Roy Hattersley, who was deputy leader of the Labour Party for nearly a decade, died on 14 June 2026 aged 93, BBC News reported.

He was born on 28 December 1932. Hattersley rose to become one of Labour's best-known figures during the 1980s and early 1990s, when the party spent 18 years out of power. His time as deputy leader, working under Neil Kinnock as party leader from 1983 to 1992, covered some of Labour's hardest years: the party lost four general elections in a row, and thousands of members left to form a new party called the SDP. Through it all, Hattersley and Kinnock worked together to try to make Labour fit to govern again.

The two men came from different parts of the Labour Party. Kinnock was seen as left-wing; Hattersley was on the softer right. Supporters called them "the dream ticket" because together they tried to bring the party back together after it had almost split apart in the early 1980s. The partnership lasted nearly ten years, though it never won a general election.

Across Westminster and beyond, Hattersley was respected as someone who could explain politics clearly and think it through properly. He wrote newspaper columns, novels, and books about politics, and stayed involved in public debate long after he stepped down from the top job. Very few politicians of his generation kept writing and speaking with such force for so long.

Before the 1980s, he had worked in government under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan. He held several jobs, including Minister of State at the Home Office and Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection. When Margaret Thatcher won the 1979 election, Hattersley was already well known in Parliament, and his years out of power only made his voice louder.

During his time as deputy leader, Labour fought hard over big questions: whether to back nuclear weapons, how to pick candidates, and what the party's links with trade unions should be. Hattersley believed Labour should focus on fairness and sharing wealth around. He was wary of far-left ideas. Most of all, he was sure that Labour had to win elections to do any good — that winning power and sticking to principles were not opposites.

That belief stayed with him for the rest of his life. After he left frontline politics, he was often critical of later Labour leaders, including Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, saying they had lost sight of what the party was really for.

Hattersley stepped down as deputy leader in 1992, after Labour lost for the fourth time. He left Parliament in 1997 — the very election that brought Labour to power after 18 years in opposition. The government then made him a life peer, so he became Baron Hattersley of Sparkbrook. He carried on writing and appearing on radio and television until well into his old age.

His death means one of the last people who worked in government in the 1960s and 1970s has gone. For younger politicians now, that whole era is history, not something anyone remembers first-hand. In Westminster, people will remember him as much for his skill with words and ideas as for how long his career lasted — a rare combination in politics.