Хью Гейтскелл: Ұлыбританияның оппозициялық көшбасшысы

British politician and leader of the opposition

Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell (9 April 1906 – 18 January 1963) was a British politician who served as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955 until his death in 1963. An economics lecturer and wartime civil servant, he was elected to Parliament in 1945 and held office in Clement Attlee's governments, notably as Minister of Fuel and Power following the bitter winter of 1946–47, and eventually joining the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Facing the need to increase military spending in 1951, he imposed National Health Service charges on dentures and spectacles, prompting the leading left winger Aneurin Bevan to resign from the Cabinet. The perceived similarity in his outlook to that of his Conservative Party counterpart Rab Butler was dubbed "Butskellism", initially a satirical term blending their names, and was one aspect of the post war consensus through which the major parties largely agreed on the main points of domestic and foreign policy until the 1970s. With Labour in opposition from 1951, Gaitskell won bitter leadership battles with Bevan and his supporters to become the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition in 1955. In 1956 he opposed the Eden government's use of military force at Suez. Against a backdrop of a booming economy he led Labour to its third successive defeat at the 1959 general election. In the late 1950s, in the teeth of opposition from the major trade unions, he attempted in vain to remove Clause IV of the Labour Party Constitution, which committed Labour to nationalisation of all the means of production. He did not reject public ownership altogether, but also emphasised the ethical goals of liberty, social welfare and above all equality, and argued that they could be achieved by fiscal and social policies within a mixed economy. His revisionist views, on the right wing of the Labour Party, were sometimes called Gaitskellism. Despite this setback, Gaitskell reversed an attempt to adopt unilateral nuclear disarmament as Labour Party policy, and opposed Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's attempt to lead the UK into the European Common Market. He was loved and hated for his confrontational leadership and brutal frankness. He died suddenly in 1963, when he appeared to be on the verge of leading Labour back into power and becoming the next prime minister.

Hugh Gaitskell was born in Kensington, London, the third and youngest child of Arthur Gaitskell (1869–1915), of the Indian Civil Service, and Adelaide Mary, née Jamieson (died 1956), whose father, George Jamieson, was consul general in Shanghai and prior to that had been Judge of the British Supreme Court for China and Japan. He was known as "Sam" as a child. Gaitskell was educated at the Dragon School from 1912 to 1919, where he was a friend of the future poet John Betjeman. He then attended Winchester College from 1919 to 1924. He graduated with a first class degree in Philosophy, politics and economics in 1927. Gaitskell eventually came to oppose both Cole's Guild socialism and Syndicalism and to feel that the General Strike had been the last failed spasm of a strategy – attempting to seize power through direct trade union action – which had already been tried in the abortive Triple Alliance Strike of 1921. It is unclear whether Gaitskell was ever sympathetic to Oswald Mosley, then seen as a future leader of the Labour Party. Gaitskell's wife later insisted that he never had been, but Margaret Cole, Evan Durbin's wife and Noel Hall believed that he was, although as an opponent of factional splits he was not tempted to join Mosley's New Party in 1931. Gaitskell helped to run the New Fabian Research Bureau, set up by G. D. H. Cole in March 1931. In 1934 he joined the XYZ Club, a club for Labour financial experts (e. g. Hugh Dalton, of whom he became a protégé, Douglas Jay and Evan Durbin) and City people such as the economist Nicholas Davenport. In 1934 Gaitskell was in Vienna on a Rockefeller scholarship. jointly with Paul Rosenstein Rodan. He also became a University Reader. Whilst a WEA lecturer in the late 1920s Gaitskell lived for a time with a local woman in Nottinghamshire. This is thought to have been his first adult relationship. By the mid 1930s Gaitskell had formed a close relationship with a married woman, Mrs. Dora Frost (née Creditor), who came out to join him in Vienna for the latter part of his stay there. Adultery still carried such stigma that she thought it best not to help him during his Parliamentary campaign in Chatham in 1935. After her divorce, hard to obtain prior to the passage of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1937, they were eventually married on 9 April 1937, Gaitskell's thirty first birthday, with Evan Durbin as best man. Dora had a son, Raymond Frost (b 1925), from her first marriage. The Gaitskells had two daughters: Julia, born in 1939 and Cressida, born in 1942. Dora Gaitskell became a Labour life peer one year following her husband's death, and died in 1989. Gaitskell had a long term affair in the 1950s with the socialite Ann Fleming, the wife of the writer Ian Fleming. She wrote to Evelyn Waugh about a dinner party in 1958 in which Gaitskell and friends from Oxford days "held hands and recited verse because in early life they had loved each other in the same set", until the arrival of her husband "silenced the eminent homos" who "did not seem too pleased." Woodrow Wyatt wrote that "there was a scintilla of platonic homosexuality in [Gaitskell's] affection for Tony [Crosland]"

In private, he was humorous and fun loving, with a love of ballroom dancing. This contrasted with his stern public image. He was a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group.

