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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. A prominent socialist intellectual, he became one of the Labour Party's leading Zionists and anti-communists. Crossman is noted for his colourful if highly subjective three-volume Diaries of a Cabinet Minister.
son of a judge, Crossman was born in Cropredy, Oxfordshire, and grew up in Buckhurst Hill, Essex.
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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. A prominent socialist intellectual, he became one of the Labour Party's leading Zionists and anti-communists. Crossman is noted for his colourful if highly subjective three-volume Diaries of a Cabinet Minister.
Early life
The son of a judge, Crossman was born in Cropredy, Oxfordshire, and grew up in Buckhurst Hill, Essex. He went to Winchester College, where he became head boy. He 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 taught philosophy at the university before becoming a lecturer for the Workers' Educational Association. He was a councillor on Oxford City Council, and became head of the Labour group in 1935.
War service
At the outbreak of World War II Crossman joined the Political Warfare Executive under Robert Bruce Lockhart, where he headed the German Section. 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.
Political career
Crossman 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 months of political turmoil that led up to the election loss, Crossman had been considered, however briefly, as a last-minute option to replace Wilson as Prime Minister.
Books and journalism
After the general election defeat, Crossman resigned from the Labour front bench in 1970 to become editor of the New Statesman, where he had been a frequent contributor and assistant editor from 1938 until 1955. He left the New Statesman in 1972.
Crossman was a prolific writer and editor. He is perhaps now best known for his colourful and highly subjective three-volume Diaries of a Cabinet Minister. Covering his time in government from 1964 to 1970, they appeared despite a legal battle by the government to block publication. Crossman edited The God That Failed, a collection of anti-communist essays published in 1949. His backbench diaries later also appeared in book form.
Crossman's diaries were an acknowledged source for the highly successful TV comedy series Yes, Minister.
Crossman died of liver cancer in April 1974.
Quotation
- The Civil Service is profoundly deferential – 'Yes, Minister! No, Minister! If you wish it, Minister!'
Bibliography
- 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).
Biographies
External links
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|width="30%" align="center"|Preceded by:
Kenneth Robinson
Minister of Health
|width="40%" align="center" rowspan="2"|Secretary of State for Social Services
1968–1970
|width="30%" align="center" rowspan="2"|Followed by:
Sir Keith Joseph
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|width="30%" align="center"|Preceded by:
Judith Hart
Minister of Social Security
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