Alan Johnson

It was Bevin, not Bevan, who was the real national treasure

Andrew Adonis pays tribute to Ernest Bevin, the powerful trades unionist and organiser, widely respected in his lifetime as a true man of the people

‘He was the embodiment of common sense. Yet I have never met a man in politics with as much imagination as he had, with the exception of Winston,’ said Clement Attlee of Bevin. Getty Images 
issue 04 July 2020
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  • Ernest Bevin: Labour’s Churchill

    Andrew Adonis

    Biteback, pp. 400, £25

On a family holiday almost 40 years ago I visited Winsford, the village on the edge of Exmoor where Ernest Bevin was born (and Boris Johnson was raised). Having read the first book in Alan Bullock’s scholarly three-volume biography, I’d become a convinced Bevinite (not to be confused with the followers of Nye Bevan, his near namesake and bête noire).

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