Richard Crossman
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Richard Howard Stafford Crossman, known as Dick Crossman, (15 December 1907 – 5 April 1974) was a British Labour Party politician, author and editor of the New Statesman. One of the most prominent socialist intellectuals, he was one of the Labour Party's leading anti-communists and Zionists.
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[edit] Youth and education
The son of a judge, he grew up in Buckhurst Hill, Essex and attended Winchester College, where he was head boy and excelled academically and on the football field. He studied Classics at New College, Oxford, receiving a double first and becoming a Fellow in 1931. He was a councillor on Oxford City Council, becoming head of the Labour group in 1935.
[edit] World War II service
At the outbreak of World War II he joined the Civil Service, serving in the Psychological Warfare Department under Robert Bruce Lockhart. During this time he produced anti-Nazi propaganda broadcasts for Radio of the European Revolution, set up by the Special Operations Executive. He eventually became Assistant Chief of the Psychological Warfare Division of SHAEF and was awarded an OBE for his wartime service. In the spring of 1945 he was one of the first British officers to enter the Dachau concentration camp.
[edit] Member of Parliament
He entered the House of Commons in 1945, as Member of Parliament (MP) for Coventry East, a seat he would hold until shortly before his death in 1974. During 1945-46 he served, on the nomination of the Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, as a member of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry into the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine. The committee's report, submitted in April 1946, included a recommendation for 100,000 Jewish "displaced persons" to be permitted to enter Palestine. The recommendation was rejected by the British government, after which Crossman led the socialist opposition to the official British policy for Palestine. This incurring Bevin's enmity, and may have been the primary factor which prevented Crossman from achieving ministerial rank during the 1945-51 government.
He was a member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party from 1952 until 1967, and Chairman of the Labour Party in 1960-61. Crossman cemented his role as a leader of the left wing of the Parliamentary Labour Party in 1947 by co-authoring the Keep Left pamphlet, and later became one of the more prominent Bevanites.
In 1957, Crossman joined Aneurin Bevan and Morgan Phillips in a controversial lawsuit for libel against The Spectator magazine, which had described the men as drinking heavily during a socialist conference in Italy. Having sworn that the charges were untrue, the three collected damages from the magazine. Many years later, Crossman's posthumously published diaries confirmed the truth of The Spectator's charges.
Crossman was Labour's spokesman on Education before the 1964 General Election, but upon forming the new Government Harold Wilson appointed Crossman Minister of Housing and Local Government. In 1966 he became Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons.
He was Secretary of State for Health and Social Security from 1968 to 1970, in which position he worked on an ambitious proposal to supplement Britain's flat state pension with an earnings-related element. The proposal had not, however, been passed into law at the time the Labour Party lost the 1970 general election. During the preceding months of great political turmoil before the election loss, Crossman had also even been considered, however briefly, as a late option to replace Wilson as Prime Minister.
[edit] As an author and editor
After the election loss, Crossman resigned from the Labour front bench in 1970 to become editor of the New Statesman magazine, where he had been both a frequent contributor and assistant editor from 1938 to 1955. He left the New Statesman in 1972. He died of cancer in April 1974.
Crossman was a prolific writer and editor. He is most famous for his colourful and highly subjective three-volume Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, covering his time in government from 1964 to 1970, published despite a legal battle by the government to prevent their publication. He also edited The God That Failed, a collection of anti-Communist essays published in 1949, and made available his backbench diaries which also eventually found their way into print.
Crossman's diaries were an acknowledged source of some of the writing of Yes, Minister. [1]
[edit] Quotation
- The Civil Service is profoundly deferential – 'Yes, Minister! No, Minister! If you wish it, Minister!'
[edit] Works
- Plato Today New York: Oxford University Press (1939).
- The God That Failed New York: Harper (1950). (editor)
- The Politics of Socialism New York: Atheneum (1965).
- The Myths of Cabinet Government Cambridge: Havard University Press (1972).
[edit] Further reading
- Anthony Howard (1990) Crossman: The Pursuit of Power, Jonathan Cape
- Tam Dalyell (1989) Dick Crossman: A Portrait
[edit] Notes
- ^ Crossman, Richard (1979). Diaries of a Cabinet Minister: Selections, 1964–70. London: Hamish Hamilton Ltd. ISBN 0-241-10142-5.
[edit] External links
- Tam Dalyell on Richard Crossman on BBC Radio 4
- Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, London
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by (new constituency) |
Member of Parliament for Coventry East 1945–February 1974 |
Succeeded by (constituency abolished) |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by George Brinham |
Chair of the Labour Party National Executive Committee 1960–1961 |
Succeeded by Harold Wilson |
| Preceded by Herbert Bowden |
Lord President of the Council 1966–1968 |
Succeeded by Fred Peart |
| Leader of the House of Commons 1966–1968 |
||
| Preceded by: Kenneth Robinson Minister of Health |
Secretary of State for Social Services 1968–1970 |
Followed by: Sir Keith Joseph |
| Preceded by: Judith Hart Minister of Social Security |
||
| Media offices | ||
| Preceded by Paul Johnson |
Editor of the New Statesman 1970–1972 |
Succeeded by Anthony Howard |
