Richard Crossman

The Right Honourable Richard Crossman OBE
Secretary of State for Social Services
In office 1 November 1968 – 19 June 1970
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson
Preceded by	Office Created
Succeeded by	Sir Keith Joseph, Bt
Lord President of the Council Leader of the House of Commons
In office 11 August 1966 – 18 October 1968
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson
Preceded by	Herbert Bowden
Succeeded by	Fred Peart
Personal details
Born	Richard Howard Stafford Crossman 15 December 1907(1907-12-15)
Died	5 April 1974(1974-04-05) (aged 66) Banbury, Oxfordshire, England
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Alma mater	New College, Oxford
Occupation	Politician, author

Richard Howard Stafford (Dick) Crossman OBE (15 December 1907 – 5 April 1974) was a British author and Labour Party politician who was a Cabinet Minister under Harold Wilson, and was the 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 either Cropredy, Oxfordshire,^[1] or Bayswater, London,^[2] and grew up in Buckhurst Hill, Essex. He was educated at Twyford School, and at 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.^[3] 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.^[4] 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. In Plato Today (1937) he imagines Plato visiting Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Plato criticizes Nazi and communist politicians for misusing the ideas Plato set forth in the Republic.^[5] 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. One of Crossman's legal executors was Michael Foot, then a cabinet minister, who opposed his own government's attempts to suppress the diaries.^[6] Crossman's backbench diaries later appeared in book form. Much earlier, he had edited The God That Failed, a collection of anti-communist essays published in 1949.

Crossman's diaries were an acknowledged source for the highly successful TV comedy series Yes, Minister.^[7]

Crossman died of liver cancer in April 1974 at his home in Oxfordshire.

Quotation

The Civil Service is profoundly deferential – 'Yes, Minister! No, Minister! If you wish it, Minister!'

Bibliography

• Government and the Governed (A History of Political Ideas and Political Practice) London: Cristophers (1939).
• Plato Today New York: Oxford University Press (1939).
• Palestine Mission: A Personal Record New York: Harper (1947).
• The God That Failed New York: Harper (1950). (editor)
• The Politics of Socialism New York: Atheneum (1965).
• The Myths of Cabinet Government Cambridge: Harvard University Press (1972).

Biographies

• Anthony Howard (1990) Crossman: The Pursuit of Power, Jonathan Cape
• Tam Dalyell (1989) Dick Crossman: A Portrait
• Victoria Honeyman (2006) Richard Crossman; A Reforming radical of the Labour Party, I B Tauris

Notes

1. ^ Dalyell, 2002
2. ^ Howard, 2008
3. ^ Mayne, Richard (1 April 2003). In Victory, Magnanimity, in Peace, Goodwill. pp. 6. ISBN 0714654337. 
4. ^ London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 37308. p. 5067. 12 October 1945. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
5. ^ Goldhill, Simon, Love, Sex and Tragedy, U. Chicago Press, 2004, p. 202
6. ^ Anthony Howard "Michael Foot: The last of a dying breed ", Daily Tel;egraph, 5 March 2010
7. ^ Crossman, Richard (1979). Diaries of a Cabinet Minister: Selections, 1964–70. London: Hamish Hamilton Ltd. ISBN 0-241-10142-5. 

External links

• Dalyell, Tam (13 December 2002). "Tam Dalyell on Richard Crossman". Great Lives. BBC Radio 4. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/greatlives/dalyell_crossman.shtml. Retrieved 2009-08-30. 
• Howard, Anthony (January 2008). "Crossman, Richard Howard Stafford (1907–1974)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/30987. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30987. Retrieved 2009-08-30.  Subscription or UK public library membership required
• Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, London
• Clive James on Richard Crossman

Parliament of the United Kingdom
New constituency	Member of Parliament for Coventry East 1945 – February 1974	Constituency abolished
Party political offices
Preceded by George Brinham	Chairman of the Labour Party 1960 – 1961	Succeeded by Harold Wilson
Political offices
Preceded by Sir Keith Joseph, Bt	Minister of Housing and Local Government 1964 – 1966	Succeeded by Anthony Greenwood
Preceded by Herbert Bowden	Lord President of the Council 1966 – 1968	Succeeded by Fred Peart
	Leader of the House of Commons 1966 – 1968
Preceded by Kenneth Robinson as Minister of Health	Secretary of State for Social Services 1968 – 1970	Succeeded by Sir Keith Joseph, Bt
Preceded by Judith Hart as Minister of Social Security
Media offices
Preceded by Paul Johnson	Editor of the New Statesman 1970 – 1972	Succeeded by Anthony Howard

Persondata
Name	Crossman, Richard
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	15 December 1907
Place of birth
Date of death	5 April 1974
Place of death	Banbury, Oxfordshire, England