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Political Biography:

Richard Howard Stafford Crossman

(b. London, 15 Dec. 1907; d. 5 Apr. 1974) British; Lord President of the Council 1966 – 8 The son of a judge, Crossman was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, where he was a don before joining the New Statesman as assistant editor in 1938. After distinguished service as a specialist in psychological warfare during the Second World War, he was elected Labour MP for Coventry East in 1945, holding the seat continuously until 1974.

Crossman was a frequent left-wing critic of the foreign policy of Clement Attlee's government (1945 – 51), and became a close adherent of Aneurin Bevan. This stance facilitated his election to the National Executive Committee in 1952 (he remained a member until 1967) but kept him outside the parliamentary party's leadership group until Harold Wilson became leader in 1963. He held Cabinet office throughout Wilson's 1964 – 70 government, first as Minister of Housing and Local Government (1964 – 6) and latterly (1968 – 70) as first head of the Department of Health and Social Services. But he made his greatest mark as leader of the House of Commons (1966 – 8) when he introduced experimental select committees which were the progenitors of the present system.

When Labour went into Opposition in 1970, Crossman retired to the back benches to return to iconoclastic political commentary as editor of the New Statesman. He also began preparation of his three-volume Diaries of a Cabinet Minister (1975, 1976, and 1977). These added to his earlier thesis (in an introduction to Bagehot's The English Constitution, 1964) that Cabinet government had been replaced by prime ministerial government and manipulation of ministers by their officials. The unprecedentedly revealing diaries provoked a governmental legal action to prevent their publication. They remain a valuable source for students of British government.

 
 

1907 - 1974

British statesman and journalist.

The son of a judge, Richard Howard Stafford Crossman was an Oxford don, a journalist (long associated with the New Statesman and Nation), and a leading figure in the British Labour Party. During World War II he served in the Psychological Warfare Division of the British Army and in the spring of 1945 was one of the first British officers to enter the concentration camp at Dachau. A few weeks later he was elected to Parliament. Later that year the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, appointed Crossman to 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 that 100,000 Jewish "displaced persons" be permitted to enter Palestine. The recommendation was rejected by the British government, deepening the Anglo-American rift over Palestine. Thereafter, Crossman strongly opposed British policy in Palestine, incurring the enmity of Bevin. Probably as a result, Crossman failed to secure a ministerial appointment before the fall of the Labour government in 1951. In 1955 to 1956 he served unproductively as a liaison in unofficial talks between Israel and President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. He held senior positions in Harold Wilson's government between 1964 and 1970. Toward the end of his life, Crossman was appointed official biographer of the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, whom he had known and greatly admired, but he completed only a fragment of the work before his death in 1974.

Bibliography

Crossman, Richard. Palestine Mission: A Personal Record. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1947.

— BERNARD WASSERSTEIN

 
Quotes By: Richard Crossman

Quotes:

"I say to myself that I mustn't let myself be cut off in there, and yet the moment I enter my bag is taken out of my hand, I'm pushed in, shepherded, nursed and above all cut off, alone. Whitehall envelops me."

 
Wikipedia: Richard Crossman

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 hard left socialist intellectuals, he was one of the Labour Party's leading anti-communists and Zionists.

Youth and education

The son of a judge, he grew up in Oxfordshire and attended Winchester College. 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.

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.

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.

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.

Quotation

The Civil Service is profoundly deferential – 'Yes, Minister! No, Minister! If you wish it, Minister!'

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).

Further reading

External links


Parliament of the United Kingdom (1801–present)
Preceded by
(new constituency)
Member of Parliament for Coventry East
1945February 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
19701972
Succeeded by
Anthony Howard

 
 

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Copyrights:

Political Biography. A Dictionary of Political Biography. Copyright © 1998, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Mideast & N. Africa Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa. Copyright © 2004 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Quotes By. Copyright © 2008 QuotationsBook.com. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Richard Crossman" Read more

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