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Oswald Mosley - Briton, Fascist, European

Sir Oswald Mosley"No rising star in the political firmament ever shone more brightly than Sir Oswald Mosley. Since by general assent he could have become the leader of either the Labour or the Conservative Party. What Mosley so valiantly stood for could have saved this country from the Hungry Thirties and the Second World War". - Michael Foot, M.P.

"The greatest comet of British politics in the twentieth century . . . an orator of the highest rank. He produced, almost unaided, a programme of economic reconstruction which surpassed anything offered by Lloyd George or, in the United States, by F. D. Roosevelt... He has continued fertile in ideas.. These ideas came to him by inspiration . . . Interned quite absurdly under Regulation 18B during the Second World War. . . He was never anti-Semitic - only opposed to a Second World War for the sake of Jews elsewhere. He was never unpatriotic - only indifferent to German conquests in eastern Europe... A superb political thinker, the best of our age". - A.J.P.Taylor

"A man who had aimed throughout his life at what he might describe as a Greek idea of excellence . He is anxious to synthesise the impulses of religion and science ... In the field of ideas he was a creative force... His tremendous talents as a platform speaker and parliamentary debater were available to give maximum effect. If events had so decided and awarded him the supreme office he would not have lacked the dedication nor the courage" - Earl of Longford

"He had an impeccable record in the First World War . . It was silly to intern Mosley during the Second World War. He was not in the least unpatriotic, any more than he was anti-Semitic or in favour of revolution by force.. . He had, I think, greater natural political talent than any survivor of his generation from the First World War" - Sir Colin Coote

"Attentive, considerate and infinitely courteous. . . he talks like a statesman who may be in the wilderness but who knows he is not finished yet... Sir Oswald believes in a consensus government, with people from the parties, the universities, public life and the army.. . Would go to the stake for Britain and her people" - Geoffrey Moorhouse

"A man of powerful will and bold intelligence, self-disciplined, by no means lacking in shrewdness or even humour, a spell-binding speaker, a truly formidable figure". - Colin Welch

"In his extraordinary career as soldier, politician, socialite, international sportsman, he had known most of the prominent people of his time.., a spectacular career". - George Murray

"He might have been able to lead either the Conservative or the Labour Party and in either case . . . I should have joined him. I discerned in him . . . this kind of quality of leadership that I discerned in only two other men during all my period of political life. One is Lloyd George and the other is Churchill". - Lord Boothby

"The stuff of greatness - more than a spark of genius". - John Blake

Diana Mosley - Loved Ones
Diana MosleyIT may be considered inappropriate to include a short memoir of Oswald Mosley in a book about friends. We were married for forty-four years, my knowledge of him and my love for him can obviously not be compared with the affection I bore the other characters I have tried to describe. As I shall never write his biography, which on the political side has been adequately done by Robert Skidelsky and is certain to be done again, and as his autobiographyMy Life was a highly-praised bestseller when it was published in 1968, all that seems necessary is a short account of the man himself in private life, and perhaps to clear up one or two mysteries.

   


Modernise Britain

BRITISH INDUSTRY must be re-equipped to match the capacity of other nations. A Japanese steel-worker produces SIX times as much as a British steel-worker. A British car-worker is outproduced FOUR times. Not because the Japanese works six times as hard as the Briton but because he has better equipment. The British worker will also be highly productive once he has better equipment. The answer is modern industries with the latest machines. Raise the pay of British workers as they produce more from their machines. It is the job of government to take the lead in this reorganisation...

The Power of Guerrilla Warfare
Guerrilla Warfare America and Europe are only now learning in the hard way the elementary facts of modern political struggle. It is above all a battle of ideas and, as I pointed out long ago, it is impossible to enter that struggle effectively without an idea. I contended in The European Situation (1950) that these issues in the future would be decided not by regular military forces but by political guerrillas fighting for an idea. The man who won the battle would be half soldier and half politician because his primary objective must be winning the support of the civilian population

Exploitation of Cheap Labour
Exploitation of Cheap Labour We British in particular can draw full warning from our past against the errors which all Europe is now committing. It is not a matter of theory but of fact that the chief industries of Britain were ruined in the twenties and thirties by the exploitation of cheap labour in undercutting competition, not only on world markets but by import of their goods to our own market. The experience of the cotton industry of Lancashire and the woolen industry of Yorkshire is evidence of what can occur when advanced countries export machinery to countries where finance can exploit labour with lower wages to compete disastrously against them.

The reconciliation of action and liberty
The reconciliation of action and liberty We suggest a parliament elected on an occupational and not a geographical franchise; party warfare would automatically cease to exist in an assembly elected on completely different lines. As for controversy in the press, I would suggest a completely free press subject to one new condition; any individual or institution - including the government - which was attacked in a newspaper, should be given, by law, the right to equal space in that paper for reply. This would in most cases reduce time-wasting and de­structive controversy in the press to a minimum, as few newspaper owners would care very often to open their columns for their victims to say anything they liked in reply. In the case of an able and open-minded proprietor, who felt capable of coping with, and enjoying, such a situation, it might lead to much brighter news­papers; but on the whole it would tend to squeeze the nonsense, unfairness, and untruth out of the press very quickly.

The wage-price mechanism
It is the principal paradox of this period that the only sphere of our economic system in which government intervention is urgently necessary is also the only point at which action of the State is now effectively inhibited. It is in the region of wages and prices that we really require the continual economic leadership of government, but in our prevailing trade structure any such suggestion has come to be regarded as impious.

The doctrine of Higher Forms
The doctrine of Higher Forms Since the war I have stressed altogether five main objectives. The true union of Europe; the union of government with science; the power of government to act rapidly and decisively, subject to parliamentary control; the effective leadership of government to solve the economic problem by use of the wage-price mechanism at the two key-points of the modern industrial world; and a clearly defined purpose for a movement of humanity to ever higher forms.