During the Second World War, from the formation of Churchill's coalition government in May 1940 Gaitskell worked with Noel Hall and Hugh Dalton as a senior civil servant for the Ministry of Economic Warfare, giving him experience of government. Along with Dalton Gaitskell was moved to the Board of Trade in February 1942, where for the first time he came into contact with the leaders of the miners' unions, who were later to support him in his struggles against Aneurin Bevan in the 1950s. For his service, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1945. In March 1945 Gaitskell suffered a coronary thrombosis brought on by overwork. Advised to rest, he considered withdrawing from his parliamentary candidacy in Leeds, but he was popular with his constituency workers and they offered to campaign for him even if he was unable to do so. He was also approached to return to UCL as a Professor after the war, but he disliked the constant state of flux of academic economics and the increasing emphasis on mathematics, a subject of which he had little knowledge. By now he found himself more drawn to public life. Gaitskell was elected Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Leeds South in the Labour landslide victory of 1945. This would have been a rare honour as 263 of the 393 Labour MPs in 1945 were newly elected, but did not take place. As a backbencher, he spoke in debates in support of Dalton's nationalisation of the Bank of England, which eventually received Royal Assent on 14 February 1946. Dalton was trying to score party points by claiming that he was reasserting political control over the City of London, a far fetched claim as the Bank was already under political control. Although some Conservative MPs spoke against the measure it was not opposed by Churchill, then Leader of the Opposition, who had had an ambivalent view of the Bank since his own time as chancellor in the 1920s.

Gaitskell was given his first ministerial appointment in May 1946 as Parliamentary Under Secretary for Fuel and Power, serving under Emmanuel "Manny" Shinwell. The job had initially been earmarked for Harold Wilson, with Gaitskell pencilled in to succeed Wilson as Parliamentary Under Secretary at the Ministry of Works. Gaitskell believed that Shinwell, who was suspicious of middle class intellectual socialists, may have picked him in preference to Wilson because the latter was already an expert on the mining industry. Gaitskell played an important role steering the Coal Nationalisation Bill through the House of Commons, bearing the brunt of the committee stage and winding up the final debate. In the fuel crisis of February 1947 Shinwell, who had ignored Gaitskell's warnings, had to ask the Cabinet for permission to shut down power stations; Gaitskell was put on and ran the key committee which decided where coal should be sent. In 1947 he once again played an important role steering electricity nationalisation through the House of Commons, winding up the debate on the second reading. He had committed a gaffe during the municipal election campaign in Hastings earlier that year, when he recommended that people save fuel by taking fewer baths, adding that he had never taken all that many himself; in the House of Commons in late October Churchill joked that it was no wonder that the Government were "in bad odour" and asked the Speaker if he might be permitted to describe Labour ministers as "lousey", normally an unparliamentary expression, as it would be a simple statement of fact. Gaitskell made himself very unpopular by abolishing the basic petrol ration for private motorists, but encouraged the building of oil refineries, a move little noticed at the time which would have important repercussions for the future. Like Cripps and Dalton, Gaitskell was a devotee of cheap money. Not only were higher interest rates seen as associated with the Gold standard and the deflationary policies of the 1920s, but the policy preference in the 1940s was for quantitative controls (e. g. exchange controls in finance, or rationing of physical goods) rather than the price mechanism. Interest rates, which had been cut to low levels in the 1930s, did not begin to be used as an instrument of policy again until after the Conservatives returned to power in 1952. Cripps was seriously unwell and had to go to Switzerland to convalesce on 18 July; Attlee announced that he was taking over Cripps' responsibilities with three young, financially able, ministers to advise him. Gaitskell and Wilson met with Attlee, Ernest Bevin and Cripps at Chequers on 19 August, and Bevin and Cripps agreed with some reluctance to devaluation. The decision was finally confirmed by the Cabinet on 9 August, although Cripps rejected Gaitskell's plan for a floating band. Devaluation (from $4.03 to $2.80) was announced on Sunday 18 September after a secret Cabinet meeting the day before. Many other countries followed suit, so it was mainly UK trade with dollar using countries which was affected. Gaitskell had initially been suspicious of devaluation because it was a price mechanism, but earned the admiration of Robert Hall over this crisis. He accepted the need for spending cuts to help make devaluation work and keep to keep the Americans happy, and thought former chancellor Dalton "rather dishonest" for arguing at the Economic Policy Committee that cuts were not necessary. Cripps, who had implied in his devaluation broadcast that devaluation was an alternative to cuts, threatened to resign unless cuts of £300m were agreed; Aneurin Bevan (Minister of Health) in turn threatened to resign as did A. V. Alexander (Minister of Defence). In the event most of the cuts were to future spending plans except for Bevan's housing budget.

