That so many people suffer from preventable privation, whilst others enjoy privileges and material advantages that do not on any reasonable reckoning… - Aneurin Bevan
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That so many people suffer from preventable privation, whilst others enjoy privileges and material advantages that do not on any reasonable reckoning flow from personal accomplishments, is evidence of dangerous social instability.
Aneurin Bevan (15 November 1897 – 6 July 1960) was a Welsh Labour Party politician who is best known for overseeing the creation of the National Health Service in the Labour government after World War II. Bevan, a left-winger, was intermittently in trouble with the Labour leadership; in the 1950s he astonished his supporters by opposing unilateral nuclear disarmament. He overcame a speech impediment and was regarded as one of the most eloquent public speakers of his day.
Portrait adapted from
Wikimedia Commons, Howard Coster (Public domain / CC0)
The Labour Party should oppose the Government arms plan root and branch.
We could manage to survive without money changers and stockbrokers. We should find it harder to do without miners, steel workers and those who cultivate the land.
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I am not anti-American...but I do not believe that the American nation has the experience, sagacity, or the self-restraint necessary for world leadership at this time. They are engaged in the most tremendous rearmament programme the world has ever seen, and I cannot see any sense in it, and no one has yet tried to put any sense in it. ... When are we going to have some sense of national pride and tell the United States that she cannot have Great Britain on any terms? The Americans would understand us. They like plain speaking. Why do we not speak plainly to them?
