British politician. Died aged 82.
Roy Jenkins was one of a handful of 20th-century politicians who achieved a lasting reputation in the front rank without ever being Prime Minister.
Because he mixed at the top social levels, knew how to enjoy himself, loved his claret and spoke with an
unmistakable drawl, it was easy to under-estimate his seriousness and drive as a politician.
And because his pivotal part in the creation of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Britain in 1981 provoked such bitterness among his erstwhile Labour colleagues, it was easy to depict him as a political socialite who was not interested in the abiding values of the people's party.
The irony is that most of what the SDP stood for then is now Labour orthodoxy.
Jenkins' Europeanism - his most recent publication was a pointed call for Prime Minister Tony Blair to take Britain into the euro - was born, as it was for many of his generation, by the idea that there should be no more European wars.
Lord Jenkins, a former president of the European Commission, effectively cost himself the chance of succeeding Harold Wilson as premier by resigning as deputy leader over the question of Europe.
He refused the first Cabinet post Lord Wilson offered, but was rewarded when he made him Home Secretary then sent him to the Treasury when Jim Callaghan resigned in 1967.
In his book Friends and Rivals, Giles Radice used an extract from his diary to record a typical Jenkins day at the age of 80.
"Roy's energy is phenomenal. He is up early and by breakfast has already written 700 words of his Independent article ... after breakfast, we go to Lincoln Cathedral before driving back for lunch at which Roy drinks liberally.
"He then finishes his Independent article ... then more of the same," wrote Radice.
Jenkins was a fine Home Secretary who, by backing the liberalisation of abortion, homosexuality and divorce, could lay claim to the most lasting and civilising legacy of the Wilson era.
He was probably the most successful Labour chancellor until Gordon Brown.
And he was also the leading political biographer of his era; his book on Churchill was a breathtaking achievement for a man in his 80s.
- INDEPENDENT
British politician. Died aged 82.
Roy Jenkins was one of a handful of 20th-century politicians who achieved a lasting reputation in the front rank without ever being Prime Minister.
Because he mixed at the top social levels, knew how to enjoy himself, loved his claret and spoke with an
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