In January 1950 Gaitskell submitted a paper called "Control and Liberalisation" to the Economic Policy Committee, which he was sometimes invited to attend. He wrote that "On 'liberalisation' we have gone about far enough. But we have done it for political reasons – US and Europe". He was opposed to the convertibility of currencies and non discrimination between trading partners, both policies which the US favoured. Britain still preferred to encourage trade in pounds sterling within the Commonwealth, and Gaitskell wanted to preserve Britain's ability to avoid downturns like the US downturn of 1948–9, which Britain had largely escaped because of devaluation. In the February 1950 General Election the Government were re elected with a tiny majority. In the ensuing reshuffle Gaitskell was appointed Minister for Economic Affairs, effectively Deputy Chancellor but still outside the Cabinet. Soon after his promotion he recorded that he often had to stiffen up Cripps, who was not as tough as his public image would suggest, to make sure he did not make too many concessions in negotiations with colleagues. The level of spending on the new NHS was already running far in excess of predictions. In November 1949, with the high level of public spending already a problem and under pressure from Cripps, Bevan had pushed an act through Parliament granting the government the power to impose prescription charges, although they were not brought in just yet (Cripps had wanted 1 shilling per prescription, but Bevan had not agreed to this). In the 1949–50 financial year Cripps had allowed £90m of extra health service spending ("supplementaries"). Early in 1950 Cripps backed off from a plan to introduce further charges, this time on false teeth and spectacles, after Bevan threatened to resign, but Gaitskell was put on a committee to monitor Bevan's agreement to a ceiling on NHS spending. The Treasury wanted health spending capped at £350m per annum, although it was willing to accept £392m for 1950–1. There was already friction between Gaitskell and Bevan. At one meeting, probably 28 June 1950, Bevan had been about to walk out of the room until Attlee called him back. Bevan stopped attending Cripps' Thursday night dinners for economics ministers. After one of those dinners Bevan's old ally John Strachey, now Minister of Food, rebuked him for attacking Gaitskell, whom he thought "one of the really considerable men of the Government", a suggestion to which Bevan responded with derision, calling him "nothing, nothing, nothing".

By the second half of 1950 the western powers were caught up in a major rearmament drive. The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 at first threatened US loss of South Korea (which was seen as vital for the defence of Japan), and by the autumn threatened to escalate into a general war between the US and Communist China. There were also very real worries that the Soviets might invade western Europe (which was unarmed, with strong communist influence in many countries) and that the US would not help Britain if she did not help herself. The crushing of democracy in Czechoslovakia had been as recent as 1948. In August 1950 the British defence budget was hiked from £2.3bn to £3.6bn (a total over a three year period); at this stage it had appeared that the US would be willing to help foot the bill. In September 1950 inflationary pressure was worsened when the TUC voted to end the existing two year wage freeze, although there was no wage explosion just yet. It was difficult for the Treasury to take tough measures given the government's small majority and the likelihood of another election soon. In September 1950, with Britain's balance of payments now in surplus, Gaitskell negotiated British membership of the European Payments Union, meaning that instead of bilateral clearing, European currencies were to be convertible against one another even if not against the US dollar. Previously dollars had been needed for trade within Europe. Until then Gaitskell had shared concerns that some countries might stay in permanent deficit and thus effectively use their neighbours for free borrowing, or conversely that Belgium's surplus would enable her to suck gold and dollars from Britain. The EPU lasted until sterling was made convertible in 1958. Although Gaitskell had until recently thought Bevan an inevitable future leader for the Labour Party, by the 1950 Party Conference (2 October) "The Daily Telegraph" political correspondent guessed correctly that he and Gaitskell were already fighting a proxy battle for the future leadership. It was now becoming clear that the US Congress was reluctant to help Britain meet the cost of rearmament. Gaitskell visited Washington in October 1950, his first visit there, just before becoming Chancellor. He warned that the terms of trade were shifting against Britain, and of the costs of rearmament. In October 1950 Cripps finally resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Dalton proposed Gaitskell for the vacancy. Sir Edward Bridges wanted Herbert Morrison, a political heavyweight; Morrison had been an early advocate of devaluation but did not regard himself as qualified. Gaitskell was appointed at the young age of 44, especially unusual as most of Attlee's Cabinet were in their sixties or older. He became the Chancellor with the shortest Parliamentary apprenticeship since Pitt the Younger in 1782. As Chancellor of the Exchequer he retained the same control over economic planning which Cripps had had. Both Cripps and Gaitskell insisted that Gaitskell be listed after Attlee, Bevin and Morrison in the official Cabinet pecking order. Gaitskell recorded that Bevan often asserted that Cripps had promised him the Exchequer. Rab Butler and Samuel Brittan, both writing in the early 1970s, commented that Gaitskell was the most technically qualified chancellor of the 20th century up until that date. In December 1950, Gaitskell rejected the advice of Kim Cobbold (Governor of the Bank of England) and Hall that interest rates be raised, calling such a policy "completely antiquated". Gaitskell welcomed the changes as reducing an obstacle to economies in health spending. Gaitskell still favoured discrimination in favour of sterling trade and was opposed to sterling convertibility, but was now a lot more pro American since his October 1950 visit to Washington. By February 1951 he was strongly critical of anti Americanism in cabinet. Bevan's Commons speech on 15 February 1951 defended the extra £4.7bn on armaments, although most of his speech was a warning not to rearm too fast and that communism would be defeated through democratic socialism not through arms. Gaitskell the following day recorded his regret that for all Bevan's brilliance in oratory he should be "a difficult team worker, and some would say even worse – a thoroughly unreliable and disloyal colleague."

