My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyparliamentary debate, but here was the real impulse of vital feeling.Joining Labour in March 1924 at once brought invitations to address mass meetings inGlasgow and throughout the Clydeside area. I was accompanied by Cimmie, who bythen had become a very effective speaker, one of the best women I have ever heard onthe platform, and the fact that she was Curzon's daughter further inflamed the fury ofthe Conservative press. Invitations poured in from all over the country to addressmass meetings, and very soon I was invited to stand for Parliament by more thanseventy local Labour constituency organisations. However, I took no immediatedecision where to stand at the next election, although it could not be long delayed, andconcentrated on getting my bearings and taking the best advice on that subject andother questions of procedure in my new party.Membership of the main Labour Party and the Independent Labour Party was thenpermitted at the same time, so I joined them both. I was rapidly elected to the NationalAdministrative Council of the Independent Labour Party, and at a later date was alsoelected to the National Executive of the Labour Party. MacDonald and Snowden bythis time had fallen out badly with the I.L.P, which they had originally planned as acombined factory of ideas and of revolutionary spirit for the mass of the Labour Partywith its dominant Trade Union influence. When MacDonald succeeded to the Labourleadership and developed an appropriately bourgeois outlook the effective leadershipof the I.L.P. soon reverted to Maxton and the Clydeside group.The colourful personality of Maxton has been described too often to require repetition.He was a most genuine person in all things, except in his French revolutionary makeup;I am always inclined to distrust men who require make-up in politics, whether itbe the sansculotte self-consciously posturing in the shadow of a papier-macheguillotine on the Left, or the bucolic pig fancier, too honest to be true stuff, of theBaldwin school on the Right. The most remarkable man among the Clydesiders is notso well known to a later generation; he was then Minister of Health and the onlymember of that group to hold Cabinet office.Wheatley was the only man of Lenin quality the English Left ever produced. He hadmade a small fortune in business and sat for a Glasgow constituency. His method indebate was cold, incisive, steely, and contrasted completely with the emotionalism ofhis colleagues, particularly with Maxton, who was an orator of the John Bright school.Wheatley was a master of fact and figure, and far more than any other member of theLabour Party impressed me as a man who might get things done; it followed naturallythat MacDonald detested him. Wheatley and I had an esteem for each other, but thereader will by now have deduced that my path did not lie in the direction of the Leninschool. In any case, Wheatley died prematurely, and hope of effective action from theoriginal Labour Party probably accompanied him to the grave.Much of my early period in the Labour Party was spent in acting as intermediarybetween MacDonald and the Left wing, then represented chiefly by the I.L.P.; I musthave been almost the only man on speaking terms with both except for the shadowyand sickly figure of Clifford Allen, who was also sadly doomed to early death. Laterlegend attached to me the reputation of being a difficult colleague, presumablybecause I found it difficult to condone the betrayal of every pledge given to theelectorate. In fact, I am a loyal colleague as a member of a team, and when I find it146 of 424