Word: bevans
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Leaders of the British Labor Party assembled as somberly as admirals summoned for a gold-braid court-martial. The time had come at last to deal with Aneurin Bevan, the vat-dyed black sheep, the unregenerate guerrilla of British Socialism. "He's had it this time," said one leader grimly. "Only a miracle of the fishes could save...
Behind closed doors, the 18 members of the party's "shadow cabinet" considered not whether to punish Nye Bevan, but how. By questioning and taunting Party Chief Clement Attlee on the floor of the House of Commons during the defense debate (TIME, March 14), the rambunctious Welshman had handed his opponents an opportunity. They did not question Bevan's refusal to vote with the party in censuring the Tory government's defense plans, for 62 other Laborites, many of them pacifists, had abstained also...
...Bevan alone had publicly taunted Attlee on Labor's willingness to use the H-bomb. Of course, Nye had defied the leadership many times before and got away with it (exception: when he was expelled from the party for eight months in 1939, together with the late Sir Stafford Cripps, for seeking a "united front" with the British Communists). But now patience was exhausted. "He is his own worst enemy," admitted Bevan's camp follower, Dick Grossman, unwilling this time to go along with the boss. "This is the moment for a complete surgical operation," said one right...
...easy to pare down the clever and glamorous rebel from the coal fields of Ebbw Vale. While he offends the solid, burgherlike Labor leaders with his wild speeches on foreign policy and scares away perhaps 1,000,000 middle-of-the-road Britons who might otherwise tend toward Labor, Bevan has a rebel's popularity in the streets, shops and mines of Britain. For two hours the leaders debated what...
...reprimand for bad parliamentary behavior. Labor's "keep calm" moderates were for formally censuring Nye, but not for expelling him: to do so during an election year would be to court defeat. Clem Attlee himself leaned to the moderates' view. Attlee's usual response to Nye Bevan's bull-like forays into vital issues-e.g., Formosa, negotiations with Russia, gibing at the U.S.-is to adopt as much of the Bevanite position as he can, and thereby undercut the Bevanites' appeal. It has led him up some strange alleys...