Hugh Gaitskell

by Philip Maynard Williams

Spine faded, cover worn, page edges tanned. Shipped from the U.K. All orders received before 3pm sent that weekday.

Genres: Biography, History, British Literature

500 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

Reviews

[Yooperprof]

The author Philip Williams makes the argument that the death of Hugh Gaitskell at the age of 56 in 1963 robbed the Labour Party of Britain of its most promising leader of the late 20th century, and robbed Britain of a Prime Minister who might have been able to lead the country successfully through the shoals of decolonization, European integration, and postcolonial delcine.

It's not entirely convincing that one man could have carried Britain into the Promised Land of prosperity and good governance, but certainly if Gaitskell had not died (of complications from lupus!), Britain would have been spared the leadership of Harold Wilson in the latter part of the 1960s - which would have been blessing enough, in my humble opinion!

Gaitskell himself only served one year in one of the important offices of state - he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government of 1950-51. Most of the rest of his political life he spent in Opposition. He seems to have been a principled and appealing political leader with strong intelligence and a moderating personality. 450 pages of small print makes this an extremely detailed biography - and that is 450 pages in an edited and condensed version of what was originally a longer book. It's not really balanced enough to be absolutely reliable, but it "does the job".

[Thomas]

A meticulously researched and well written book. It is a shame however about the authors irritating penchant for dreary cliches about the Labour right/left and the discordance between purity of principles/ power. At the time of publishing (1979) these ideas had already been disproven by the right’s behaviour in the early 1970s and would go on to be further disproven in the early 1980s (SDP) and 2015-2019 (arguably 2007-2019) William’s clear disdain for Michael Foot also becomes increasingly jarring.
That said, the author showed convincingly that Gaitskell was a more complex figure than the right wing apparatchik of Labour left myth.
One should read this and Foot’s two volume life of Bevan and come to their own conclusions about this period of Labourism. My understanding of it is certainly richer having read this book.

[Mark]

An excellent and very readable biography that leaves a similar sense of 'what if?' to Gaitskell's life as JF and RF Kennedy in the US.

[Mark]

Hugh Gaitskell is often regarded as one of the best prime ministers Great Britain never had, a smart politician of great promise who was on the brink of what was widely expected to be a Labour victory in an impending general election before his sudden illness and death in January 1963. In this book, Williams provides a lengthy examination of Gaitskell's life and career, describing the events that shaped his outlook, his service in the Labour governments of the late 1940s and 1950s, and the internecine Labour Party battles in which he was involved. It is a mass of detail that often threatens to overwhelm the reader, yet Williams guides the readers knowledgeably though the specifics. The result in an indispensable book for anyone seeking to better understand the achievements and unfulfilled promise of this interesting figure.