labour Party Chairman Ian McCartney said on Saturday. "He was a role model of someone who came from a modest background to achieve the highest office in the land."

Callaghan was born on March 27, 1912, near the naval yard at Portsmouth, southern England.

His father, a non-commissioned officer in the Royal Navy, died when he was nine but his mother, left in a state of semi-poverty, managed to send him to the local secondary school.

Callaghan served in the navy during World War Two, first as an ordinary seaman stationed in the Far East, but later as a lieutenant in naval intelligence.

He swept into the House of Commons on the wave of Labour's landslide election victory of 1945 and quickly rose to the top.

"He was a brilliant prime minister," said Lord Healey, chancellor of the exchequer under Callaghan.

"He hadn't been outstanding in his other jobs in the cabinet, but as prime minister he had an extraordinary genius for picking on things that really mattered and getting the right decision and pushing them through."

When Callaghan came to power, he inherited a Labour Party with a tiny parliamentary majority. His tenure was seldom stable and for a time his government had to rely on a pact with the minority Liberals.

The infamous "Winter of Discontent" in 1978-79 proved his downfall and he became the first prime minister in over 50 years to lose a parliamentary vote of confidence.

That triggered an election and Thatcher's rise to power.

- REUTERS