Chapter 5
"The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.”
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(Taken from “New Britain” by Oswald Mosley, Flag Press 1931)
“…I believe in the following simple principles: (l) give a man a job to do; (2) give him the power to do it; (3) hold him responsible for doing it; (4) sack him if he does not do it. Labour principles, therefore, abhor the fugitive irresponsibility of a committee but do not descend into the morass of dictatorship. I have seen the committee system in action within our political system and have observed its consequence. If several men are in name responsible no one is, in fact, responsible, and no one can be held to account for failure… Everyone shelters behind his colleagues and disclaims personal responsibility; all wanted to do the right thing, but none could persuade their colleagues to do it. Not only does the committee system dissipate action in endless talk; it breeds cowardice and evasion in leadership in place of courage and responsibility. Therefore, in the building of our Movement and in the building of a Government I believe in the leadership principle, which means personal and individual responsibility…
…We have rationalised industry and most other aspects of life, but we have not rationalised the State. Sir Arthur Salter has said that "private society has developed no machinery which enables industry as a whole to contribute to the formation of a general economic policy, and secure its application when adopted." It is this machinery of central direction which the Corporate State is designed to supply - and that, not as a sporadic effort in time of crisis, but as a continuous part of the machinery of Government…”
(Taken from “My Life” by Oswald Mosley, Longman 1961)
“…At the time there was much loose talk of 'business government' without any clear definition of what this term meant. I gave a definition in my first days in office: 'The proper relationship of Government to Parliament is that of company directors to shareholders— the shareholders should decide broad policy and then give the directors complete freedom to carry it out'. If 'business government' meant anything clear and practical, it meant Government given the power to act by the people's representatives in Parliament, in the same way as a board of directors is given that power by the shareholders, subject to their right to interrogate and if necessary dismiss the directors at a shareholders' meeting.
This makes a practical proposition of the term 'business government', which as a vague phrase is no aid to clear thinking. Otherwise, business government can only mean that Government should itself conduct the whole country directly, as management conducts a business; namely, universal nationalisation or interference, the last thing the business world wants. The job of Government is to make possible the job of industry, not to do it. This bedrock fact must stand out of the spate of nonsense now talked about government and industry…”
(Taken from “The Mosley Era” by Tobias Griffin, Picador 1987)
“…As soon as he entered Downing St, Mosley set about enacting the legislation he felt his country so desperately needed. Dalton was appointed Chancellor and Graham[22] Home Secretary, while the ever-dependable Henderson returned to the Foreign Office…The new Government’s first move was to submit an Import Duties Bill to parliament, creating a strong tariff barrier and in the process setting out Britain’s position on the protection issue to the Dominion Governments preparing to meet at Ottawa the following month[23]. The legislation sailed through Parliament with little difficulty, impelled both by the general sense of crisis and a large degree of support from the Tory backbenches, in disarray after the resignation of Baldwin…
…After dismantling generations of British economic policy in a stroke, Mosley’s new Government used the summer recess to deal with its own internal structure. A key facet of Mosleyite political thought was the concept of the Government as corporation, and in a bid to improve governmental efficiency the administration’s entire decision-making apparatus was overhauled…”
(Taken from “The British presidency; Government in the Mosley period” by Ivan Henderson, Longman 1991)
