0:00:02 > 0:00:03Half a century after his death,
0:00:03 > 0:00:07Aneurin Bevan's greatest legacy is still a part of all our lives.
0:00:07 > 0:00:09The National Health Service.
0:00:09 > 0:00:13It made free healthcare accessible to all for the first time.
0:00:13 > 0:00:16Bevan was a working-class politician
0:00:16 > 0:00:18who said he wanted to empower the masses.
0:00:18 > 0:00:22The argument is about power
0:00:22 > 0:00:25and only about power.
0:00:25 > 0:00:27Because only by the possession of power
0:00:27 > 0:00:30can you get the priorities correct.
0:00:30 > 0:00:33An outstanding orator and political operator,
0:00:33 > 0:00:36he had to draw on all his skills and natural cunning
0:00:36 > 0:00:39to fight the medical establishment,
0:00:39 > 0:00:42who fought him every inch of the way.
0:00:42 > 0:00:47He knew the moment in which he had to give something to the medical profession
0:00:47 > 0:00:52in order to stop them totally sabotaging his new National Health Service.
0:00:52 > 0:00:55He was also a controversial figure.
0:00:55 > 0:00:57He alienated many of his friends
0:00:57 > 0:01:00and divided both his party and public opinion.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03There's a kind of slightly self-destructive element to Bevan.
0:01:03 > 0:01:06He's not just another bland politician,
0:01:06 > 0:01:08he's somebody with bags of character.
0:01:30 > 0:01:33Aneurin Bevan was born in Tredegar, in 1897.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36He grew up in this miner's cottage,
0:01:36 > 0:01:37with nine brothers and sisters
0:01:37 > 0:01:40born to David and Phoebe Bevan.
0:01:40 > 0:01:41Only six survived.
0:01:41 > 0:01:45These were tough times in South Wales.
0:01:45 > 0:01:47I was a member of a large family.
0:01:47 > 0:01:52And you didn't want to know the days of the week by the calendar,
0:01:52 > 0:01:56you could tell it by what appeared on the table.
0:01:56 > 0:01:57Towards the end of the week,
0:01:57 > 0:02:00the fare was always much more meagre than at the beginning.
0:02:02 > 0:02:05But if Aneurin's childhood was materially impoverished,
0:02:05 > 0:02:07it was rich in other ways.
0:02:07 > 0:02:09His parents were staunch chapel-goers,
0:02:09 > 0:02:11and his father, in particular,
0:02:11 > 0:02:15had a lively interest in politics, music and literature.
0:02:15 > 0:02:18You don't understand Aneurin Bevan unless you understand
0:02:18 > 0:02:22how dynamic a society Edwardian Wales was.
0:02:22 > 0:02:25It was aspirational, it was educational
0:02:25 > 0:02:26and it was, in all senses,
0:02:26 > 0:02:29a society that had a belief in its own destiny.
0:02:29 > 0:02:30And so did Bevan.
0:02:30 > 0:02:35He was so deeply shaped by his Tredegar, his working-class roots
0:02:35 > 0:02:38and, of course, he also had that Methodist upbringing.
0:02:38 > 0:02:40I guess you could say he was drinking deeply
0:02:40 > 0:02:44of the kind of two great wellsprings of Labour politics.
0:02:44 > 0:02:48Aneurin went to Sirhowy School, but he was not happy there.
0:02:48 > 0:02:51He was left-handed, he had a stammer,
0:02:51 > 0:02:53and he was picked on by his headmaster.
0:02:53 > 0:02:55He got into trouble...
0:02:55 > 0:02:58Well, his worst trouble with his headmaster was not about himself,
0:02:58 > 0:03:01it was when the headmaster was sneering at another little boy
0:03:01 > 0:03:03who couldn't come to school that day
0:03:03 > 0:03:05because his brother was wearing the shoes.
0:03:05 > 0:03:07And Nye, all his life,
0:03:07 > 0:03:11just automatically defended the weak and the defenceless.
0:03:11 > 0:03:13He threw an inkwell at the headmaster.
0:03:14 > 0:03:18Aneurin found his real education outside school.
0:03:18 > 0:03:21Some of the most vivid hours of my life.
0:03:21 > 0:03:25I remember reading at home the books I used to get from the library.
0:03:25 > 0:03:32I used to go down there a few times a week and went home loaded with books.
0:03:32 > 0:03:36I was able to obtain a rather larger number of books than most of the others
0:03:36 > 0:03:39because I was a member of a large family
0:03:39 > 0:03:43and I used to use their names to get a lot of books for myself.
0:03:43 > 0:03:45When he was 13,
0:03:45 > 0:03:48he followed in his father's footsteps and went down the mine.
0:03:48 > 0:03:50The South Wales coalfield,
0:03:50 > 0:03:54which provided work for 200,000 men in more than 600 pits,
0:03:54 > 0:03:57was a hotbed of union activity.
