Roy Jenkins Roy Jenkins Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead, (11 November 1920 – 5 January 2003) was a British Labour Party, SDP and Liberal Democrat politician, and biographer of British political leaders. The son of a Welsh coal-miner and trade unionist (later a Labour MP and government minister), Roy Jenkins was educated at Oxford University and served as an intelligence officer in the Second World War. Elected to Parliament as a Labour MP in 1948, he went on to serve in two major posts in Harold Wilson's first government. As Home Secretary from 1965 to 1967, he sought to build
Roy Jenkins in April 1972, over the party's policy on favouring a referendum on British membership of the European Economic Community (EEC). This led to some former admirers, including Roy Hattersley, choosing to distance themselves from Jenkins. His lavish lifestyle — Wilson once described him as "more a socialite than a socialist" — had already alienated much of the Labour Party from him. Wilson accused him of having an affair with socialite Ann Fleming - and it was true. Jenkins returned to the shadow cabinet in November 1973 as Shadow Home Secretary. When Labour returned to power in early 1974, Jenkins was