Local politics in London, 1919–1929 Morrison became a pioneer leader in the
London Labour Party (LLP) and one of its leading organisers. He was elected to the
Metropolitan Borough of Hackney in 1919 when the Labour Party won control of the Borough, and he served as Mayor during 1920–21. In 1921 he came into conflict with many in the LLP in opposing the
Poplar Rates Rebellion in the neighbouring borough of
Poplar, led by the future party leader
George Lansbury. Morrison believed that unconstitutional direct action would harm Labour's electoral appeal. He was elected to the
London County Council (LCC) in 1922. Morrison quickly rose to the top of the London Labour Party, becoming its Chief Whip in 1923, and its leader in 1925.
National politics He was elected to Labour's
National Executive Committee in 1920. At the
1923 general election he became
Member of Parliament (MP) for
Hackney South. He was not offered a post in
Ramsay MacDonald's short-lived
first Labour government, and sat as a backbencher. He lost the seat again in
October 1924 when Labour lost the general election. Morrison was politically on the right wing of the Labour Party and was a fierce opponent of the
Communist Party of Great Britain's attempts to affiliate with Labour. He argued that Communism was incompatible with the Labour Party's ethos of peaceful social transformation. He gained a reputation as the 'chief witchfinder' for his efforts to root out Communists from the party. He believed that Labour should have broad appeal across social classes, and appeal to middle-class voters as well as to its working-class base.
Minister of Transport, 1929–1931 Morrison returned to Parliament in the
1929 general election, which returned a minority Labour government, and MacDonald appointed him
Minister of Transport. In this role he modernised traffic law through the
Road Traffic Act 1930. He also introduced legislation to unify London's public transport under a public body, the
London Passenger Transport Board; although the Labour government collapsed in 1931 before the legislation could be passed, the Bill was passed largely unchanged by the subsequent
National Government in 1933. Morrison voted with the majority of the cabinet to cut unemployment benefit in the
crisis of 1931, and he lost his seat again in Labour's landslide defeat at the
1931 general election. Unexpectedly, Labour won a majority at the
1934 London County Council election and Morrison became Leader of the LCC. This made him the leader of the largest local authority in Britain, and the most powerful Labour figure in the country at the time, and gave him control of almost all local government services in London. His main achievements here included the creation of the
Metropolitan Green Belt around the suburbs. He confronted the government over its refusal to finance the replacement of
Waterloo Bridge; eventually the government agreed to pay 60% of the cost of the new bridge. the implication being that the LCC would deliberately build council houses in order to affect local voting patterns. His biographers,
Bernard Donoughue and
George W. Jones, have written that "Morrison never said or wrote" the words attributed to him. Morrison was a pioneer in using the talents of women, and promoted women to chair various committees of the LCC. He promoted women to positions which they had never previously held, such as memberships of the Fire Brigade Committee and the Metropolitan Water Board.
1935 leadership election In the
1935 general election, Morrison was once again elected to the
House of Commons and immediately challenged
Clement Attlee for the leadership of the party in the
leadership election. Although Morrison was widely seen as the favourite in many sections of the press and intelligentsia, he came second in the first ballot, and was defeated by a wide margin by Attlee in the final ballot. Many causes have been suggested for his defeat; one factor was the loyalty to Attlee which the MPs who had served in the previous Parliament had felt. Attlee had also led Labour through the 1935 general election which had seen Labour gain over 100 seats, and many MPs would have seen it as ingratitude to deprive him of the leadership. Another factor was Morrison's refusal to give a clear undertaking to give up his job at the LCC if elected leader. He was also widely distrusted by the left of the party. Both he and his supporter
Hugh Dalton put some of the blame on the Masonic
New Welcome Lodge, who, they claimed, backed the third-place leadership candidate
Arthur Greenwood and then switched their votes to Attlee. After losing, Morrison declined to stand for the post of
Deputy Leader, instead deciding to concentrate on his LCC work.
1937 LCC election He convinced Labour to adopt the new electioneering techniques that opponents had been using, especially using advertising agencies in the 1937 local elections. For example, he stressed housing, education and his own leadership with posters featuring Morrison alongside children and with a backdrop of new LCC flats above slogans such as "Labour Puts Human Happiness First", "Labour Gets Things Done" and "Let Labour Finish the Job". This strategy paid dividends, for Labour increased its majority on the LCC in the
1937 London County Council election. In 1939, Conservative MPs defeated Herbert Morrison's Bill introducing "site value rating", a tax on similar lines to
land value tax, in the old LCC area.