0:03:57 > 0:04:00Bevan was politically active from the off.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03At 19, he became the youngest lodge chairman
0:04:03 > 0:04:06in the history of the South Wales Miners' Federation.
0:04:06 > 0:04:07At 21, he won a scholarship
0:04:07 > 0:04:10to the Central Labour College, in London,
0:04:10 > 0:04:13a training ground for the most promising young trade unionists.
0:04:13 > 0:04:16When he returned to Tredegar in 1921,
0:04:16 > 0:04:19the Miners' Federation had been weakened by a failed strike,
0:04:19 > 0:04:23and Bevan spent most of the next five years out of work.
0:04:23 > 0:04:27It was during this period that he met Archie Lush.
0:04:27 > 0:04:29Lush, who was also on the dole,
0:04:29 > 0:04:32was to play a key role in Bevan's life.
0:04:32 > 0:04:34He was always talking in the streets, you know.
0:04:34 > 0:04:37He had a sort of Socratic method of teaching
0:04:37 > 0:04:40with a crowd of chaps around him.
0:04:40 > 0:04:42And I listened to this fellow
0:04:42 > 0:04:45and, suddenly, I began to realise that I was not unemployed
0:04:45 > 0:04:47because of the failure of this little fella, Archie Lush,
0:04:47 > 0:04:49but because society had failed.
0:04:51 > 0:04:54I was prepared to fight Capitalist society from that moment on.
0:04:54 > 0:04:58And from then on, we became very close and very intimate.
0:04:59 > 0:05:02Lush became Bevan's right-hand man.
0:05:02 > 0:05:04Together, they vowed to transform Tredegar.
0:05:04 > 0:05:07At that time, it was a company town,
0:05:07 > 0:05:10dominated by the Tredegar Iron And Coal Company.
0:05:10 > 0:05:13Bevan gathered around him a handful of like-minded young men,
0:05:13 > 0:05:18dedicated to breaking the company's stranglehold on public life.
0:05:18 > 0:05:21They called themselves The Query Club.
0:05:21 > 0:05:24Packing meetings with their own supporters,
0:05:24 > 0:05:26the members of this radical cell got themselves elected
0:05:26 > 0:05:29onto the board of the Working Men's Institute,
0:05:29 > 0:05:31and onto the Urban District Council.
0:05:33 > 0:05:35They didn't wake up to the fact that we were gradually
0:05:35 > 0:05:38filching power away from them for quite a time.
0:05:38 > 0:05:40By then, we were in power.
0:05:41 > 0:05:43In council meetings, the members of the Query Club
0:05:43 > 0:05:45employed covert methods of communication
0:05:45 > 0:05:48to co-ordinate their actions.
0:05:48 > 0:05:50If Aneurin did this,
0:05:50 > 0:05:53we took no notice of what he was saying.
0:05:53 > 0:05:55That was intended to deceive the meeting.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59But if Aneurin caught, did the Gladstonian pose,
0:05:59 > 0:06:03from then on, we drafted the resolution in those terms.
0:06:03 > 0:06:07In 1926, when the miner's fight to preserve their pay and conditions
0:06:07 > 0:06:09led to the General Strike,
0:06:09 > 0:06:11Bevan co-ordinated the strikers in Tredegar.
0:06:11 > 0:06:16The strike collapsed and the miners were locked out for seven months.
0:06:16 > 0:06:20Bevan helped organise the soup kitchens that fed their families.
0:06:20 > 0:06:23The failure of the General Strike helped convince Bevan
0:06:23 > 0:06:28that parliamentary politics might offer a quicker route to power
0:06:28 > 0:06:29than trade unionism.
0:06:29 > 0:06:32Bevan and The Query Club had already infiltrated
0:06:32 > 0:06:34Tredegar's District Council.
0:06:34 > 0:06:37They now had a new target in their sights.
0:06:38 > 0:06:39We felt, you know,
0:06:39 > 0:06:43that we ought to have control of schools and education in Tredegar.
0:06:43 > 0:06:46And we had to put Aneurin on the County Council.
0:06:46 > 0:06:49His answer was that we sent him down there to look for more power,
0:06:49 > 0:06:51and when he got there, he found there was no more there
0:06:51 > 0:06:53than in the Urban District Council.
0:06:53 > 0:06:56So the only one thing to do now was push him on to Parliament,
0:06:56 > 0:06:59which we proceeded to do as rapidly as we could.
0:06:59 > 0:07:01But first, The Query Club would have to deal
0:07:01 > 0:07:04with Ebbw Vale's sitting Labour MP - Evan Davies,
0:07:04 > 0:07:05a politician of the old school,
0:07:05 > 0:07:09who'd become complacent about his position.
