Philip Snowden: The First Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer

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Gaitskell played an important role steering the Coal Nationalisation Bill through the House of Commons, bearing the brunt of the committee stage and winding up the final debate.

Labour also planned new and improved schools, improved pensions and benefits, and laid the foundations for the extension of voting rights to millions more. He told Crossman (19 October) that Bevan simply wanted to succeed Jim Griffiths as deputy leader and had shown no inclination to resist moderate policies.After the budget Tony Benn, who was on the right of the Labour Party at that time, recorded the atmosphere at the party meeting (i. But in 1956 he published a Fabian pamphlet "Socialism and Nationalisation" (actually written three years earlier), arguing that there was no need for greater public ownership, and that his goals were full employment, industrial democracy and a greater spread of economic power. It was difficult for the Treasury to take tough measures given the government's small majority and the likelihood of another election soon.

By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. On 4 January 1963 he was admitted to Middlesex Hospital in Marylebone, where, despite enormous efforts by doctors to save his life, he died on 18 January, with his wife at his bedside. Many of the younger CDS members would later be among the founding members of the breakaway Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1981. On 1 August 1952, when Gaitskell had succeeded in putting Churchill (Prime Minister at the time) on the ropes in a House of Commons debate, Bevan intervened to attack Gaitskell, an event greeted with Tory relief and according to Crossman "icy silence" on the Labour benches. It is unclear whether Gaitskell was ever sympathetic to Oswald Mosley, then seen as a future leader of the Labour Party.

Gaitskell soon emerged as the leader of the group, the others being Harold Wilson, President of the Board of Trade, and Douglas Jay, Economic Secretary to the Treasury. Although the first Labour government only lasted nine months, it achieved much, including the Wheatley Housing Act that saw half a million council homes built over the next decade. Gaitskell won the admiration of Treasury officials for his stance: on the morning of the budget Sir Edward Bridges came to tell him of the respect he had earned in the department and that it was "the best day we have had in the Treasury for ten years". Philip Snowden, First Viscount Snowden, the British politician, was a forthright and convincing speaker. Bevan at this time thought that Gaitskell should be reduced to "a junior clerk" in the next Labour Government.

In a speech to the party conference in October 1962, Gaitskell argued that if the aim was for Britain to participate in a Federal Europe, this would mean "the end of Britain as an independent European state, the end of a thousand years of history! Let’s mark the centenary of the first Labour government by electing another with Keir Starmer as Prime Minister.In November 1949, with the high level of public spending already a problem and under pressure from Cripps, Bevan had pushed an act through Parliament granting the government the power to impose prescription charges, although they were not brought in just yet (Cripps had wanted 1 shilling per prescription, but Bevan had not agreed to this).

At the October 1960 Scarborough Conference two resolutions in favour of unilateral disarmament – proposed by the TGWU and the Engineers' Union – were carried, whilst the official policy document on defence was rejected. Nobody imagined Labour would be out of power for more than a few years, and Attlee expected to be Prime Minister again by 1953. Snowden claimed that because of the lowering of duties on foodstuffs consumed by the working class, the budget went "far to realize the cherished radical idea of a free breakfast table". Bondfield would later become the first female cabinet minister and the first woman to be a privy counsellor in the UK.

Following his defeat in the 1918 General Election, Philip Snowden remained as the Parliamentary Candidate although the Independent Labour Party were keen to secure a safer seat for him at the 1922 General Election. During his seven years as a clerk, he studied and then passed the civil service entry examination; in 1886, he was appointed to a junior position at the Excise Office in Liverpool. Whilst the Bevanites blamed defeat on Morrison's policy of "consolidation", the right blamed Bevan for causing a split. He was opposed to the convertibility of currencies and non-discrimination between trading partners, both policies which the US favoured. Until then Gaitskell had shared concerns that some countries might stay in permanent deficit and thus effectively use their neighbours for free borrowing, or conversely that Belgium's surplus would enable her to suck gold and dollars from Britain.