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had allowed the calamity of war to decimate the young
men of the nation fighting abroad, and who allowed
an untrammelled laissez-faire capitalism to terrorise
them with poverty once they had returned. Dorril goes
into expansive and exacting detail about the clashing
political and economic trends amongst the elite of the
time. This in itself provides an unfaultable Parliamentary
political history of the period, a vivid picture of
the flux at work, which formed the background of the
contradictions which made up Mosley’s outlook. He at
first identified wholesale with the ‘social imperialists’
in the Tory Party as against its free trade faction. He
supported those who, in wishing to save the existing
social order, believed in economic protectionism to
protect a relatively decent living standard for the British
working-class, bolstered by the exploitation of Empire.
Such a world-view was entrenched in a romantic conception
of England, with the foreign (and, sometimes,
Jewish) ‘other’ as its symbolic foe. This paternalistic
ethos was the basic core of Mosley’s philosophy from
thereon, but his contempt for the Empire Tories’ lack of
innovation made him seek his cause, his following and
followers, elsewhere.
Mosley was as much a figure in ‘high society’ as in
politics, very Tatler fodder. Those he ran with were rich,
young, louche, promiscuous, glamorous and shallow, of
the type Evelyn Waugh at once admired and despised.
As Mosley married his first wife Cimmie, this “dash-
BUY Stephen Dorril books online from and
ing”, charismatic figure dazzled many. While gentle,
warm Cimmie was liked by most who met her, quite
as many people were as put-off by Mosley’s boundless
self-importance as were taken in by his charm. While
praise came from many, his Tory rival Stanley Baldwin
spoke for many more by remarking “He is a cad and
a wrong’un and they will find it out,” before he left
the party. Cimmie’s delicate nature was in turn tested
to immense distraction by her husband’s countless,
remorseless affairs – including with her sisters.
Mosley would never be content as anything less than
the biggest fish in the pond. The Tories disappointed
him so he joined Labour, seeing that as the party more
capable of delivering the change -still amorphously
defined- that he craved. For a while his ‘radicalism’,
advocating wholesale economic reorganisation to
achieve full employment led a few on the Left, even the
great Bevan for a short time, to see him as a potential
leader. Indeed, it is distinctly unnerving to see both the
respect Mosley was shown by sections of both the Labour
Party Left and the Independent Labour Party, and
the seeming ease with which his rhetoric of renewal
could blend with theirs.
As Mosley made his way into the Cabinet of Ramsay
McDonald’s doomed Labour government and
expounded his economic programmes to tackle unemployment
(Keynesianism with an authoritarian kick),
their rejection by McDonald was due to the latter’s
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