Wartime Coalition government, 1940–1945 In May 1940, Labour joined the wartime coalition government under
Winston Churchill, and Morrison was appointed as
Minister of Supply, which put him in charge of procuring supplies for the army. Only a few months later, in October, Churchill moved him to the posts of
Home Secretary and
Minister of Home Security, succeeding
John Anderson. Churchill chose Morrison for the roles because he was known and trusted by Londoners who were by that time enduring
the Blitz. His role as Home Secretary put him in charge of policing and justice, while his role as Minister of Home Security put him in control of all central and regional
civil defence organisations, such as air raid wardens, rescue squads, fire services, and the Women's Voluntary Service. He was also responsible for giving approval to local
ARP schemes and providing public shelters. , named after Morrison who introduced them The immediate task was in improving the provision of
air raid shelters. Despite official disapproval, Londoners had been using deep shelters in
London Underground stations and tunnels unofficially, without any proper organisation or facilities. Morrison immediately overturned the government's previous opposition to the use of deep shelters, and set about improving the conditions in them, with proper bedding, lighting, heating, sanitation and first aid being provided. He also oversaw the introduction of a type of indoor shelter which became known as the
Morrison shelter. Morrison introduced some improvements to the civil defence system, such as the recruiting of voluntary fire-watchers to help deal with
incendiary attacks, and the creation in 1941 of the
National Fire Service, which replaced the chaotic patchwork of local fire brigades. As Home Secretary, Morrison had to balance civil liberties and freedom of speech with the wartime requirement for censorship and the need to maintain morale, as such he had to take many potentially unpopular and controversial decisions. Although Morrison retained a generally permissive stance towards press freedom, on 21 January 1941, he banned the
Daily Worker for opposing war with Germany and supporting the Soviet Union. The ban lasted for a total of 18 months before it was rescinded. The arrival of black American troops caused concern in the government, leading Morrison, the Home Secretary, to comment: "I am fully conscious that a difficult social problem might be created if there were a substantial number of sex relations between white women and coloured troops and the procreation of half-caste children." That was in a memorandum for the cabinet in 1942. In 1942, Morrison was confronted with an appeal from the Central British Fund for German Jewry (which subsequently renamed itself
World Jewish Relief) to admit 350 Jewish children from
Vichy France. Although
Case Anton ensured the scheme's failure, Morrison had been reluctant to accept it beforehand, wanting to avoid provoking the "anti-foreign and anti-semitic feeling which was quite certainly latent in this country (and in some isolated cases not at all latent)". In November 1942, he was promoted to Churchill's
War Cabinet. In 1943, Morrison made the controversial decision to release Sir
Oswald Mosley, former leader of the
British Union of Fascists from prison on health grounds. Mosley had been interred since May 1940 under emergency regulations, but suffered from
phlebitis. He was released into
house arrest under police supervision. The decision to release him caused an uproar of protest; however, after a fierce debate in the House of Commons, Morrison's action was upheld by a vote of 327–62. In 1943, he ran for the post of
Treasurer of the Labour Party but lost a close contest to
Arthur Greenwood.
Labour government, 1945–1951 1945 general election Following the end of the war, Morrison was instrumental in drafting the Labour Party's 1945 manifesto
Let us Face the Future. Labour won a massive and unexpected victory at the
1945 general election, Morrison having switched his own seat to
Lewisham East.
Leadership manoeuvres Morrison and his supporters
Ellen Wilkinson,
Maurice Webb and
Harold Laski had made little secret of their desire for Morrison to lead the Labour Party instead of
Clement Attlee. Despite winning the election under Attlee, on the verge of him going to
Buckingham Palace to accept the invitation to form a government from King
George VI, Morrison asked Attlee to delay going until a meeting had been held by the Parliamentary Labour Party to elect the leader. Attlee, at the urging of
Ernest Bevin ignored this request, and went straight to the Palace, thus making his premiership a
fait accompli. Morrison, however, did not let the matter rest, and the next day raised the matter of leadership again, and claimed incorrectly that a decision made in 1933 meant that the Parliamentary Labour Party would have to vote on the leadership before a government could be formed. It turned out on examination that this was based on a misinterpretation. Attlee was able to ignore the request, and went ahead and formed his government; he showed no resentment towards Morrison or Wilkinson, and appointed both to his cabinet.
