Accrington Web - Lord Callaghan

Political friends and opponents have paid tribute to the decency and kindness of former Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan, who has died on the eve of his 93rd birthday.

Prime Minister Tony Blair described the avuncular Callaghan as a giant of the Labour movement and Margaret Thatcher, whose landslide in the 1979 election swept Callaghan and the Labour Party from power, said he had been a "formidable opponent".

Callaghan, nicknamed "Sunny Jim" by supporters, 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 Blair, the 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."

Thatcher told the BBC: ""Jim Callaghan was a formidable opponent, one who could best me across the dispatch box."

She added that she always respected him because he was moved by deep patriotism.

Former Conservative Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath and current Tory leader Michael Howard both praised his human qualities, as well as his political achievements.

Heath said: "Although he left the House of Commons in 1987 he continued to follow political life and it was always a pleasure to meet with him. We have lost a major figure from our political landscape."

Howard said he would be remembered with affection and respect.

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 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, a former Inland Revenue clerk, 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.