Hugh Gaitskell

Hugh Gaitskill has been called the grandfather of Tony Blair's New Labour Party: he was the first leader to attempt the removal of Clause IV, the first to push Labour in the direction of the American Democrats and the first to try to position the party for maximum electoral advantage. He was also a public school and Oxford-educated economist whose controlled public persona hid a private passion, humour and warmth that inspired intense devotion: Brian Walden once declared that he would go through fire for Gaitskell. Brian Brivati's biography attempts to answer this central paradox: why did a Whitehall technocrat become the hope and leader for a generation of radically-minded people?