“Mosley’s ‘corporatism’ was based upon the need to escape from established outlooks and orthodox practices, in order to release a pragmatic inventiveness that would lead to more workable ways to address immediate problems. Given these values and motive forces, together with the Prime Minister’s determination not to be sucked into the kind of leadership-sapping spectacles of Government disintegration that marked the MacDonald and Baldwin administrations, Mosley viewed the cabinet and its system of cabinet committees with personal misgivings and suspicion… After six months of a Mosley administration, an embittered George Lansbury wrote;
‘This is a government in thrall to its triumph in July and the leader that produced it… Its collective membership permits him to run it as a personal fiefdom, consulting here and there with selected colleagues, running the show through an inner ‘war’ cabinet, not all of whose members belong to the real thing or have any other base then as a Mosley familiar… Few these days talk of the cabinet as a centre of power, or its meetings as occasions where difficult matters are thrashed out between people whose convictions matter to them’ [24]
While the forms of cabinet government were adopted, the essence remained in doubt. Cabinet committees never had the status and reach that they had possessed under previous administrations, and full sessions of the cabinet were preceded by more substantial strategy meetings by the ‘Big Three’ (in 1932, Mosley, Graham and Dalton) and selected aides. The overall effect was later described by Attlee as a system whereby ‘Mosley presided over a cabinet not of comrades, but of strangers’. The use of the word ‘strangers’ was strongly suggestive of the United States Cabinet…
…The doubling of the Prime Minister’s staff in the first year of the Mosley premiership, the introduction of Party men from Labour positions to strategic posts relating to policy advice in Government departments and the Civil Service reforms of 1932-3 all contributed to a closer association between Number 10 and the ‘centre’. The drive by Mosley to provide a dynamic and professionalised ‘centre’ was exemplified by the influx of senior advisors from outside the world of politics… In September 1932 the Government invited representatives from industry, the unions, academia and banking to join a ‘National Council’, a further dilution of cabinet power…”
(Taken from “Labour; Drift and rediscovered purpose, 1924-1939” by Simon Greene, CUP 1982)
“While Mosley stayed in Britain to supervise the construction of his new Government, in August Dalton and a large team of negotiators travelled to Ottawa and the Imperial Economic conference. Their negotiations were relatively successful. While the Imperial Free Trade Area that the government truly wanted was not realised, the British negotiators were able to walk away with an agreement that could be presented as a victory for the Imperial ideal…[25]
When Parliament reconvened in September, it had a busy legislative schedule ahead of it[26]. The twin centrepieces of this legislation were the Unemployment Act and the Fair Wages Act; the first not only restored the level of benefit to largely the level it had been before the controversial cuts the previous year, but also established a ‘National Relief Organisation’ which aimed to take unemployed volunteers and place them in camps from where they would be able to carry out public works schemes. The Fair Wages Act followed the British Columbian model, legislating for a board made up of employer and employee representatives, as well as the public, to recommend a minimum wage for workers of both sexes… Plans were also announced to give tax-breaks and other incentives to companies who established factories and light industry in the depressed parts of Northern England and Scotland, and the creation of the ‘National Council’ was designed to help coordinate the actions of business, the unions and act as a breeding-ground for new ideas… In November an Agriculture Act was passed to protect British farmers via subsidy, although many still complained about the ease of imports from the Dominions…”
(Taken from “Conservatives in the 1930s” by Robert Lodge, OUP 1991)
“…The defeat of 1932 and Baldwin’s subsequent resignation gave Conservative politicians the chance to redefine their Party and become a coherent alternative to Labour... At first it seemed that there would be little controversy in the choice of new leadership. Neville Chamberlain was the obvious frontrunner, and his ministerial experience and long-held protectionism made him an appealing successor to Baldwin. However, many within the Party believed that only by emulating Labour’s choice of a charismatic younger man as leader could the defeat of the election be reversed.
