The Carnival Is Over: A Gaitskell Lives TL

[ViaActiva]

"Gaitskell's death at this moment was, I believed that night, and am even more certain in the retrospect of over fifteen years, not merely an inexpressible tragedy for his friends and the Labour movement, but a catastrophe for the nation. For he not merely possessed the pre-eminent straightforwardness, common sense and moral authority of Attlee, but a wider intelligence and a deeper understanding of the economic and social issues of the age than any of his contemporaries in British politics ... If he had lived, the future of this country ... would have been far different and far happier ... He would, as the public were beginning to realize in the last year of his life, have exercised, like Attlee and Cripps, a moral influence over his Party and British politics generally in the 1960s and 1970s, which was sorely needed and sadly lacking."

- Douglas Jay, Change and Fortune (1980)


"We may lose the vote today, and the result may deal this party a grave blow. It may not be possible to prevent it, but there are some of us, I think many of us, who will not accept that this blow need be mortal: who will not believe that such an end is inevitable. There are some of us who will fight, and 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."

- Excerpt from Hugh Gaitskell's speech to the Labour conference, 5th October 1960
____________________________________________



The Carnival Is Over
Part I: The Dawn Is Waiting




"GARDNER: Good evening, this is the ITV evening news at six o'clock. Our top story, the driver of the train involved in the Boxing Day crash at Crewe has appeared today before an inquiry into the accident which killed eighteen people. The driver of the mid-day Scot, Mr. John Russell, said that he'd stopped at the red signal, while his fireman attempted to phone the signal box but could get no reply. They decided to move forward to the next signal which was at danger. As they approached, it changed to yellow and his fireman saw the reflection of another train. He applied the brakes but the crash occurred...

...In other news, Mr. Gaitskell, the Labour Party leader, told reporters that he has received a clean bill of health as he exited hospital today. He was hospitalised over Christmas with a viral infection, but has since recovered. He announced that his tour later this month to areas of heavy unemployment would go ahead as planned.

Now, on to cricket, and another fine innings by David Sheppard who hit 82 for MCC today..."

- ITV Early Evening News, Friday 4th January 1963, presented by Andrew Gardner


"In 1959, the Labour party became the first major political party in British history to lose seats at four successive elections, with its representation falling to 258 seats, whilst Macmillan's Conservatives were returned with a majority of 100 seats. As the 1950s came to a close, the glory years of the Attlee government of 1945-1951 seemed very distant indeed to Labour politicians, who responded to the shock of defeat by reopening old disputes within the party. Followers of Labour's leader, Hugh Gaitskell, blamed the party's defeat on its commitment to nationalisation, with Douglas Jay reaching the conclusion that even the party's name should be changed to "Labour and Radical". In consequence, Gaitskell attempted to revise Clause IV of the party constitution, but his efforts were halted by the resistance of the National Executive Committee. His fortunes sinked further due to opposition from the unilateralist left, who formed an effective alliance with a number of influential unions to oppose the official policy of the leadership on the nuclear deterrent.

Undeterred, Gaitskell fought back at the 1960 party conference in Scarborough, declaring that he would "fight and fight and fight again" against unilateralism, and eventually won out against his critics by securing the support of the NEC and reversing the position of several unions (the AEU and USDAW). The real turning point for Labour and Gaitskell, however, was the growing unpopularity of the government from the summer of 1961. This resulted from public anxieties about the economy and Selwyn Lloyd's counter-inflationary budget of April, which involved a rise in the bank rate from 5% to 7%, the levying of a surcharge on purchase tax, cuts in public expenditure, and most important of all, the unpopular "pay pause". From 1962 Labour began to rise steadily in the polls, and Hugh Gaitskell began to establish himself in the public eye not as an ineffectual leader struggling to unite a fractured party, but as the Prime Minister-in-waiting."

- E.H.H. Green, Land of Hope and Glory, Britain in the Twentieth Century (2008)


"The experience of the Suez Crisis seemed to have discredited a whole generation of Conservative leadership in 1957, but under the stewardship of Harold Macmillan, the party experienced a remarkable political recovery. Macmillan restored the party's pride with key foreign policy successes at the Bermuda Conference of 1957 and at talks with Nikita Khrushchev in 1959 over the Berlin Question. Britain continued to exert substantial influence in world affairs, and at home, the economy was expanding rapidly, leading to Macmillan's famous declaration that "most of our people have never had it so good." All of this contributed to a electoral landslide in 1959, as the Conservatives gained a majority of 100 seats. As a result of this success, it was not fanciful to talk of the Conservatives as the natural party of government, especially as the Labour party seemed so divided and absorbed in internal squabbles. It was in this spirit that Party Chairman, Ian Macleod declared to the 1960 Conference:

'The Socialists can scheme their schemes and the Liberals can dream their dreams; but we at least have work to do.'

