Ernie Bevin had been spoiling for this fight for 20 years. In the House of Commons canteen he gulped a cup of hot coffee and an unbuttered bun. Then he slumped down on his front bench to wait for the bell.
For two embittered days Tories and Socialists had been trading blows over Labor's four-line bill to repeal the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act. The four lines packed more political dynamite than a buzz bomb. Britain's first and only general strike in 1926, the nearest it had come to violent revolution in a century (and it was not...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
