Senior Westminster figures from left and right have paid tribute to Lord Jenkins of Hillhead who died on Sunday at the age of 82.

The former Labour chancellor and home secretary whose "mould breaking" politics heralded the rise of the centre-ground in British affairs has died after collapsing at his Oxfordshire home.

From proletarian beginnings as a son of a Welsh miner, Roy Jenkins dominated Labour politics intellectually, as a senior party figure and as a holder of high government office.

But it was his role as one of the breakaway social democrat "Gang of Four" at the height of 1980s ideological battles that set the scene for the rise of European centrist politics.

A seismic shift that was a decade and half later to sweep a post ideological "third way" Labour government to power.

Paying tribute, Tony Blair described the peer as "one of the most remarkable people ever to grace British politics".

"His influence on it is as great as many who held the office of prime minister. He had intellect, vision and an integrity that saw him hold firm to his beliefs of moderate social democracy, liberal reform and the cause of Europe throughout his life," he said.

Though some in Labour continued to regard Jenkins as a traitor to socialist principle, the prime minister expressed his personal admiration for the doctrine-lite politics he pioneered.

"Even those of us who disagreed with the decision to form the SDP admired the way he never wavered from the view that the British people should have the chance to vote for a progressive politics free from rigid doctrine and ideology and one that stood in the tradition of Lloyd George, Keynes and Beveridge as much as Keir Hardie, Atlee and Bevin," said Blair.

"He was a friend and support to me and someone I was proud to know as a politician and as a human being.

"He was above all a man of reason. I will miss him deeply."

Born on November 11 1920, the son of Welsh miner Arthur Jenkins, Roy was educated at Abersychan County School and the Oxford's elite Balliol College - where he won a first class honours degree in philosophy, politics and economics.

After serving in the Second World War - in the artillery and intelligence, Jenkins fought and lost the safe Conservative seat of Solihull for Labour in 1945.

Eventually returned to Westminster in 1948 for Southwark, he then represented the Stechford division of Birmingham from 1950 until he became president of the European Commission in 1977 - a move that was to presage later disillusionment with Labour and the British political landscape.

Jenkins first came into the public eye as an architect of what right wingers dubbed the "permissive 60s", and what he defended as the "civilised society", in 1959 when he successful piloted a reforming Obscene Publications Act onto the statute book.

When Labour came back into power under Harold Wilson in 1964, Roy Jenkins held his first government office as minister of aviation.

Politically in the ascendant, he became home secretary in December in 1965 trailblazing a raft of liberalising measures on homosexuality, abortion, divorce and penal reform.

Labour were re-elected in 1966, but an economic bumpy ride heralded political woes to come.

Following sterling's devaluation in 1967, Jenkins took over from James Callaghan as chancellor where his finesse was not enough to save Labour from defeat in 1970.

Continuing to lead from the frontbench in opposition, Jenkins became Labour deputy leader despite falling out with many MPs over his backing for Britain's entry to the European Community, tensions that in 1972 led him to resign as deputy leader and to quit the shadow cabinet.

Elected back to the frontbench in November 1973, Jenkins was once more in time to return to the Home Office when Labour limped into power in 1974, holding the cabinet office until resigning to go to Brussels in 1976.

Watching Labour's increasing vicious battles with trade union militants as James Callaghan attempted to impose pay settlements and keep the economy under control prompted Jenkins to rethink his politics.

Despairing that that the British political system was to be "stranded by the receding tide", Jenkins waited until Labour's election defeat in 1979, a moment that coincided with the end of his term as European Commission chief, to act.

And in November 1979 he delivered a BBC Dimbleby lecture to launch his vision of "mould breaking" new centrist politics for Britain.

"The politics of the left and centre of this country are frozen in an out-of-date mould which is bad for the political and economic health of Britain and increasingly inhibiting for those who live within the mould. Can it be broken?," he asked.

After Labour's Wembley conference in 1981 - where the party committed itself to socialism and opposition to Margaret Thatcher's war on trade unions - Jenkins joined other senior figures - Shirley Williams, Dr David Owen and Bill Rodgers - in the "Gang of Four".

Setting up the Council for Social Democracy, under the Limehouse Declaration, a new political party the SDP was about to be born.

Launched in May 1981, Jenkins succeeded in returning to the Commons following the Glasgow Hillhead by-election of 1982 - after failing in an earlier Warrington poll.

And he soon ousted Dr Owen to become leader of the SDP developing close links with the Liberals.

In the 1983 general election both parties fought together as the Alliance winning 25 per cent of the vote and 23 seats in parliament.

But Jenkins found that the cut and thrust of the often bitter 1980s' hustings did not suit his style and he quickly stood aside for Dr Owen as SDP chief.

Relations in the Alliance became increasingly fractious and in the 1987 general election Jenkins lost his Glasgow seat to Labour.

Backing Liberal leader David Steel's move to merge the SDP and Liberals, he returned to Westminster in the House of Lords in 1987 as Lord Jenkins of Hillhead.

And following 1988's party merger became leader of the Social and Liberal Democrat peers.

Elected chancellor of Oxford University in 1987, Lord Jenkins was a prolific author and a biographer who wrote an extensive work on the life of Winston Churchill.

In 1993, the Queen appointed him to the Order of Merit.

His former partner in the "Gang of Four", Lord Owen described Jenkins as "by any standards a major political figure and historical figure in the context of the last century".

"I think he would look back on his life with every reason to be extremely satisfied," he said.

"Many of the reforms that he stood for all through his life are now being adopted by the New Labour Party, and I don't think he has any reason to or any doubt about the wisdom of his decision in 1981 to campaign for the Social Democratic Party."

A view that was echoed by the former Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Paddy Ashdown.

"Probably no person outside the rank of prime minister has done more for British politics in our time than Roy Jenkins," he said.

"Without him the SDP would never have been formed, the Liberal Democrats would never have existed and New Labour would look very different."

His former left-wing adversary in Labour, Tony Benn also paid tribute to Jenkins' groundbreaking role."As a founder of the SDP he was probably the grandfather of New Labour. This was Roy Jenkins's idea of what Labour should be," he said.

"In doing so he took 10 per cent of Labour MP's with him and he triggered off what the present prime minister has since carried through, so he will be seen as a significant figure."