0:07:09 > 0:07:13They get rid of him. I mean, they, they do all kinds of tricks.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16I mean, if there is a Watergate in South Wales,
0:07:16 > 0:07:19it is how Bevan becomes elected as an MP.
0:07:19 > 0:07:23The Query Club fixed it for him. And I mean fixed it.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27With that help, Bevan beat Evan Davies
0:07:27 > 0:07:29and he became the preferred parliamentary candidate
0:07:29 > 0:07:31of the Miners' Federation.
0:07:31 > 0:07:34In 1929, at the age of 31,
0:07:34 > 0:07:37he was elected Member of Parliament for Ebbw Vale.
0:07:37 > 0:07:39I said, "Well, what are these really top people like
0:07:39 > 0:07:41"that you meet in Parliament, Nye?"
0:07:41 > 0:07:44And his answer was simple and straightforward, he said,
0:07:44 > 0:07:48"Extraordinary, boyo, how ordinary these extraordinary fellas are when you meet them."
0:07:48 > 0:07:52Well, that meant that we could encompass even those people.
0:07:52 > 0:07:56At Westminster, Bevan immediately made a big impression on the House.
0:07:56 > 0:07:58The greatest Welsh politician of the day, of course,
0:07:58 > 0:08:00was David Lloyd George.
0:08:00 > 0:08:02And what does Bevan do? He attacks him, straight away.
0:08:02 > 0:08:06Bevan's maiden speech goes, if you like, right for the jugular.
0:08:06 > 0:08:10This is my fellow countryman, this is my compatriot
0:08:10 > 0:08:11and what is he about?
0:08:11 > 0:08:14Ultimately, he's about defending the interests,
0:08:14 > 0:08:16not of the working classes, where I'm coming from,
0:08:16 > 0:08:20but the interests of the bosses, the capitalists, the plutocrats...
0:08:20 > 0:08:23So, from the beginning, this is naked stuff.
0:08:24 > 0:08:27To become the outstanding public speaker that he was,
0:08:27 > 0:08:30he'd had to overcome the handicap of his stammer,
0:08:30 > 0:08:33and he'd done that wandering the hills above Tredegar.
0:08:33 > 0:08:36Aneurin made some wonderful speeches up here.
0:08:36 > 0:08:40And the only people who listened to him were the sheep.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43I used to always judge as to how effective it would be
0:08:43 > 0:08:46by the number of sheep who ran away when he started speaking.
0:08:48 > 0:08:51Bevan was not a great platform orator
0:08:51 > 0:08:54in the sense of some Mussolini.
0:08:54 > 0:08:56He had a very rather light voice,
0:08:56 > 0:08:59rather strange voice coming from this big man.
0:08:59 > 0:09:02It's the first time in my lifetime
0:09:02 > 0:09:05that we have had a Tory government in Great Britain
0:09:05 > 0:09:08without having had mass unemployment at the same time.
0:09:08 > 0:09:10Bevan is about being sarcastic,
0:09:10 > 0:09:13he's about being intellectual, argumentative,
0:09:13 > 0:09:16he's a master of the barb,
0:09:16 > 0:09:20of the visceral shot across the bows, into the guts.
0:09:20 > 0:09:23And I think it suited him, you know, the face-to-face debate.
0:09:23 > 0:09:25No-one dealt with hecklers better than Aneurin.
0:09:25 > 0:09:28I remember one fella heckling him
0:09:28 > 0:09:32and, like a flash, he came back with a riposte at once, you know.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35Please listen carefully, because if you don't,
0:09:35 > 0:09:37you'll be as dull going out as you were coming in.
0:09:37 > 0:09:38LAUGHTER
0:09:38 > 0:09:42And when he used the editorial "we" in a meeting and somebody said,
0:09:42 > 0:09:43"Who do you mean 'we'?"
0:09:43 > 0:09:47He said, "All of us, except you." He could kill them stone dead.
0:09:47 > 0:09:51He used to argue that, in order to destroy an opponent,
0:09:51 > 0:09:53the best thing to do was to pick,
0:09:53 > 0:09:56not the weakest part of his speech,
0:09:56 > 0:09:58but the strongest part,
0:09:58 > 0:10:00because if you could knock out the strongest part,
0:10:00 > 0:10:03you could destroy it altogether.
0:10:03 > 0:10:04It was so logically perfect,
0:10:04 > 0:10:08it was more like a Greek philosophical essay
0:10:08 > 0:10:11where each point led inescapably to the next.
0:10:11 > 0:10:14Until, at the end, you realise you've been carried
0:10:14 > 0:10:17into a conclusion that you just couldn't avoid.
0:10:17 > 0:10:21Bevan flourished during his first term in Parliament.
0:10:21 > 0:10:24But, by the early 1930s, the Labour government,
0:10:24 > 0:10:27led by Ramsay MacDonald, was in deep trouble.