Gaitskell made the controversial decision to introduce charges for prescription glasses and dentures on the National Health Service in his spring 1951 budget. The Cabinet had agreed in principle in February 1951 to charges on teeth and spectacles. On 9 March Ernest Bevin was moved from the Foreign Office, dying a month later. Bevan, who had hoped to succeed him, was passed over for promotion to a major job for the second time in six months. By this point other ministers felt that Bevan was looking for an issue on which to resign, and that it was pointless making too many concessions as he needed to be made to appear to be in the wrong. In addition, Purchase Tax was increased from 33% to 66% on certain luxury items such as cars, television sets and domestic appliances, while entertainment tax was increased on cinema tickets. At the same time, however, taxation on profits was raised and pensions increased to compensate retirees for a rise in the cost of living, while the allowances for dependent children payable to widows, the unemployed and the sick, together with marriage and child allowances, were also increased. In addition, a number of small items were removed from purchase tax, Besides taxing the better off and protecting pensions, Gaitskell actually increased NHS spending. The budget increased defence spending by £500m to £1.5bn for 1951–2, helped by a surplus inherited from Cripps and optimistic growth forecasts. Plans to introduce capital gains tax were postponed until 1952. Prime Minister Attlee's initial reaction to the draft budget was that there were not likely to be many votes in it – Gaitskell replied that he could not expect votes in a rearmament year. At a Cabinet meeting on 22 March Gaitskell was dissuaded from his original intention to insist on prescription charges, as these might fall heavily on the genuinely sick.

Gaitskell and Attlee warned of risks that the rearmament programme might not be fully implemented. Gaitskell warned the Economic Policy Committee (3 April 1951) of the shortage of machine tools, and stated that some could be imported from the US but that this would weaken the balance of payments. A very angry Bevan saw the charges as a blow to the principle of a free health service, telling a heckler whilst he was making a speech in Bermondsey (3 April 1951) that he would resign rather than accept health charges. Gaitskell, besides the obvious need for a new Chancellor to assert his authority, saw this as a deliberate attempt to publicly bounce the Cabinet, telling Dalton that Bevan's "influence was very much exaggerated" and that he might split the Labour Party as Lloyd George had the Liberals. Herbert Morrison, who was chairing the Cabinet whilst Attlee was being treated in hospital, again proposed a compromise that there be an agreed ceiling on public spending but no NHS charges. Gaitskell was determined that there would not be an open ended commitment to welfare spending at the expense of economic investment or rearmament, and rejected Morrison's proposal. Gaitskell's budget was praised at the time. His predecessor Stafford Cripps wrote to him praising him for not giving in to "political expediency", whilst he was supported in public by two younger MPs later to be staunch allies, Roy Jenkins and Anthony Crosland. After the budget Tony Benn, who was on the right of the Labour Party at that time, recorded the atmosphere at the party meeting (i. e. a meeting of Labour MPs) on 11 April as "sheer relief" that it had not been worse; the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) strongly supported the budget. However, Bevan soon rejected Gaitskell's proposed compromise that it be announced that the health charges were not to be permanent as "a bromide". Bevan's ally Michael Foot wrote an editorial in Tribune comparing Gaitskell to Philip Snowden (the Chancellor whose cuts in 1931 had brought down the Second Labour Government, after which he and other leading members of the Cabinet entered into the Tory dominated National Government). Bevan resigned on 21 April, as did Harold Wilson and John Freeman. Gaitskell defended his budget at the party meeting on 24 April. He said it was still too early to tell if the rearmament programme was actually achievable.

