Anthony Crosland
Overview
Charles Anthony Raven Crosland (29 August 1918 – 19 February 1977), otherwise Tony Crosland or C.A.R. Crosland, was a British Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 politician and author. He served as Member of Parliament for South Gloucestershire
South Gloucestershire (UK Parliament constituency)
South Gloucestershire was a parliamentary constituency in Gloucestershire. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom....

 and later for Great Grimsby
Great Grimsby (UK Parliament constituency)
Great Grimsby is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, consisting of the town of Grimsby in North East Lincolnshire. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election...

. Throughout his long career he occupied the cabinet positions of Secretary of State for Education and Science, President of the Board of Trade, Secretary of State for Local Government and Regional Planning
Ministry of Housing and Local Government
The Ministry of Housing and Local Government was a United Kingdom government department formed after the Second World War, covering the areas of housing and local government....

 and Foreign Secretary
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, commonly referred to as the Foreign Secretary, is a senior member of Her Majesty's Government heading the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and regarded as one of the Great Offices of State...

.
Crosland was born at St Leonards-on-Sea
St Leonards-on-Sea
St Leonards-on-Sea is part of Hastings, East Sussex, England, lying immediately to the west of the centre. The original part of the settlement was laid out in the early 19th century as a new town: a place of elegant houses designed for the well-off; it also included a central public garden, a...

, Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...

.
Quotations

I am...wholeheartedly a Galbraith man.

Anthony Crosland, The Conservative Enemy (Jonathan Cape, 1962), p. 103.

If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy every fucking grammar school in England. And Wales. And Northern Ireland.

Crosland is so quoted by his wife Susan Crosland in her biography, Tony Crosland (Jonathan Cape, 1982), p. 148. Some of his political allies dispute that he believed the sentiments conveyed by the quote and therefore cast doubt on whether he actually said it.

Nationalisation...does not in itself engender greater equality, more jobs in the regions, higher investment or industrial democracy. The public knows this perfectly well, and so do the workers who have suffered from pit closures, steel redundancies and the run-down of the railways. It is idiotic to try to bamboozle them.

Speech in Rotherham (9 June, 1973).

Much more should have been achieved by a Labour Government in office and Labour pressure in opposition. Against the dogged resistance to change, we should have pitted a stronger will to change. I conclude that a move to the Left is needed.

Anthony Crosland, Socialism Now (Jonathan Cape, 1974), p. 44.

As a democratic Socialist profoundly committed to the rule of law, I could not condone, let alone encourage, defiance of the law.

Speech in the House of Commons (Hansard, 6 November 1974, Cols. 1076–7).

I do not believe there is a long-term future for the privately rented sector in its present form.

Speech in Eastbourne (20 November, 1975).

We conceive the function of Tribune to be the expression in popular form, and to as large a public as possible, of the views of the Left and Marxist wing of social democracy in this country. Its policy must be that of those who believe that the present leadership of the Labour Party is not sufficiently Socialist.

Letter published in Tribune (1976).

 
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