0:10:27 > 0:10:29MacDonald and the Labour government of '29 were so unlucky,
0:10:29 > 0:10:32because they came into power at exactly the moment
0:10:32 > 0:10:34when the world economy was tanking.
0:10:34 > 0:10:36The Wall Street Crash happens in 1929,
0:10:36 > 0:10:39there's a banking crisis across Europe
0:10:39 > 0:10:41and they're completely blown off course,
0:10:41 > 0:10:42they don't get the chance
0:10:42 > 0:10:44to put any of their policies, really, into operation.
0:10:44 > 0:10:47MacDonald and a couple of the other big Labour figures
0:10:47 > 0:10:49actually went into coalition with the Tories and the Liberals
0:10:49 > 0:10:51in the national government.
0:10:51 > 0:10:52And, for somebody like Bevan,
0:10:52 > 0:10:56that experience is absolutely foundational.
0:10:56 > 0:10:58What it proved was that, you know,
0:10:58 > 0:11:02the Party kind of hierarchy can never be trusted.
0:11:02 > 0:11:04During this turbulent time,
0:11:04 > 0:11:08Bevan met a fellow MP who would become a key figure in his life.
0:11:08 > 0:11:11Jennie Lee, a miner's daughter from Fife
0:11:11 > 0:11:13and the youngest member of the House Of Commons.
0:11:13 > 0:11:16The first day I met him, he was standing on the terrace,
0:11:16 > 0:11:19he was dressed in a black coat and striped trousers,
0:11:19 > 0:11:22laughing very loudly and I thought, "What a horror."
0:11:22 > 0:11:25What Jennie didn't know was that it was Bevan's mother
0:11:25 > 0:11:28who'd bought his outfit for him, at Tredegar Co-op.
0:11:28 > 0:11:31In truth, they were a well-matched couple.
0:11:31 > 0:11:33They were both coal miners' children
0:11:33 > 0:11:37who shared a love of the arts and a passionate belief in Socialism.
0:11:37 > 0:11:41In 1934, they were married at Holborn Register Office.
0:11:43 > 0:11:48Jennie was a very, very important force in Nye's life,
0:11:48 > 0:11:51intellectually and politically.
0:11:51 > 0:11:55Jennie's political analysis was sharper than Nye's.
0:11:55 > 0:11:58She was a very attractive, lovely woman.
0:11:58 > 0:12:00He depended as a human being
0:12:00 > 0:12:02on her support and her love.
0:12:02 > 0:12:04The marriage was, for the time, I think, relatively open
0:12:04 > 0:12:07and was, in that sense, a modern marriage.
0:12:07 > 0:12:12So she's a vital force in his life, full of art and music and colour.
0:12:12 > 0:12:14He adored music and painting.
0:12:14 > 0:12:16We had very few politicians among our private friends,
0:12:16 > 0:12:19they were nearly all artists, they all came to him.
0:12:19 > 0:12:21Aneurin and Jennie's bohemian friends,
0:12:21 > 0:12:23and their taste for the good life,
0:12:23 > 0:12:26earned them a reputation as Bollinger Bolsheviks.
0:12:26 > 0:12:29But the good times were about to come to an end.
0:12:32 > 0:12:34The outbreak of the Second World War,
0:12:34 > 0:12:36which saw Labour join the Conservatives
0:12:36 > 0:12:38in a wartime coalition government,
0:12:38 > 0:12:40proved a defining moment in Bevan's career.
0:12:40 > 0:12:44It's the Second World War that really sees Bevan emerge
0:12:44 > 0:12:46onto the national stage.
0:12:46 > 0:12:50Effective opposition is limited to those few people
0:12:50 > 0:12:53who will stand out and speak, for example, for civil liberties
0:12:53 > 0:12:57and who will speak against the strategy of the war.
0:12:57 > 0:13:00He's very fierce against Churchill
0:13:00 > 0:13:02and against what he sees as the kind of aristocratic elite
0:13:02 > 0:13:04that are running the British Army.
0:13:04 > 0:13:07Churchill calls him "a squalid nuisance"
0:13:07 > 0:13:09because he gets under Churchill's skin.
0:13:09 > 0:13:12He has the intellect, the skill,
0:13:12 > 0:13:15the mastery of the house to be this constant burr.
0:13:15 > 0:13:19You know, it was very risky to be criticising the national warfare
0:13:19 > 0:13:22at a time of sort of supreme national emergency.
0:13:22 > 0:13:25And I think, at the time, what it probably suggested to people
0:13:25 > 0:13:28was that there was an element of unreliability in Bevan.
0:13:28 > 0:13:31Yeah, if you're all rowing one way and there's one man who's rowing the other,
0:13:31 > 0:13:34that's not necessarily an ideal recipe for government.
