Edmund Dell

Edmund Dell former Labour MP for Birkenhead, was Paymaster General from 1974 to 1976 and Secretary of State for Trade from 1976 to 1978. He is now chairman and chief executive of the Guinness Peat Group.

Keeping Left

Edmund Dell, 2 October 1980

Barbara Castle’s diary of the period 1974-76 shows more about the nature of cabinet government – even though it deals with only one Cabinet – than any previous publication, academic, political or biographical. It is, I think, better than Crossman. It gives a greater impression of immediacy; as a result, it is compulsive reading; and although I have made no checks, and it recounts many events of which I had no direct knowledge, it seems to me to be as accurate as one can expect of so personal a record.

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