Travels on the left
Paul Foot
- John Strachey: An Intellectual Biography by Noel Thompson
Macmillan, 288 pp, £27.50, May 1993, ISBN 0 333 51154 9 - John Strachey by Michael Newman
Manchester, 208 pp, £12.99, September 1989, ISBN 0 7190 2174 X
In the 1929 General Election campaign, the Labour candidate for Aston, Birmingham issued the following leaflet:
£5 Reward!
DESPERATE TORIES WILD LIE.
Mr John Strachey writes: ‘It has come to my notice that Tory canvassers are making the outrageous statement that I am a foreigner. This is a most serious allegation which the Aston Tory Party, utterly beaten in political argument, has fallen back upon as a last desperate throw. I WAS BORN IN GUILDFORD, SURREY, AND MY FAMILY HAS LIVED OVER 400 YEARS IN SOMERSETSHIRE.
‘I offer £5 reward to anyone giving me the name and address of anyone spreading this lie and leading to the issue of a writ for slander.’
The leaflet signed off with the slogan ‘Strachey is British.’
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