0:13:34 > 0:13:37The question of Bevan's fitness for government
0:13:37 > 0:13:40was thrown into sharp relief when, at the end of the war,
0:13:40 > 0:13:43Labour swept to victory in the 1945 General Election.
0:13:45 > 0:13:48This great victory shows that the country
0:13:48 > 0:13:54is ready for a new policy to face new world conditions.
0:13:54 > 0:13:58That it believes that Labour has the right policy
0:13:58 > 0:14:01and also has the men to carry it out.
0:14:01 > 0:14:03In a move that surprised many,
0:14:03 > 0:14:06Prime Minister Clement Attlee named Bevan as one of those men,
0:14:06 > 0:14:09when he made him Minister of Health and Housing.
0:14:09 > 0:14:14What Attlee obviously saw was that it would be better to have Bevan
0:14:14 > 0:14:17within the government, as they say, you know...
0:14:17 > 0:14:20inside the tent, relieving himself outwards,
0:14:20 > 0:14:24rather than outside urinating onto their tent.
0:14:24 > 0:14:26But I think Attlee recognised
0:14:26 > 0:14:29that there's all this pent-up energy and enthusiasm
0:14:29 > 0:14:33and if you can really channel that, which they do,
0:14:33 > 0:14:37then, you can have something tremendous at the end of it.
0:14:37 > 0:14:40Bevan was tasked with the enormous challenge
0:14:40 > 0:14:42of creating a new national health service.
0:14:42 > 0:14:45Healthcare in Britain at that time was a patchy affair,
0:14:45 > 0:14:48provided by a mixture of insurance companies, local councils,
0:14:48 > 0:14:51and cash-strapped charitable hospitals.
0:14:51 > 0:14:55For the poorest, falling ill could be a financial disaster.
0:14:55 > 0:14:58But in Tredegar, workers had established a Medical Aid Society,
0:14:58 > 0:15:00which provided free healthcare
0:15:00 > 0:15:03in return for a subscription from its members.
0:15:03 > 0:15:05Taking this model as his inspiration,
0:15:05 > 0:15:08Bevan set out to "Tredegarise" Britain.
0:15:09 > 0:15:12As a minister, Bevan is, quite frankly, spectacular.
0:15:12 > 0:15:14He goes for a national health service,
0:15:14 > 0:15:18free at the point of delivery and excellent wherever it's offered.
0:15:18 > 0:15:20And he does so in the face of enormous opposition
0:15:20 > 0:15:23from the British Medical Association.
0:15:23 > 0:15:28It's the GPs more than anybody else, I mean, who saw their profession
0:15:28 > 0:15:31as something that Bevan was interfering with
0:15:31 > 0:15:35and their resentment was the resentment of professional people,
0:15:35 > 0:15:36who felt that, you know,
0:15:36 > 0:15:39they were being turned into servants of the state.
0:15:39 > 0:15:45I can tell you that the medical profession is red in tooth and claw
0:15:45 > 0:15:47when it comes to opposing a Labour minister
0:15:47 > 0:15:49doing something they are frightened of.
0:15:49 > 0:15:53Bevan overcame the opposition of the medical establishment
0:15:53 > 0:15:56through a strategy of divide and conquer.
0:15:56 > 0:15:58He courted the influential Royal College Of Physicians
0:15:58 > 0:16:01and agreed to some of their demands.
0:16:02 > 0:16:05Bevan, almost by his sheer force of charisma,
0:16:05 > 0:16:07and by dedication and effort,
0:16:07 > 0:16:10gets the consultants to agree to the foundation of the NHS.
0:16:10 > 0:16:13Sure, he had to make a few compromises along the way, you know,
0:16:13 > 0:16:16private practice still goes on,
0:16:16 > 0:16:18you have sort of pay beds in hospitals and things,
0:16:18 > 0:16:22and he famously said he "stuffed their mouths with gold."
0:16:22 > 0:16:25Once he got the Harley Streets and the Wimpole Streets
0:16:25 > 0:16:28of this world into the scheme,
0:16:28 > 0:16:30the opposition in the main was defeated.
0:16:30 > 0:16:34What made Bevan effective, what made him matter,
0:16:34 > 0:16:37was that he tempered the idealism
0:16:37 > 0:16:40with a kind of pragmatic attention to detail,
0:16:40 > 0:16:41an ability to get things done.
0:16:41 > 0:16:44And I think that's, that's his greatness, really,
0:16:44 > 0:16:47that he doesn't lose the crusading zeal,
0:16:47 > 0:16:49but he's able to put it into practise,
0:16:49 > 0:16:52and to make the little compromises you'll find you have to do
0:16:52 > 0:16:54if you want to get anything achieved.
0:16:54 > 0:16:58'On July 5th, the new National Health Service starts...'
