This week's opinion

This week I pay a personal tribute to Lord Healey. I had the great pleasure of presenting him with an honorary fellowship during my year as CIOT president and shared a memorable lunch with him before the presentation ceremony. He was on sparkling form. We talked about tax but also about poetry and our favourite performances of the Beethoven piano sonatas. He flirted with the waitresses (he was over 90 years old at the time) and was great company. I asked him about some of the world leaders he had met. He mentioned some of his contemporaries but then capped that by telling me about the time he met Stalin. I really was in the presence of somebody who had played a key part in our history.

Opinions may differ about his achievements as chancellor but all of the tributes I have read have emphasised quite...