Philip Snowden: The First Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer

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Gaitskell still favoured discrimination in favour of sterling trade and was opposed to sterling convertibility, but was now a lot more pro-American since his October 1950 visit to Washington.

Many, including Tony Benn – a Labour centrist at the time – simply thought him a divisive figure and initially welcomed Wilson as a fresh start who could unite the party.

He did not reject public ownership altogether, but also emphasised the ethical goals of liberty, social welfare and above all equality, and argued that they could be achieved by fiscal and social policies within a mixed economy.

In the summer of 1959 Hugh and Dora Gaitskell, accompanied by Bevan, went to the USSR to copy Macmillan's recent successful trip. 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. In September 1950 inflationary pressure was worsened when the TUC voted to end the existing two-year wage freeze, although there was no wage explosion just yet. Although some Conservative MPs spoke against the measure it was not opposed by Churchill, then Leader of the Opposition, who had had an ambivalent view of the Bank since his own time as chancellor in the 1920s. It was during that year he had prostate gland surgery, following which his health and mobility declined.In fact it may well have been aimed at Attlee who had the previous day warned against "emotionalism" whilst privately Bevan thought that Gaitskell was highly emotional and, as he had shown in 1951, "couldn't count". Gaitskell saw himself as defending the country and wanted to prove Labour a "responsible party of government", but the public were not yet aware of the looming inflation problem. In 1956 the Egyptian ruler Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal Company, beginning the Suez Crisis. Gaitskell appears to have largely ignored this sum of capital, and his wife had no idea of his wealth. However, Dell comments that he often went into excessive detail, including personally overseeing economic forecasts, and held excessively long meetings.

He was Chancellor of the Exchequer, the first Labour Chancellor, in the Labour Government formed by Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929. Economy, Free Trade, Gold — these were the keynotes of his political philosophy, and deflation the path he trod with almost ghoulish enthusiasm.

The Blackpool Conference of October 1961 saw a narrow conference vote in favour of multilateral disarmament. Nobody imagined Labour would be out of power for more than a few years, and Attlee expected to be Prime Minister again by 1953.