My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleywas expert in personal relations. As Chairman of the I.L.P., he was more successfulthan Maxton in keeping the ebullient and pertinacious Emanuel Shinwell within thebounds of order, when we were fellow-members of the National AdministrativeCouncil. Shinwell was then a prickly customer in debate and in the council chamber,but a man of complete integrity who in private life had charm as well as intelligence. Iremember with pleasure that he and his wife came to stay at our Denham house withMaxton and other I.L.P. colleagues.Clifford Allen was more priest than king in Pareto's dichotomy of statecraft. Hepresided with skill over the I.L.P. summer schools which produced serious thinkingand discussion, and at the end of the day's debate took tea with grace in the drawingroomof Lady Warwick, surrounded by signed photographs of her royal lover. Thegrounds of Easton Lodge were then as freely accorded to socialism as her previousfavours to Edward VII.My relations with Clifford Alien were reasonably good, although I was a cuckoo inthe nest of his comfortable theories. There was no rivalry between us because he wasno platform speaker. Maxton was the only man who then drew comparable audiences,but it was impossible to have any sense of rivalry with someone of such sincerity anddeep good nature. I delighted in his company; he always concluded summer schoolswith his immensely popular rendering of 'The Pirate King', followed by 'I feel, I feel, Ifeel just like the morning star'. It was sad indeed that the morning star rose and sankin the 'love-ins' of Easton Lodge, as they would now be called; I mean the I.L.P.'s, notKing Edward's. The assertive novelties of today seem in some respects merely tounderline traditional latin wisdom: 'Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose'.There is sadness in this end result of generations of socialist struggle; the pathos of itall after the bright hopes that were excited. So many members of the I.L.P. and thetrade unions were such sincere, splendid people, who had sacrificed so much. GeorgeLansbury was an example; 'Dear old George,heart of gold, head of feathers,' as theyused to say. He was the member for Poplar and for years a hero to all East London,particularly when he went to jail with his fellow Labour councillors over somemunicipal dispute. His origins were lower middle class, but he looked like an OldTestament prophet; perhaps a cross between a prophet and a dairy-farmer. As he camerolling in with his mutton-chop whiskers, you would say, here's a man up from thecountry who has just milked the cows.When he started speaking the farmer would be transformed into a prophet; he was thatblend of the earthy and the visionary which the English rightly love. He wassuspicious of me when I first joined the party in 1924, and rather annoyed because theClydesiders, who were more revolutionary than he was, made such a fuss of me. Itwas not until we were teamed together on unemployment and he saw that I was reallyout to get something done that he moved to my side. Then he was magnificent, hebacked me throughout and fought like a tiger, almost to the point of resigning with me.At our parting he was practically in tears and said: 'I have been with the party all mylife, and this can split the party. I can't go with you, but I'm with you in spirit.'Lansbury was of course a very emotional man, but he also had a streak of realism. Hisinfluence in the party was enormous; so much so that, after the collapse of Labour,when the National Government was formed in 1931, he was for a time made party186 of 424