Edmund Dell argues that neither Bevan nor Gaitskell emerge with much credit from the affair. "Gaitskell was obsessed by Bevan and by the need to establish his authority over him". Charges on false teeth and spectacles were "insignificant" in the context of the greater budget and "financially were neither here nor there" but Bevan was "impatient and arrogant and noisy and apparently intent on exhausting the tolerance of his cabinet colleagues". Gaitskell agreed to limit health charges to three years (subject to Parliament voting to extend them), made concessions on pensions to the Trade Union Group of MPs, and a diary entry suggests he was not happy about dividend constraints – yet he was not prepared to make significant concessions to Bevan. However, Dell argues that all chancellors have to make sticking points or they would have to give in to everybody. Gaitskell saw himself as defending the country and wanted to prove Labour a "responsible party of government", but the public were not yet aware of the looming inflation problem. Gaitskell told George Brown in 1960: "It was a battle between us for power – he knew it and so did I". John Campbell agrees that Bevan may have been partly right that Gaitskell, abetted by Morrison, was deliberately trying to drive him out of the Cabinet. Gaitskell believed that Labour had to be seen to govern with fiscal responsibility, telling Dalton on 4 May 1951 that he and Bevan were engaged in a battle for the soul of the Labour Party, and that if Bevan won Labour would be out for many years (although, ironically, Gaitskell won but they were out of power for many years anyway). Had Attlee not been sick, he might have been able to patch up a compromise. Historian Brian Brivati believes that the importance of the charges was "irrelevant" to the huge cost of rearmament, which damaged Britain's recovery in the years which followed by absorbing earnings from exports.

A £300m surplus in the British balance of payments in 1950 turned into a £400m deficit in 1951, the most sudden reversal on record up until that time. This was caused partly by businesses switching to rearmament rather than generating exports. The other reason was a deterioration in the terms of trade: higher oil prices after the Iranian oil crisis caused an outflow of dollars, whilst prices of wool, tin and rubber fell so the rest of the sterling area was not earning so many dollars from exports. By the second half of 1951 the overseas sterling area was importing from North America at double the 1950 rate. By 1951 inflation was beginning to increase, the government budget surplus had disappeared, and in another sign of an overheating economy unemployment was down to 1945 levels. By the second half of 1951 Gaitskell was worried about the political effect of the higher cost of living, but the Financial Times and The Economist accused him of using higher prices to choke off consumption and free up resources for rearmament instead of consumer goods production. Gaitskell again rejected Treasury advice to raise interest rates to cool the economy in June, July and August 1951. He argued that higher interest rates would be perceived as generating profits for the banks, which would not sit well with trade unions, and he was only prepared to consider demanding that the banks restrict credit. By August–September 1951 the Treasury were taken by surprise by a full on sterling crisis, which they passed on to the incoming Conservative Government. Sterling was trading unofficially at $2.40, below the official rate of $2.80. Gaitskell visited Washington in the autumn of 1951, where he thought US Treasury Secretary John Wesley Snyder "a pretty small minded, small town, semi isolationist". A committee was formed, containing Plowden and Averell Harriman, to investigate the way in which US rearmament was absorbing and pushing up the prices of world raw materials. Labour lost the October 1951 General Election despite getting more votes than the Conservatives. Whilst the Bevanites blamed defeat on Morrison's policy of "consolidation", the right blamed Bevan for causing a split. Nobody imagined Labour would be out of power for more than a few years, and Attlee expected to be Prime Minister again by 1953. When the Conservatives returned to power, the new chancellor Rab Butler would get the balance of payments back into surplus in 1952 by cutting overseas spending, a measure which Dell suggests Gaitskell had not wanted to irritate the Americans by taking. In his memoirs (Art of the Possible, p. 163) Butler later called him "a political mouse who, confronted with a gigantic deterioration in the balance of payments, responded by cutting a sliver off the cheese ration". After the Conservatives cut the armament plans in 1952 Crosland told people that Gaitskell had made him look like "a complete idiot" for supporting the budget in public. However, even by the end of 1951 there was less likelihood of the Korean War turning into a general war (the front line had stabilised, with the US administration being clear that they did not wish to escalate hostilities against China), so any government might have pared back defence spending in 1952.

