Summary
‘If war comes…all forms of property will be taxed nigh to extinction under the delusive name of “Conscription of Wealth”.
Garvin to Astor, September 21 1938‘Mr Greenwood, when moving the Amendment yesterday, told us that the war would shake many strongly held views. I fear that this war will do very much more than that. The war will bring about changes which may be fundamental and revolutionary in the economic and social life of this country. On that we are all agreed’.
Eden in House of Commons, December 6 1939, reprinted in Eden, Freedom and Order, 1947, p. 48.‘It is the beginning of English National Socialism’.
William Mabane, Liberal National MP for Huddersfield talking about Eden's parliamentary speech of November 10 1938, reported in Nicolson diary, same dateThe Coalition which arrived in May 1940 appeared at first to be only an arrangement of convenience produced by the alliance system of the previous two years. In fact, it was the beginning of a régime. It had not only a Cabinet but camp followers, among whom were the high-priests of social equality and national regeneration along with a young Mountbatten, a young Maudling, a young Rowse, a young Harrod, a young Gaitskell, a young Heath, a young Balogh and a young Berry (with his bride) who were all doing the new thing, looking to the future and waiting for a ride on Attlee's, Churchill's, Priestley's and Noël Coward's shoulders.
Churchill's shoulders turned out to be broad, but it was not obvious how broad they would become.
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- The Impact of HitlerBritish Politics and British Policy 1933-1940, pp. 387 - 400Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1975