Dr Thorpe

The battles of a lively young cub

issue 27 August 2005

In June 1944 two prospective Labour MPs, Harold Wilson and Kenneth Younger, travelled back to London, unsuccessful in seeking the Peterborough candidacy. On the train, they compared notes on the difficult adoption process. Both were returned to Parliament next year in the Labour landslide, but though Wilson was to become prime minister, Kenneth Younger remains one of the forgotten names of postwar Labour politics. His career has long merited serious treatment and Professor Geoffrey Warner’s impeccably researched book, part memoir, part diary, fills a great gap in postwar biography.

In the Midst of Events, which, despite its title, is really an overview of international politics from 1945 to 1959, also firmly places Younger in the front rank of Labour’s diarists from Hugh Dalton to Tony Benn. As minister of state, in effect foreign secretary, during Ernest Bevin’s final illness, Younger had a unique view of the political process, and Professor Warner’s carefully edited selections demonstrate that ‘there can be few more convincing portraits of a once-great administration in decline than that which emerges from the pages of Kenneth Younger’s diary’.

Unlike many chroniclers, Younger does not exclude self-criticism, and freely admits to failings, many of which he shows were exacerbated by the clash of competing egos and Labour’s resulting lack of internal cohesion.

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