In opposition, Gaitskell's house at Frognal Gardens, Hampstead, became a centre for political intrigue. At first Herbert Morrison still seemed likely to succeed Attlee as leader. This period was characterised by factional infighting between the 'Bevanite' left of the Labour party led by Aneurin Bevan, whose strength lay mainly in the constituency Labour Parties ("CLP"s) and the 'Gaitskellite' right who had the upper hand in the Parliamentary Party (Labour MPs – known collectively as the "PLP"). Bevan at this time thought that Gaitskell should be reduced to "a junior clerk" in the next Labour Government. On 1 August 1952, when Gaitskell had succeeded in putting Churchill (Prime Minister at the time) on the ropes in a House of Commons debate, Bevan intervened to attack Gaitskell, an event greeted with Tory relief and according to Crossman "icy silence" on the Labour benches. Dalton (30 September 1952) thought the Morecambe Party Conference "the worst for bad temper and general hatred, since 1926" whilst Michael Foot thought it "rowdy, convulsive, vulgar, splenetic". A series of left wing motions were passed. Bevanites took over the constituency section of Labour's National Executive Committee (the "NEC"): Bevan, Barbara Castle, Tom Driberg, Ian Mikardo and Harold Wilson took the top five places with Crossman seventh. Veteran right wingers such as Herbert Morrison and Hugh Dalton were voted off, with Jim Griffiths in sixth place the only member of the Old Guard to survive; Shinwell, who as Minister of Defence was seen as responsible for the rearmament programme, had been voted off the previous year. In a speech at Stalybridge (5 October 1952) Gaitskell alleged that "about one sixth" of the constituency delegates "appeared to be Communist or Communist inspired" and attacked "the stream of grossly misleading propaganda with poisonous innuendos and malicious attacks on Attlee, Morrison and the rest of us" published in Tribune. He claimed that Labour was threatened by "mob rule" got up by "frustrated journalists" (a number of Bevanites, including Michael Foot and Tom Driberg, were journalists). Relations between Bevan and Gaitskell continued to be acrimonious. On one occasion in 1953, when Gaitskell called for unity at a Shadow Cabinet meeting, Bevan was observed to give him "a glare of concentrated hatred" and declared: "You're too young in the movement to know what you're talking about". Bevan resigned from the Shadow Cabinet in April 1954 over Labour's support for the setting up of SEATO. The Treasurership election was seen as particularly important as it was lining up a successor to Attlee, whose retirement was clearly fairly imminent.

In March 1955 Bevan, who had given no hint of disagreement with party policy at the party meeting a few days earlier, now challenged Attlee in a House of Commons debate to demand terms for use of the new H Bomb in return for Labour's support for the weapon. He and 62 other abstained in the vote, leading to demands from loyalists that the party whip be withdrawn from him as a preliminary to him being formally expelled from the Labour Party by the NEC. Writing a few days later, Gaitskell claimed to have felt that "sooner or later [Bevan] would have to go, but I was not sure whether this was the right moment" (19 March). However, Gaitskell told an audience at Doncaster that Bevan had made "a direct challenge to the elected Leader of our Party" and accused him of not being a team player. At a party meeting a few days later (16 March) Bevan accused Gaitskell of having told a direct lie against him and declared that it was "those hatchet faced men sitting on the platform" who were undermining the leadership. After a lukewarm summing up by Attlee the PLP voted by 114–112 to withdraw the whip from Bevan. Gaitskell felt he had to follow the lead of the unions and pushed for Bevan's expulsion, telling Crossman (24 March) that Ian Mikardo was running a Bevanite organisation in the constituency parties to make Bevan leader. When Crossman interjected that Bevan "was only half wanting" to be leader, had not made any conspiracy against Attlee and was mainly concerned at voicing protests against Morrison and Gaitskell, the latter replied that "there are extraordinary parallels between Nye and Adolf Hitler. They are demagogues of exactly the same sort There are minor differences but what is striking is the resemblance". Summoned to appear before an NEC sub committee, Bevan refused to be "cornered by Gaitskell". In the event Gaitskell intervened only once at the meeting, asking Bevan to give a pledge that he would not attack the leader – Bevan refused as it was "a trap". Bevan's apology for his rebellion over the H Bomb was accepted. Gaitskell described the result (2 April) as "a stalemate my own position is no doubt weaker". At the Margate conference that autumn Gaitskell gave a stirring and well received speech including an apparently unscripted passage stressing his own socialist credentials and arguing that nationalisation was still a "vital means" to achieving that end. Bevan was observed to be watching the speech "red faced and furious" and complaining of Gaitskell's "sheer demagogy". In October 1955 Gaitskell was re elected Party Treasurer by a wider margin over Bevan than the previous year. Gaitskell comfortably defeated Bevan (Morrison came a poor third) in the party leadership contest. Gaitskell told a friend that "The leadership came to me so early because Bevan threw it at me by his behaviour", a view shared by Attlee and Harold Wilson. Gaitskell was very inexperienced for a party leader by the standards of the time. He offered Bevan a public olive branch at the party meeting after the result, promising that he would "not be outdone in generosity" if Bevan accepted the vote. Bevan agreed to do so, wishing Gaitskell "higher office". Brivati writes that Gaitskell's 1951–55 "political performance has not received the credit it deserves, for energy, for strategy and for sheer nerve". Gaitskell denounced Nasser's action at 11am on 27 July in the House of Commons debate. Gaitskell's position became more cautious during the summer, and he suggested the dispute with Egypt should be referred to the United Nations. His first speech on Suez (2 August 1956) attacked Nasser and was welcomed by many Conservatives, and implied that he would support the use of force, but in Brivati's view did not give enough emphasis to his stipulation that it be done through the United Nations. In two letters to Eden sent on 3 and 10 August Gaitskell condemned Nasser, but warned that he would not support any action that violated the United Nations charter. Gaitskell's stance on Suez attracted some Liberal support. The pollster Mark Abrams convinced him of the need to broaden Labour's appeal by picking up anti colonialist votes, but this would be a development of longer term importance to the Labour Party. At the time Gaitskell was much criticised in the press, especially for his ill judged and unsuccessful plea for Tory dissidents to remove Eden from power.

