The Coronavirus crisis has elevated a range of things in the popular consciousness – that song from Tangled, professional football in Belarus (which was, for a while, the only live sport available), Rishi Sunak’s startling good looks, and, more seriously, social issues from unequal access to education to the disproportionate impact of the virus on BAME people and communities. Perhaps its least surprising effect in Britain has been the prominence of the NHS in people’s thoughts, concerns, slogans, and think-pieces. As such, it seemed a good time to read something about NHS history. An excellent New Statesman profile piece pointed me towards Nye – Nick Thomas-Symonds’ (NTS) biography of Aneurin Bevan.
Bevan is rather a difficult subject for a biographer. Falling as he does outside of Labour’s postwar orthodoxy, and even further outside during the war itself while he opposed the coalition government, his existing biographies (not that I’ve read any of them!) apparently fall into one of the two obvious partisan traps. NTS is therefore careful to avoid what has been wittily dubbed ‘Nyeolatry’, dealing carefully and rigorously with Bevan’s temper, his wilful individuality (which sometimes cost Labour at the ballot box), his indifference towards his ‘Bevanite’ group of supporters, and his more controversial policy positions (especially his rejection of unilateral disarmament at Conference in 1957). He also avoids the revisionism of biographers opposed to the Labour left – John Campbell’s biography of him is subtitled ‘The Mirage of British Socialism’. NTS highlights in particular that Bevan did indeed successfully hold out against opposition even within the cabinet to the ‘free-at-the-point-of-use’ principle, which remains one of the NHS’ most treasured aspects. Nye leaves readers with the firm impression firstly that the NHS owes much of its foundation to the work and vision of its founder, and secondly that its visionary founder suffered from deep flaws of character and judgement.
Bevan’s pragmatism is, perhaps surprisingly, emphasised throughout. Although he did resign from the Cabinet, and even had the whip removed briefly for leading a revolt against Labour policy on H-bomb testing, Bevan’s ability to negotiate effectively with the BMA on doctors’ pay without compromising the principles of the proposed NHS system is presented as one of his great successes. This was the culmination of a long willingness to accommodate on Bevan’s part – he began his Councillor career by acceding to a proposal to freeze council tax rates. In the same vein, NTS presents his meteoric rise from checkweighman at a coal pit to Cabinet Minister as a consistent and determined attempt to represent the working class’ interests, and decidedly not a careerist climb up the greasy pole. This desire to effect real and positive change seems to have informed Bevan’s flexibility on issues of secondary importance – he was more concerned with improving his constituents’ lives than being seen to defend a pure political philosophy. However, the firmness of his convictions meant that he was not always the most conciliatory of influences – NTS does not shy away from discussing his comment that Tories are ‘worse than vermin’ (leading apparently to the sarcastic foundation of Conservative ‘Vermin Clubs’), and neither from his chequered relationship with Labour colleagues. When a journalist suggested to Ernest Bevin that Nye was ‘his own worst enemy’, Bevin growled ‘not while I’m alive he ain’t’.
On the whole, Nye doesn’t read like any kind of polemic, or defence of a particular Labour faction. But it’s not entirely free of NTS’ own political persuasions and somewhat ulterior motives. He is at his lyrical best when defending Labour unity – the disaffiliation of the ILP in 1936 apparently “indicated that the group preferred the doctrinal purity of the wilderness to the grubby compromises of actual political power”. The characterisation of Attlee’s leadership style – apparently as a consensus-seeking facilitator rather than active helmsman – is also interesting in this light, although NTS doesn’t make an explicit judgement of the value of this style. This is not necessarily a weakness of the book. This promotion of unity is one of the lessons which NTS tacitly draws out of the period: he seems to suggest that Bevan damaged his own career prospects and Labour’s influence in the wartime government, and then the party’s electoral prospects after his resignation in 1951. Originally published in 2014, Nye is impressively prescient in drawing attention to this issue which is now central.
Overall, Nye deals even-handedly and consistently with the tensions in that period of Labour history – particularly in the unfolding conflict between Bevan’s class-centred philosophic vision of socialism and the more centre-left approach adopted by Tony Crosland and others. NTS also does well to avoid demonising any of the prominent figures in Labour at the time – although Attlee looks anaemic, Gaitskell conniving at times, and Morrison obstinate and inflexible, none of them are cast as enemies of Labour values, sell-outs, or other familiar cliches from more recent Labour history. Nye is a balanced, richly researched, and highly relevant work, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Yikeiatry 