Former British Prime Minister Ted Heath has died.

Mrs T’s tribute to him is far more gracious than he ever was to her. She is certainly right that Heath broke the mold of Conservative leaders. The aristocratic anarchists at Private Eye disparaged him as “Grocer Heath” for his low birth.

I hope that we can remember him more for winning the 1970 election based on a proto-Thatcherite manifesto rather than his repudiation of it when things got difficult. The disaster that followed his return to 60s politics strengthened the backbone of the economic Conservatives and gave them the courage to see things through the next time (although even that was a damn close-run thing, as another great Tory once put it).