There was also the influence of Lord Beaverbrook to consider. While he had appalled many Conservatives by his destructive actions in the spring, the fall of Baldwin and the triumph of protection within the Tory party had hugely increased his influence, and the demonstration of Beaverbrook’s ability to seriously damage the party at the polls convinced many that only with a leader with his blessing could prove a success… In a series of hastily convened meetings in the first week of August a disparate grouping of Tories tried to convince the party grandees that Chamberlain was too old and too familiar a face to allow the Party to make a new start, and what was needed was youth and charisma; all qualities exemplified by the young former under-secretary at the Foreign Office, Anthony Eden… ”[27]
(Taken from “The Mosley Era” by Tobias Griffin, Picador 1987)
“…After the flurry of legislation passed by the Commons in the autumn of 1932 the Labour Government settled into its role, giving Britain its first period of political stability since the beginning of the decade. Mosley still had ambitious plans for the reformation of the House of Lords amongst other things, but he was advised by his colleagues that it would be wise to allow his initial programmes to ‘bed down’ before anything new was attempted. The Government’s popularity had soared due to the radical steps Labour had taken to reduce unemployment, and the period was a bleak one for Eden’s Conservative party, whose dark warnings of disaster if Labour policies were adopted now looked ridiculous and opportunistic…
…In the spring of 1933 the Government suffered its first major crisis, when the new German Government informed the Geneva disarmament conference that unless other countries were obliged to disarm to their level, Germany would have the right to build up its own military to parity with its neighbours. While this proposal angered the French, the Mosley Government saw it as an ideal opportunity to press for full disarmament in a general sense, and publicly endorsed the German proposal[28], suggesting a disarmament plan proposed by the US President Herbert Hoover as model for the reduction of forces. This failed to impress either the French or the Germans, and in June the German delegation withdrew from the conference, refusing all attempts to entice them back. The resulting outcry over the Government’s lack of resolve towards the prospect of German re-armament came as a surprise to many, and at a debate on the issue on May 7th Eden[29] caught the mood of the House when he remarked that; “I think… this country ought to say that we will not countenance for a moment the yielding to Hitler and force what was denied to Stresseman and reason” . The controversy deeply embarrassed Mosley and in particular Henderson, who felt taken advantage of by both the Germans and by his own Government. Once the crisis had subsided, he quietly resigned, pointedly for health reasons to avoid accusations of Labour infighting. He was swiftly replaced by Clement Attlee…
…With one of the most fervent supporters of disarmament out of the cabinet and the Geneva conference in disarray, the Prime Minister increasingly came to the opinion that the attempts to disarm had been a noble failure, and only through a gradual program of military expansion could Britain feel secure. This view would put Mosley at loggerheads with parts of his own Party for the first time since he had arrived in Government, but most certainly not for the last…”
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[22] William Graham was a highly promising figure in the Labour Party who was President of the Board of Trade in MacDonald’s Labour administration. OTL he died very suddenly in 1934- this is very likely to be butterflied away in this TL.
[23] This bit of legislation will be similar to OTL’s Import Duties Act, only more wide-ranging and with higher tariffs.
[24] Lansbury is exaggerating somewhat here- he is not a fan of the Mosley administration and has been a leading light in Labour’s small anti-Mosley faction. His quote has been reproduced by the author partly because of the benefits of hindsight.
[25] OTL the conference resulted in a series of bilateral agreements between Britain and the Dominions and was regarded as something of a fudge- ITTL the government is more ideologically wedded to Imperial Preference and so is more willing to make concessions. This breaks the deadlock to a certain extent, and Britain is able to walk away with a treaty signed by the various Dominions agreeing to coordinate their efforts. This is not good news for Estonia, Argentina and Denmark amongst others- their depression will be more severe then OTL.
[26] One effect of the flurry of legislation coming out of Downing St in the days following Mosley’s election will be a tendency for later historians to compare his first ‘hundred days’ to that of FDR’s. Roosevelt will almost certainly be described as a ‘Mosleyite’ in this TL, and for his part Mosley will be regarded as somebody who ‘Americanised’ the British system of government.
[27] Poor, poor Anthony Eden. OTL he’s remembered as the man who was forced to wait too long for the top job- in this TL he’s the promising man who had greatness thrust on him too early. At least he’s not bald though…
[28] The German demand happened OTL, indeed it was one the first acts of the 3rd Reich. In this TL however the British government has a different attitude towards disarmament then OTL’s- Henderson as Foreign secretary is a great supporter of the idea, as is the Labour party as a whole. OTL, Mosley’s stance on the issue was that if possible, all nations should disarm- however, if agreement could not be reached then Britain had every right to build up her armed forces to whatever level she saw fit. His alignment with Germany then is his attempt to secure general disarmament to forestall an otherwise-necessary military build-up.
[29]So, why Eden over Chamberlain? Well firstly, because Chamberlain is too obvious, and I wanted a young, promising but over-promoted Tory leader to be facing Mosley. In terms of the political situation, I felt that the meteoric rise of Mosley would make many Tories feel that they needed to find their own equivalent, and make a fresh start- plus I’m thinking that Chamberlain would be too closely associated to Baldwin and his final government. Plus, the Tory succession has a habit of turning against the obvious contender, as Rab Butler and Ken Clarke would doubtless tell you…
[30]OTL Attlee said something very similar.
