David Owen on Hugh Gaitskell

Philip Williams, Hugh Gaitskell

Cape 976pp. £15.00

Hugh GaitskeU's words to the October 1960 Conference stimulated me to be an active member of the Labour Party and shook me out of the complacency of armchair socialism. I can still remember watching his speech on television while a medical student at St Thomas' Hospital. The words personify the man and give some sense of the impact of that speech:

Supposing all of us like weU-behaved sheep were to follow the policies of unilateralism and neutralism, what kind of impression would that make upon the British people? I do not believe that Labour Members of Parliament are prepared to act as time servers. There are some of us, Mr Chairman, who will fight and fight again to save the Party we love. We will fight and fight and fight again to bring back sanity and honesty and dignity , so that our Party with its great past may retain its glory and its greatness. It is one of the tragedies of our time that this man was not given the opportunity as Prime Minister to avert our economic decline.

I never met Hugh Gaitskell. My political life only started as a prospective candidate a few months before he died, but having read this detailed and scholarly biography I have no doubt that he had the personality and authority to have radically changed the course of British history. There can be little doubt that had he lived Labour would have won an election in 1963 or 1964 with a sizable majority. This would have given him far greater parliamentary freedom of action than Harold Wilson had between

1964 and 1966. I t is not too fanciful to believe that many of the Labour Government's basic decisions would under Gaitskell have been very different. His ·biographer argues that in 1949 it was Hugh Gaitskell's 'leadership over devaluation which so impressed his seniors that he became the preferred choice of both the Prime Minister and Cripps' for the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer rather than Harold Wilson who had seemed a much likelier successor. Given this record and given the views in 1964 in favour of devaluation of friends of his like Tony Crosland and Roy Jenkins, it is as certain as anything can be that Hugh Gaitskell as Prime Minister would have devalued the pound decisively and early enough to have avoided the deflation of 1966. If the first term of a Labour Government had been marked by economic success rather than economic failure then Labour might well have established a democratic socialist dominance similar to that achieved by Willy Brandt in Germany.

I t is also reasonable to believe that the disillusionment within the Party over the foreign policy pursued during that period might never have occurred. Gaitskell said in 1959 and again in 1962 that his very first act on arriving in Downing Street would be to move troops to Lusaka. I remember, when I was working as an undergraduate on a building-site at the time of Suez, that his sense of outrage over that issue was not shared by many normal Labour supporters. Yet he was prepared to challenge prejudice and jingoism headon and to declare that Suez represented 'a positive assault upon the three principles which have governed British ·foreign policy: solidarity with the Com-

monwealth, the Anglo - American Alliance and adherence to the Charter of the United Nations.' I t is hard to see such a man with his firm leadership on race, and with a decent Parliamentary majority , tolerating for one moment a Rhodesian UDI.

Gaitskell would, against my own preference, have been most unlikely to have applied for entry to the European Community, at least in his first term of office. His Brighton speech in 1962 rejecting entry to the European Community, though a disappointment to many close friends, was a self-confident analysis. His biographer explains that the passion of this speech despite his feeling for the Commonwealth came 'most of all from his repugnance of defeatism - the claim by anti-Marketeers that Britain had no future outside the EEC. He saw that not as an economic miscalculation, but as a confession of political bankruptcy; for in ~r out, Britain's future would depend on herself, and he loathed the suggestion that she could not get to her feet unless hauled up by foreigners.'

Gaitskell's socialism had its emotional roots in the General Strike of 1926 and the crushing of the Viennese workers in 1934. The interesting feature of this biography is that despite the total absence of purple prose of 'Insight' reporting the personality of the man repeatedly comes through what is a painstakingly detailed account: the force and the sweep of his intellect, the range of his interests and his passionate rejection of poverty and injustice. The reckless nature of his action comes as a revelation to anyone brought up on the belief that he was, as Aneurin Bevan implied, 'a dessiccated calculating machine'. As a

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Valk .... ..... ...... ... ..... ...... ......... ................ .... .... ........ 9 Scotland Now: Paul Henderson .... ...... .. .. ....... ........ 20 Lost Lellers: A Short Story by Iain Finlayson .. .. . 23

Reviews Barker, Sebastian : Who ls Eddie Linden?

(Maraaret Stronach) .......... .... .... ........ ...... ...... .... . 6 Blake, N. F. : The English Language in Medieval

Literature (N. Stokes).. .. ...... ... .. ........ .... .. ...... .. .. 13 Bruccoli, Matthew J.: The Price Was High: The

Last Uncollected Stories of F. Seo/I Fitzgerald (Jonathan Keates) ... ... ..... ....... ..... ... .... ...... .. .... ..... 8

Cohen, David : J. B. Watson: The Founder of

Behaviourism (Hugh Freeman).......... .. .. .... .. .. .. 18 Cook, J : Young Children and Language (Berna-

dette Walsh)......... .. .. .......... .. ................ .... ...... .... 16 Dardis, Tom: Buster Keaton (John lzod) ...... ...... .. 22 Fraser, Antonia: Charles II (Ragnhlld Hatton) ... . 17 Gorky; Maxim: Children of the Sun (Bernard

Crick/Roger Wilkin) .. ....... .... .... ..... ...... .. ..... ........ 3 Hanks, Patrick , ed.: Collins Dictionary of the

English Language (Keith Miles) .. ....... ...... .. ..... 15 Holt, Maurice: Regenerating the Curriculum (B. T.

Harrison) .... .. ...... .. ...... .... ..... .... ............. ... .. ........ . 19 Ince, W. N. ed .: Les Trophlls (David KeDey)l4 Ince, W. N. : Heredia (David Kelley) .. .. .. .... ...... ..... 14 Kelly, Louis: The True Interpreter (Barbara

Wright)... .............. ... .. .... ..... .... ... .... ....... ... ..... ..... . 12 Laclos , Choderlos de: Dangerous Acquaintances

(Jennifer Birkett) .. ........ .. ................... ........ ...... .. 14

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McCarthy, Mary: Cannibals and Missionaries

(Charles Palliser) ... ..... .. ....................................... 7 Mitchell, Adrian : Out Loud (Stan Smith) .. ....... .. ... 11 Nauman , St. Elmo: Dictionary of Asian Philosophies (Ninian Smart) .. ..... .... .......................... 24 Pearson, John : Facades : Edith, Osbert and

Sacheverell Sit well (Kn:ysztof Cieskowskl) ... IO Quinn, Kenneth: Texts and Contexts: The Roman

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Izod) ... ... .... ...... .. ............ .. .......... ..... ...... ..... ... .. ... . 22 Williams , Phillip: Hugh Gaitskell (David Owen

MP) ............. .. ......... ......... ... ..... ... ... ...... ... ....... ...... . 2

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