Gaitskell was a consensual leader in 1955–59, in contrast to his earlier and later image. Labour was widely expected to win the next general election and in Campbell's view he arguably did not give a clear enough lead or attack the Conservatives aggressively enough. Gaitskell had initially believed nationalisation to be both morally right and economically efficient, and hoped in vain that manager worker relations would be transformed. Gaitskell's political philosophy became known as Gaitskellism, and from the late 1950s brought him into increasing conflict with the trade unions over nationalisation. Besides repudiating the unquestioned commitment to public ownership of the means of production, now seen as merely one of numerous useful devices, he emphasised the goals of personal liberty, social welfare and above all social equality. Gaitskellism tended to downplay loyalty to the Labour movement as a central ethical goal, and argued that the new goals could be achieved if the government used appropriate fiscal and social policy measures within the context of a market oriented mixed economy. Frank Cousins became General Secretary of the TGWU in 1956, beginning the process whereby the unions began to shift left. The 1957 Conference endorsed the document "Industry and Society", which called for more flexibility, including state purchase of shares in small private firms. This was loudly condemned by Bevan's wife Jennie Lee and by Michael Foot, editor of Tribune but out of Parliament at the time. In the summer of 1959 Hugh and Dora Gaitskell, accompanied by Bevan, went to the USSR to copy Macmillan's recent successful trip. At Newcastle, with a general election clearly imminent, Gaitskell pledged that Labour's spending plans would not require him to raise income tax, for which he was attacked by the Tories for supposed irresponsibility. The Labour Party had been widely expected to win the 1959 general election, but did not. The Conservatives increased their majority, a fact partly attributable to the post war prosperity that Britain was now experiencing. This election defeat led to questions being asked as to whether Labour could ever win a general election again, but Gaitskell remained as leader. The November 1959 Conference, postponed because of the election, was already divided by rumours that Gaitskell was planning action over Clause IV. Ignoring advice from his allies, and partly motivated by detailed polling by Mark Abrams which showed that younger voters regarded Labour as old fashioned, Gaitskell pushed for reform. Brivati writes that Clause IV was irrelevant in practice but Gaitskell had made "a frontal assault on a Labour equivalent of the Thirty nine Articles of the Church of England". Benn wrote (28 November 1959): "Nye's speech this afternoon was witty, scintillating, positive, conciliatory – the model of what a Leader should do. He didn't knock Hugh out but he gently elbowed him aside". The cartoonist "Vicky" showed Gaitskell pedalling to Blackpool on a tandem with Bevan behind him – then pedalling back again but this time with Bevan in the front saddle (30 November 1959). There was much talk that Bevan might now seize the party leadership, but it seems unlikely that he had the stomach for this anymore, not least as he had never wanted to be leader solely for its own sake. Gaitskell could no longer afford to quarrel with his deputy, and he enjoyed a position of great influence as keeper of the party's conscience, similar to, but much more powerful than, the position of John Prescott relative to Tony Blair forty years later. Moreover, by the end of 1959 Bevan was seriously unwell; he withdrew from the public eye and died in July 1960. In March 1960 the NEC agreed a new statement of Labour's aims as an addition to Clause IV rather than a replacement. Throughout the summer of 1960 union conferences, many of whose rule books had their own equivalent to Clause IV, were hostile to the new proposal, and in the end four of the six largest unions opposed Gaitskell's plans. The new proposal was demoted to a "valuable expression". Gaitskell was challenged unsuccessfully for the leadership by Harold Wilson in November 1960. The Blackpool Conference of October 1961 saw a narrow conference vote in favour of multilateral disarmament. Unilateral nuclear disarmament remained a divisive issue, and many on the Left continued to call for a change of leadership. Gaitskell was again challenged unsuccessfully for the Labour leadership in November 1961, this time by Anthony Greenwood. The Campaign for Democratic Socialism was founded to promote the Gaitskellite cause – it never acquired much influence in the ranks of the trades unions, but achieved some success in promoting the selection of friendly Parliamentary candidates. Richard Hamilton with his wife, Terry Hamilton, both supporters of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, collaborated to produce Portrait of Hugh Gaitskell as a Famous Monster of Filmland, 1964, with Richard completing the piece in 1964 after Terry's death in 1962. Arts Council England bought the piece for the national collection, which caused controversy. The painting was considered a tasteless attack. Hamilton stated in his posthumously published autobiography (written in the third person)

