The fine blossom of the capitalist system who became a Labour rebel

Peter Clarke

  • Stafford Cripps: A Political Life by Simon Burgess
    Gollancz, 374 pp, £25.00, November 1999, ISBN 0 575 06565 6

When the Guardian covered the recent Budget, it had a lot of fun unpacking the surprises sprung by Gordon Brown in the course of his demonstration that ‘all this prudence is for a purpose.’ The point was that his ‘updated Protestant work ethic’ offered rewards both for individuals and for the nation as a whole, in the form of tax cuts and increases in public spending. And the spectacle of this fiscal relaxation was so piquant precisely because ‘no Chancellor since Stafford Cripps has taken more relish in donning a hairshirt.’ The survival of this image is impressive. How many readers instinctively shivered or reached for their ration books? Not many under the age of 60, surely. Perhaps the near-homophone helps in ensuring that our flesh duly ‘creeps’; but the real Cripps is a largely forgotten figure today.

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