As the Conservative party entered the Sixties, however, anxieties about the Macmillan government began to grow. Central to this changing political atmosphere was an emerging sense of declinism, as Britain seemed to be falling behind other Western economies in terms of economic growth and labour productivity. "Modernisation" became the key word of political discourse of the early 1960s, with Labour chastising the government for its failure to reform the economy and the Conservatives desperately trying to balance unpopular economic reforms and electoral advantage. In 1960 and 1961, the government launched a series of inquiries - Beechings, Robbins and Buchanan, to form the basis of the party's domestic programme. Nevertheless, the party's reputation of economic competence was sharply undermined in 1961 by balance of payments problems and Lloyd's unpopular "pay pause". In response, the party established the National Economic Development Council in 1962, but without the co-operation of the TUC it was widely viewed as a gimmick. Macmillan hoped to restore purpose to his government through applying to enter the European Economic Community, but received a sudden shock in January 1963..."

- William Cash, "Introduction: Conservative Governments and their Record", in: William Cash and Edward Duncan (eds.) Conservative Governance: From Salisbury to Today (1992)

[ViaActiva]

DE GAULLE VETOES UK ENTRY INTO COMMON MARKET

- Headline of The Times, 14th January 1963


"One might sometimes have believed that our English friends, in posing their candidature to the Common Market, were agreeing to transform themselves to the point of applying all the conditions which are accepted and practised by the Six. But the question, to know whether Great Britain can now place herself like the Continent and with it inside a tariff which is genuinely common, to renounce all Commonwealth preferences, to cease any pretence that her agriculture be privileged, and, more than that, to treat her engagements with other countries of the free trade area as null and void — that question is the whole question.

It cannot be said that it is yet resolved. Will it be so one day? Obviously only England can answer. The question is even further posed since after England other States which are, I repeat, linked to her through the free trade area, for the same reasons as Britain, would like or wish to enter the Common Market.

It must be agreed that first the entry of Great Britain, and then these States, will completely change the whole of the actions, the agreements, the compensation, the rules which have already been established between the Six, because all these States, like Britain, have very important peculiarities. Then it will be another Common Market whose construction ought to be envisaged; but one which would be taken to 11 and then 13 and then perhaps 18 would no longer resemble, without any doubt, the one which the Six built."

- Statement of President Charles de Gaulle at a press conference in Paris, 14th January 1963


"All of our policies at home and abroad are in ruins."

- Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, The Harold Macmillan Diaries 1956-1966 (2011), entry: 14th January 1963


"Europe was to be our deus ex machina, it was to create a new contemporary political argument with insular socialism; dish the Liberals by stealing their clothes; give us something new after 12-13 years; act as a catalyst of modernisation; give us a new place in the international sun. It was Macmillan's ace, and de Gaulle trumped it."

- Sir Michael Fraser, Director of the Conservative Research Department, interviewed by Dr. David Butler, 1963


"The statement issued by President de Gaulle today represents a great humiliation for Britain, and a severe blow to our standing across the world. The Prime Minister told us that our nation's future depended upon entry into the Common Market, and that entry was the central solution to our domestic problems. Yet, the central six nations of the European community realised that Britain's economic and diplomatic interests could never be reconciled with the ambitions of the European continent, as President de Gaulle has rightly said. The Prime Minister entered our country into a foolhardy application which could never succeed. The lesson of today is clear: we are an independent nation, and we will only solve our problems if we have the ingenuity and strength to address them ourselves."

- Hugh Gaitskell, interviewed by Robert McKenzie on the BBC, 14th January 1963




"In opposing British entry to the EEC, Gaitskell was reflecting the majority opinion of the PLP, and his critical intervention after de Gaulle's veto was widely welcomed across the Labour movement. Focusing on the issue of Europe provided a sorely needed moment of unity within the Labour party which reinforced Gaitskell's authority. Some of Gaitskell's supporters such as George Brown and Roy Jenkins, however, were strongly in favour of EEC entry and became increasingly despondent.

Gaitskell scored a second major victory in February with the revelation of Britain's unemployment figures. The recent data showed that unemployment had rose to 3.9%, the highest figure since the fuel crisis of 1947. In late-January, Gaitskell had visited areas of high unemployment on a nationwide tour, and evoked these experiences in a widely acclaimed speech in Parliament savaging the government."

- Andrew Glenister, Labour: A New History (1999)




"In February, Gaitskell flew to the United States to meet President Kennedy. He hoped that this visit would cultivate a positive image for him as a 'British Kennedy' within the British media. The American political establishment, however, did not see him in quite these terms; even the Democrats were uncertain about the Labour party, particularly in relation to defence issues.

Gaitskell saw Kennedy alone for almost an hour on 20th February. It was their second meeting, and was, according to Gaitskell, friendly and constructive. Gaitskell sought to assure Kennedy that he supported the Nassau agreement over Polaris missiles negotiated by Macmillan two months earlier. They also discussed financial management in Britain and relations with the Soviet Union in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis. On the subject of Europe, Kennedy was anxious to understand the Labour Party's position on the Common Market.

Kennedy realised that he was talking to a likely future premier, and Gaitskell was impressed by the style of the young President and its sharp contrast with the leadership of Macmillan. The visit filled Gaitskell with optimism about the future and fuelled his desire to form a radical government to inspire and reform Britain as the Kennedy administration had done in the United States."

- David Marquand, Hugh Gaitskell (1980)

[ViaActiva]

I would like to note that I am also posting this at alternatehistory.com under the username WhigMagnate.

[Jerseyrules]

Sounds interesting, but I'm not really qualified to commentate on this (my field of expertise is pretty Amero-centric )