In government Although Morrison initially asked Attlee to be appointed as
Foreign Secretary, he was instead persuaded to take the positions of
Lord President of the Council and
Leader of the House of Commons, which gave him responsibility for coordinating Labour's domestic programme. Whenever Attlee was away for any reason, Morrison stood in for him, and became the
de facto deputy prime minister; although he never formally held
that title, he did obtain the post of
Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. Morrison supervised the major Labour programme of
nationalising large sectors of industry. As Lord President he chaired the committee on the Socialization of Industries, and followed the model that was already in place of setting up public corporations – such as, in broadcasting, the establishment in 1927 of the
BBC. The owners of corporate stock were given government bonds in exchange, and the government took full ownership of each affected company, consolidating it into a national monopoly. The management remained the same, only now they became public servants working for the government. For the Labour Party leadership, nationalisation was a method to consolidate national planning in their own hands. Morrison believed that the new
National Health Service (NHS) being set up by
Aneurin Bevan should be run by local councils, rather than by a national body. Morrison argued that London had the best council-run hospitals in the country; however, Bevan won the backing of the prime minister, and his vision for a national NHS was realised. In July 1946, Morrison, together with US ambassador
Henry F. Grady proposed "The
Morrison-Grady Plan", intended to resolve the
Palestine conflict, calling for federalisation under overall British trusteeship. Morrison was a longtime sympathizer with
Zionism, but the plan was ultimately rejected by both
Palestinian Arabs and Zionists.
Foreign Secretary, 1951 Following
Ernest Bevin's resignation as
Foreign Secretary in March 1951, Morrison took over his role, but did not feel at ease in the Foreign Office. Attlee later described his appointment as a 'bad mistake' and 'he had no idea he (Morrison) was so ignorant' when it came to foreign affairs. The main issue which arose during his tenure was the
crisis which erupted in
Iran, when its nationalist Prime Minister
Mohammed Mosaddeq nationalised the
Anglo-Persian Oil Company, Morrison advocated for military action in response, but his views were not shared by his cabinet colleagues. His tenure there of seven months was cut short by Labour's defeat in the
1951 general election in October, and he was appointed a
Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in November that year.
Festival of Britain at the
Festival of Britain, 1951 While Morrison lacked a deep concern for foreign affairs, he was the prime mover and enthusiastic leader of the 1951
Festival of Britain, a major project whose planning began in 1947. The original goal was to celebrate the centenary of the
Great Exhibition of 1851. However, the plans were changed. It was not to be another
World Fair, and international themes were absent; even the Commonwealth was ignored. Instead, the Festival focused entirely on Britain and its achievements; it was funded chiefly by the government, with a budget of £12 million. The Conservatives gave little support. The Labour government was losing support, and the implicit goal of the festival was to give the people a feeling of successful recovery from the war's devastation, as well as promoting British science, technology, industrial design, architecture and the arts. Historian
Kenneth O. Morgan says the Festival was a "triumphant success" as thousands: :flocked to the South Bank site, to wander around the
Dome of Discovery, gaze at the
Skylon, and generally enjoy a festival of national celebration. Up and down the land, lesser festivals enlisted much civic and voluntary enthusiasm. A people curbed by years of total war and half-crushed by austerity and gloom, showed that it had not lost the capacity for enjoying itself....Above all, the Festival made a spectacular setting as a showpiece for the inventiveness and genius of British scientists and technologists.
1955 leadership election Although Morrison had effectively been Attlee's heir presumptive since the 1930s, Attlee had always distrusted him. Attlee remained as Leader through the early 1950s and fought the
1955 election, finally announcing his retirement after Labour's defeat. Morrison was then 67, and was seen to be too old to embark on a new leadership role. During the
leadership election, he was the interim
Leader of the Labour Party. Although he stood, he finished last, by a wide margin, of the three candidates, with many of his supporters switching to
Hugh Gaitskell, who won the election. Gaitskell asked Morrison to continue as Deputy Leader but he resigned, effectively ending his front-line political career. Ironically, Gaitskell predeceased Morrison by two years, dying in 1963.
Last years, 1955–1965 in 1962 During the
Suez Crisis in 1956, Morrison advocated unilateral action by the United Kingdom against Egypt, following Colonel Nasser's seizure of the Suez Canal. Morrison stood down from Parliament at the
1959 general election and was made a
life peer as
Baron Morrison of Lambeth, of
Lambeth in the
County of London on 2 November 1959. He published his autobiography in 1960, although it was widely considered disappointing. Morrison retained an active life well into his seventies. Between 1960 and 1965 he served as President of the
British Board of Film Censors. In this role he undertook a tour of the United States in 1962, during which he visited
Hollywood, and met the then US president
John F. Kennedy. Towards the end of 1964, the eyesight in his one remaining eye began to fail, and the board decided not to renew his contract. an organisation reporting on events behind the
Iron Curtain and run by exiles from Soviet regimes such as the journalist
Josef Josten. He remained politically active in the
House of Lords until almost his death, his last major political battle in the early-1960s was a long and bitter campaign to prevent the
London County Council being abolished and replaced by the much larger
Greater London Council. This was ultimately unsuccessful as he failed to prevent the
London Government Act 1963 from being passed. == Personal life ==