Anthony Crosland

Charles Anthony Raven Crosland (August 29, 1918 – February 19, 1977), born at St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, England, was a British politician and Labour member of Parliament - as well as being a socialist theorist.

Sourced

• I am...wholeheartedly a Galbraith man.
  • Anthony Crosland, The Conservative Enemy (Jonathan Cape, 1962), p. 103.

• If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy every fucking grammar school in England. And Wales. And Northern Ireland.
  • Crosland is so quoted by his wife Susan Crosland in her biography, Tony Crosland (Jonathan Cape, 1982), p. 148. Some of his political allies dispute that he believed the sentiments conveyed by the quote and therefore cast doubt on whether he actually said it.

• To say that we must attend meticulously to the environmental case does not mean that we must go to the other extreme and wholly neglect the economic case. Here we must beware of some of our friends. For parts of the conservationist lobby would do precisely this. Their approach is hostile to growth in principle and indifferent to the needs of ordinary people. It has a manifest class bias, and reflects a set of middle and upper class value judgements. Its champions are often kindly and dedicated people. But they are affluent and fundamentally, though of course not consciously, they want to kick the ladder down behind them. They are highly selective in their concern, being militant mainly about threats to rural peace and wildlife and well loved beauty spots: they are little concerned with the far more desperate problem of the urban environment in which 80 per cent of our fellow citizens live...As I wrote many years ago, those enjoying an above average standard of living should be chary of admonishing those less fortunate on the perils of material riches. Since we have many less fortunate citizens, we cannot accept a view of the environment which is essentially elitist, protectionist and anti-growth. We must make our own value judgement based on socialist objectives: and that judgement must...be that growth is vital, and that its benefits far outweigh its costs.
  • 'Class hypocrisy of the conservationists', The Times (8 January, 1971), p. 10.
  • An extract from the Fabian pamphlet A Social Democratic Britain.

• Nationalisation...does not in itself engender greater equality, more jobs in the regions, higher investment or industrial democracy. The public knows this perfectly well, and so do the workers who have suffered from pit closures, steel redundancies and the run-down of the railways. It is idiotic to try to bamboozle them.
  • Speech in Rotherham (9 June, 1973).

• Much more should have been achieved by a Labour Government in office and Labour pressure in opposition. Against the dogged resistance to change, we should have pitted a stronger will to change. I conclude that a move to the Left is needed.
  • Anthony Crosland, Socialism Now (Jonathan Cape, 1974), p. 44.

• As a democratic Socialist profoundly committed to the rule of law, I could not condone, let alone encourage, defiance of the law.
  • Speech in the House of Commons (Hansard, 6 November 1974, Cols. 1076–7).

• For the next few years times will not be normal. Perhaps people have used the words 'economic crisis' too often in the past. They have shouted 'wolf, wolf' when the animal was more akin to a rather disagreeable Yorkshire terrier. But not now. The crisis that faces us is infinitely more serious than any of the crises we have faced over the past 20 years...With its usual spirit of patriotism and its tradition of service to the community's needs, it is coming to realize that, for the time being at least, the party is over...We are not calling for a headlong retreat. But we are calling for a standstill.
  • Speech in Manchester Town Hall (9 May, 1975).
  • Christopher Warman, 'Councils are told to curb rise in spending', The Times (10 May, 1975), p. 1.

• I do not believe there is a long-term future for the privately rented sector in its present form.
  • Speech in Eastbourne (20 November, 1975).

• Unless the Arab states give Israel formal recognition, within secure, recognised and mutually agreed boundaries, as a permanent feature of the geography and politics of the Middle East. But if Israel is to obtain this recognition, she must, in a settlement, put an end to the territorial occupation which she has maintained since the war of 1967; the nine members of the European Community have declared that this is an essential element in a settlement. On behalf of the British Government I underline that need today.
  • Speech to the UN General Assembly (5 October, 1976).

• We conceive the function of Tribune to be the expression in popular form, and to as large a public as possible, of the views of the Left and Marxist wing of social democracy in this country. Its policy must be that of those who believe that the present leadership of the Labour Party is not sufficiently Socialist.
  • Letter published in Tribune (1976).

• We believe that the developing crisis in the capitalist system, by which we mean both economic stagnation, and the social and political conflicts to which it gives rise, makes it possible to think in terms of developing a sizeable and serious revolutionary socialist party in a way that was not possible 20 or even 10 years ago.
  • The Times (8 September, 1977).