0:16:58 > 0:17:01The scale of Bevan's achievement would be made clear
0:17:01 > 0:17:04on the 5th of July 1948 -
0:17:04 > 0:17:07the day the new National Health Service was launched.
0:17:07 > 0:17:09But Bevan chose the eve of that launch
0:17:09 > 0:17:12to make the most controversial speech of his career.
0:17:12 > 0:17:14In a public meeting at Manchester,
0:17:14 > 0:17:17he contrasted the new health service with the social injustices
0:17:17 > 0:17:20he'd witnessed in the Tredegar of his youth.
0:17:20 > 0:17:21In his words,
0:17:21 > 0:17:26"No amount of cajolery can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred
0:17:26 > 0:17:30"for the Tory Party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me.
0:17:30 > 0:17:35"So far as I am concerned, they are lower than vermin."
0:17:35 > 0:17:38He was not talking about the ordinary Conservative voter,
0:17:38 > 0:17:40he was thinking of those days in the Welsh Valley
0:17:40 > 0:17:44when people were starving, of the unemployment,
0:17:44 > 0:17:46his father died in his arms of pneumoconiosis,
0:17:46 > 0:17:49he remembered the humiliation of good people that he'd loved.
0:17:49 > 0:17:53Now, that was the vermin that Nye was talking about.
0:17:53 > 0:17:57Bevan's speech caused uproar in the national press.
0:17:57 > 0:17:59This was appreciated by the Conservative Central Office,
0:17:59 > 0:18:01they founded a thing called The Vermin Club.
0:18:01 > 0:18:04You wore in your buttonhole a sort of caterpillar
0:18:04 > 0:18:08and I think it won us thousands of votes.
0:18:08 > 0:18:10It was a silly thing to do,
0:18:10 > 0:18:13because that sort of rudeness about your political opponents
0:18:13 > 0:18:18antagonises people who aren't particularly interested in politics.
0:18:18 > 0:18:22And, often, antagonises even your own party.
0:18:22 > 0:18:24The speech earned Bevan a sharp rebuke
0:18:24 > 0:18:26from the prime minister, Clement Attlee.
0:18:26 > 0:18:29There's a kind of slightly self-destructive element to Bevan.
0:18:29 > 0:18:33He can't stop himself showing that he's the bad boy, you know,
0:18:33 > 0:18:36that he hasn't just become another establishment figure.
0:18:36 > 0:18:39But, you know, Bevan, in the late 1940s,
0:18:39 > 0:18:41he's not that far away from the Labour leadership.
0:18:41 > 0:18:46You know, he really incarnates the soul of the Labour movement.
0:18:46 > 0:18:50And it's almost as though there's a little death wish there.
0:18:53 > 0:18:55Bevan's NHS turned out to be
0:18:55 > 0:18:58something of a bureaucratic behemoth.
0:18:58 > 0:19:00And the money that had been set aside to finance it
0:19:00 > 0:19:02was woefully inadequate.
0:19:02 > 0:19:05When we had this discussion before,
0:19:05 > 0:19:08in the Cabinet about this matter,
0:19:08 > 0:19:10there were some of my comrades who suggested
0:19:10 > 0:19:13that perhaps we might meet the increased cost
0:19:13 > 0:19:15of the National Health Service
0:19:15 > 0:19:19by making a contribution from the Insurance Fund,
0:19:19 > 0:19:22which had grown to enormous proportions.
0:19:22 > 0:19:24Well, of course, the Treasury had to tell us!
0:19:24 > 0:19:26There's no fund.
0:19:26 > 0:19:28LAUGHTER
0:19:30 > 0:19:33It's just an... It's just an actuarial fiction.
0:19:35 > 0:19:39In his 1951 budget, the Labour Chancellor, Hugh Gaitskell,
0:19:39 > 0:19:44diverted money from the NHS to fund a national re-armament programme.
0:19:44 > 0:19:46He did it by introducing prescription charges
0:19:46 > 0:19:48for glasses and dentures.
0:19:48 > 0:19:50This was a step too far for Bevan.
0:19:54 > 0:19:56'The resignation of Mr Bevan
0:19:56 > 0:19:58'as a result of his opposition to the budget...'
0:19:58 > 0:20:01For Bevan, the principle of the Health Service
0:20:01 > 0:20:04being free at the point of delivery was crucial.
0:20:04 > 0:20:07It wasn't something that he was prepared to compromise about
0:20:07 > 0:20:10and, for him, it was the DNA, the watermark, if you like,
0:20:10 > 0:20:12of that Labour government.
0:20:12 > 0:20:15For Bevan, it was personal as well as political.
0:20:15 > 0:20:18Bevan resents the fact that Gaitskell as Chancellor
0:20:18 > 0:20:20is the kind of cunning man.
