Coulsdon Eagle
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Well, from the very article you linked: "Attlee & Greenwood are unable to distinguish between the PM & Halifax and are not prepared to serve under the latter". That's the original emphasis, not mine.
If you are relying on Beaverbrook's quote, I would remind you he despised Attlee & is about as reliable & self-seeking as Boothby, whose own words appear above. Selective?
Arthur Greenwood was strongly pro-Churchill, and was at the lunch with Clem Davies when they persuaded Attlee to back Churchill and not Halifax. Boothby's quote is on the reported outcome.
Chamberlain by Graham Macklin: "Later that day Chamberlain learned that Labour wanted Churchill, leaving him with little choice but to propose Churchill's name to the King whilst tendering his resignation."
This is borne out by a letter from Chamberlain to his sister Ida on 11 May: "Sent for Attlee & Greenwood... to ask whether the labour [sic] party would join a government under me or if not under someone else. I did not name the someone else.. but I understood they favoured Halifax, and I had him in mind... Later I heard that the labour [sic] party had changed their minds and were veering towards Winston and I agreed with him & Halifax that I would put Winston's name to the King." [Sheila Lawlor: Churchill & The Politics of War 1940-1941.]
Francis Beckett in Clem Attlee: Labour's Great Reformer. "Chamberlain preferred Halifax, and among Chamberlain's friends grew the rumour that, Labour too, would prefer Halifax, because they had never forgiven Churchill for ordering troops to fire on striking Welsh miners in the early 1920s. Perhaps some Labour figures did. Hugh Dalton certainly preferred him - he said so in his diary - and he seems to think his leader did, too. But there is serious doubt about that. Major Attlee, the Gallipoli veteran, belived that Churchill's Gallipoli plan had been a brilliant strategic concept, frustrated by stupid generals unable to think beyond the idea of flinging millions of men out of Flanders trenches and into hails of German bullets. Churchill had not only been right about the last war; he had been right about this one, too, and Halifax had been wrong. 'Queer bird, Halifax,' said Attlee in one of those asides his colleagues started to treasure; 'Very humourous, all hunting and Holy Communion.'"
And Dalton soon changed his tune, referring to Churchill as: "The only man we have for this hour."
Manny Shinwell; "[Halifax] a namby-pamby Foreign Secretary who could deal with the diplomatic stuff but was not particularly capable. There was no-one else other than Winston Churchill."
John Parker: "Halifax was not acceptable to the Labour Party."
On the early evening of 9 May Margesson, the government's chief whip reported to Chamberlain that opinion among Tory MPs was "veering towards Churchill," although in fairness he did this only after Halifax's comments about the difficulties of being a peer.
Boothby: "Opinion is hardening against Halifax as Prime Minister. I am doing my best to foster this but I cannot feel he is, in any circumstances, the right man." [Leo McKinistry Attlee & Churchill: Allies in War, Adversaries in Peace."]
"I was certainly not among those Labour leaders who would have preferred Lord Halifax. To my mind, at that juncture, one requirement was imperative and overrode every consideration: we had to win the war. I was convinced that Winston Churchill stood head and shoulders above any other possible prime minister. I personally was relieved when I knew that he could have the job if he wished it. My own experience of the First World War, and my readings in history, had convinced me that the prime minister should be a man who knew what war meant, in terms of the personal suffering of the man in the line, in terms of high strategy, and in terms of that crucial issue—how the generals got on with their civilian bosses. I saw nobody around who could qualify except Winston. And I felt that he qualified superbly. " Attlee - admittedly in hindsight - on great contemporaries.
The Times 12 May 1940 reported that when the Labour Party and Liberal Party voted to join the National Government, they stated that the preferred Churchill as leader. Of course, this could be a little propaganda.
And I've not even reached Michael Foot and Guilty Men! Or located Robert Rhodes James or William Manchester's wonderful books.
Chamberlain & Halifax knew that the new PM had to have the support of Labour, even though parliamentary arithmetic gave the Tories a solid majority on paper. But Labour changed horses and there was no great cry from the government's back benches for Halifax. If there had been the latter may have put up a fight: that he did not tends to suggest any support was ebbing away.
Well, was there a groundswell of support for Halifax? If there was (which I doubt) it melted away without even a whimper if you believe the Chief Whip.
On parliamentary short-cuts from Wiki: -
"Churchill was impressed by Bevin's opposition to trade-union pacifism and his appetite for work (according to Churchill, Bevin was by 'far the most distinguished man that the Labour Party have thrown up in my time'), and appointed Bevin to the position of Minister of Labour and National Service.[14] As Bevin was not actually an MP at the time, to remove the resulting constitutional anomaly, a parliamentary position was hurriedly found for him and Bevin was elected unopposed to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament (MP) for the London constituency of Wandsworth Central.[15] "
