"last of the old good Tories"

Nonsense. The man was out of his depth. Just as Tony Blair is now accused of being a Tory, Grocer Heath was basically a socialist - he believed that more government could solve anything. But it took a real man (in M Thatcher) to turn the country round.

Paradoxically, though he believed the more government the better, he was responsible for the biggest loss of parliamentary sovereignty ever in that he took UK into what is now the EU, whose laws have pre-eminence over the UK's laws. Westminster is now just a rubber-stamp for Brussels.

Difficult not to speak ill of the dead when he's Ted Heath.