0:20:20 > 0:20:25And I think he's had enough, by 1951,
0:20:25 > 0:20:27of the kind of compromises of office.
0:20:27 > 0:20:28He wants to flounce out.
0:20:28 > 0:20:31And I think that's the great tragedy, really, of his career.
0:20:31 > 0:20:33That if he'd stayed in
0:20:33 > 0:20:36and if he had worked with Gaitskell and with Attlee,
0:20:36 > 0:20:39then, Labour would have been far more effective.
0:20:39 > 0:20:41You know, they didn't need to lose power in 1951.
0:20:41 > 0:20:43But lose, they did.
0:20:43 > 0:20:46In 1951, Winston Churchill re-entered Number 10,
0:20:46 > 0:20:49and Labour were cast out into opposition.
0:20:49 > 0:20:54Bevan became the standard-bearer for the left wing of the party.
0:20:54 > 0:20:56A group of disciples gathered around him,
0:20:56 > 0:20:58calling themselves the Bevanites.
0:20:59 > 0:21:02There were three or four who were completely dedicated to him
0:21:02 > 0:21:07and hung on his words as though he were one of the great prophets
0:21:07 > 0:21:09and they supported him, right or wrong.
0:21:10 > 0:21:13The Bevanites attacked the right wing of the party,
0:21:13 > 0:21:17in the shape of Hugh Gaitskell and the trade-union leaders who supported him.
0:21:17 > 0:21:20Why is it that your group
0:21:20 > 0:21:23has been so free in denigrating personalities
0:21:23 > 0:21:26among the trade union leaders?
0:21:26 > 0:21:29- This is a mere repetition of newspaper headlines.- Not at all!
0:21:29 > 0:21:31- Not at all. - Where has been a denigration?
0:21:31 > 0:21:35Well, the latest example was the criticism
0:21:35 > 0:21:38of Lincoln Evans for accepting a knighthood.
0:21:38 > 0:21:40Do you concur with that attack?
0:21:40 > 0:21:42Now, now, now, you're being very naughty, as you know.
0:21:42 > 0:21:45You must not try and inveigle me
0:21:45 > 0:21:47into making personal attacks on my colleagues.
0:21:47 > 0:21:51Your group has not been nearly as coy as that.
0:21:53 > 0:21:55This perpetual sniping and conflict within the party
0:21:55 > 0:21:59brought out the worst aspects of Bevan's character.
0:21:59 > 0:22:02Bevan was a great man, no question.
0:22:02 > 0:22:05Great men tend to be, you know, Churchill, Lloyd George,
0:22:05 > 0:22:09all these characters, they're often incredibly childish,
0:22:09 > 0:22:13egotistical, selfish, self-centred, manipulative...
0:22:13 > 0:22:16Bevan was all of those things, you know, with knobs on.
0:22:16 > 0:22:18In many ways, they make him quite likeable, you know,
0:22:18 > 0:22:20he's not just another bland politician.
0:22:20 > 0:22:23He's somebody with bags of character.
0:22:23 > 0:22:27This internecine warfare would cost Bevan dear.
0:22:27 > 0:22:30The subsequent years of quarrel within the Labour Party of the '50s
0:22:30 > 0:22:34effectively prevented him from attaining, you know,
0:22:34 > 0:22:37the position, leader of the party, Prime Minister,
0:22:37 > 0:22:39that he was clearly hoping for.
0:22:39 > 0:22:42In 1954, Bevan lost out to Gaitskell
0:22:42 > 0:22:45in the contest for the post of Party Treasurer.
0:22:45 > 0:22:48A year later, Gaitskell was once again the winner,
0:22:48 > 0:22:51this time, in the election for Labour Party Leader.
0:22:52 > 0:22:54I greatly appreciate the confidence
0:22:54 > 0:22:58which the members of the Parliamentary Labour Party
0:22:58 > 0:23:02have shown in me in electing me to this extremely important position.
0:23:02 > 0:23:06The in-fighting had damaged not only Bevan's career
0:23:06 > 0:23:09but also the fortunes of the Labour Party itself.
0:23:09 > 0:23:12The party was deeply divided, couldn't be trusted with government,
0:23:12 > 0:23:15they were too busy fighting one another.
0:23:15 > 0:23:17Very unhealthy and very unfortunate.
0:23:17 > 0:23:21And what it did was, it meant that Gaitskell, who was a, you know,
0:23:21 > 0:23:24a very talented politician, a very appealing one in many ways,
0:23:24 > 0:23:27he was never able to go to the country in a general election
0:23:27 > 0:23:30to say, "You know, I've got a united party behind me
0:23:30 > 0:23:32"and we're ready to lead."
0:23:32 > 0:23:35Labour would remain in opposition for 13 years.
0:23:35 > 0:23:38But, within the party, some kind of truce was declared
0:23:38 > 0:23:41when Gaitskell gave Bevan the post of Shadow Foreign Secretary.