'When it was completed he was unhappy about the result. The painting did not have the aggression he had intended or the stylistic polarity he had aimed at. It was perhaps too smart alecky, too clever: sarcasm was not the right tool for a subject that affected all humanity.'

Gaitskell alienated some of his supporters by his opposition to British membership of the European Economic Community, which Conservative Prime Minister Macmillan had been seeking since July 1961. Although not entirely opposed in principle to British entry, he believed that the EEC was resistant to reform and that membership would hurt Britain's relations with the Commonwealth. In a speech to the party conference in October 1962, Gaitskell argued that if the aim was for Britain to participate in a Federal Europe, this would mean "the end of Britain as an independent European state, the end of a thousand years of history!" He added: "You may say, all right! Let it end! But, my goodness, it's a decision that needs a little care and thought." Gaitskell's body was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 23 January 1963. His ashes are buried in the churchyard of St John at Hampstead Church, north London. His wife died in 1989 and was buried alongside him. The shock of Gaitskell's death was comparable to that of the sudden death of the later Labour Party leader John Smith, in May 1994, when he too seemed to be on the threshold of Number 10. His estate was valued for probate at £80,013 10s 0d on 23 April 1963 (around £1.7m at 2020 prices). Beginning with his time as a minister under Attlee, Gaitskell kept a diary until 1956. The diary is an important primary source for the politics of the era.

Gaitskell's death left an opening for Harold Wilson in the party leadership; Wilson narrowly won the next general election for Labour 21 months later. The abrupt and unexpected nature of Gaitskell's death led to some speculation that foul play might have been involved. The most popular conspiracy theory involved a supposed Soviet KGB plot to ensure that Wilson (alleged by the supporters of these theories to be a KGB agent himself) became prime minister. This claim was given new life by Peter Wright's controversial 1987 book Spycatcher, but the only evidence that ever came to light was the testimony of a Soviet defector, Anatoliy Golitsyn. MI5 repeatedly investigated Wilson over the course of several years before conclusively deciding that he had no relationship with the KGB.

Gaitskell was adored by followers like Roy Jenkins, who thought him a beacon of hope, decency and integrity, especially as Wilson's government came more and more to seem one of shabby compromises. Left wingers like Barbara Castle loathed him for his intransigence. Many, including Tony Benn – a Labour centrist at the time – simply thought him a divisive figure and initially welcomed Wilson as a fresh start who could unite the party. In the event Wilson's closest allies as Prime Minister – Crossman and Castle – were former Bevanites. However, many of the Gaitskellites held leading positions in Harold Wilson's Cabinet of 1964–70. Many of them – e. g. Roy Jenkins and Bill Rodgers but not Anthony Crosland or Douglas Jay – became supporters of British membership of the EEC, an issue on which Labour was split in the 1970s and which helped to precipitate the SDP split of 1981. Neil Kinnock (Labour Leader 1983–92) grew up in South Wales and was brought up as an admirer of Bevan, but although he disliked the comparison his battle with the hard left Militant tendency in the mid 1980s had echoes of Gaitskellism; John Smith (Labour Leader 1992–4) had been a Gaitskellite as a young man in the early 1960s; Tony Blair's first act as leader in 1994 was finally to abolish Clause IV – for this and other acts he was supported by the elderly Roy Jenkins, who had become a Liberal Democrat by then. Like Gaitskell before him, Blair was often seen by many of his enemies in the Labour Party as a public school educated, middle class interloper.