Biography roy jenkins

Roy Jenkins was a civilised, liberal, decent politician, for those who liked him. For harsher critics he was a snob who had betrayed his party and his working-class roots.

He had set out to be prime minister but his focus was never on politics alone.

He was a rare creature among modern politicians: a man whose other interests, as a prolific and noted author and journalist, more than made up for any disappointments.

Lord Jenkins was in fact a product of the mining valleys of south-east Wales, his father a miners' agent who became a Labour MP.

The young Roy Jenkins

He was immersed in Labour politics from an early age. From the local grammar school, he went on to take a First at Balliol College, Oxford before entering Parliament just after the Second World War.

His wartime experience as a captain in the Royal Artillery and as a codebreaker, helping to crack the secrets of the Enigma machine at Bletchley Park, moulded him into one of the first true believers in a unit