0:23:43 > 0:23:47When Britain embarked on an ill-advised and underhand invasion of Egypt
0:23:47 > 0:23:49in the 1956 Suez Crisis,
0:23:49 > 0:23:51Bevan used all his rhetorical powers
0:23:51 > 0:23:54to castigate the Prime Minister of the day.
0:23:54 > 0:23:58Sir Anthony Eden has been pretending
0:23:58 > 0:24:01that he is now invading Egypt
0:24:01 > 0:24:04in order to strengthen the United Nations.
0:24:04 > 0:24:06CHEERING
0:24:08 > 0:24:10And every, every, um...
0:24:10 > 0:24:12every burglar, of course, could say the same thing.
0:24:12 > 0:24:14LAUGHTER
0:24:14 > 0:24:16He could argue that he was entering the house
0:24:16 > 0:24:18in order to train the police.
0:24:18 > 0:24:20LAUGHTER
0:24:20 > 0:24:25So if Sir Anthony Eden is sincere in what he is saying,
0:24:25 > 0:24:27and he may be...
0:24:27 > 0:24:30LAUGHTER
0:24:30 > 0:24:32..he may be,
0:24:32 > 0:24:34then, if he is sincere in what he is saying,
0:24:34 > 0:24:37then, he is too stupid to be a prime minister.
0:24:37 > 0:24:39CHEERING
0:24:41 > 0:24:43In another powerful speech the following year,
0:24:43 > 0:24:46Bevan made a U-turn that would shock many of his colleagues.
0:24:49 > 0:24:53For years, he had been an outspoken opponent of the nuclear arms race.
0:24:53 > 0:24:56Many on the left looked at him for leadership on the issue.
0:24:56 > 0:24:59But, in 1957, he turned on his followers
0:24:59 > 0:25:02and scorned their idea that Britain should go it alone,
0:25:02 > 0:25:05with a policy of unilateral disarmament.
0:25:05 > 0:25:09What you are saying, and this is what our friend said from Hampstead,
0:25:09 > 0:25:15is that a British Foreign Secretary gets up in the United Nations,
0:25:15 > 0:25:20without consultation, mark this, this is a responsible attitude(!),
0:25:20 > 0:25:25without telling any members of the Commonwealth,
0:25:25 > 0:25:28without concerting with them,
0:25:28 > 0:25:34that the British Labour Movement decides unilaterally
0:25:34 > 0:25:38that this country contracts out of ALL its commitments and obligations
0:25:38 > 0:25:42entered into with other countries and members of the Commonwealth
0:25:42 > 0:25:44without consultation at all.
0:25:44 > 0:25:46And you call that statesmanship?
0:25:47 > 0:25:49I call it an emotional spasm.
0:25:49 > 0:25:53LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
0:25:56 > 0:25:58Bevan's dismissal of unilateral disarmament
0:25:58 > 0:26:01alienated some of his closest allies in the party.
0:26:04 > 0:26:07'It was a misty morning on the day of decision
0:26:07 > 0:26:10'when early voters went along to do their duty.'
0:26:10 > 0:26:13Two years later, Labour suffered its third successive defeat,
0:26:13 > 0:26:15in the 1959 General Election.
0:26:15 > 0:26:18Labour in general, and Bevan in particular,
0:26:18 > 0:26:21seemed out of touch with the mood of the country.
0:26:21 > 0:26:25He steeped in all the great debates of the '20s and '30s,
0:26:25 > 0:26:26and in the '50s, actually,
0:26:26 > 0:26:29all of that is beginning to feel really dated.
0:26:29 > 0:26:32The '50s is the age of Cliff Richard, The Affluent Society,
0:26:32 > 0:26:36and against that background, you know, Bevan just feels a bit old-fashioned.
0:26:36 > 0:26:38And he famously goes to the Labour Party Conference
0:26:38 > 0:26:41at the end of the decade and denounces The Affluent Society.
0:26:41 > 0:26:43People, as he sees it,
0:26:43 > 0:26:46have turned their backs on the great crusade for socialist equality,
0:26:46 > 0:26:48basically because they want a better car.
0:26:48 > 0:26:51What message are we going to send to the rest of the world?
0:26:51 > 0:26:54Are we going to send the message from the great Labour movement,
0:26:54 > 0:26:58which is the mother and father of modern democracy and of modern Socialism,
0:26:58 > 0:27:02that we, in Blackpool, in 1959,
0:27:02 > 0:27:05are going to turn our backs on our principles
0:27:05 > 0:27:09because of a temporary unpopularity in a temporarily affluent society?
0:27:12 > 0:27:18When we realise that all the tides of history are flowing in our direction,
0:27:18 > 0:27:21that we are not beaten,
0:27:21 > 0:27:24that we represent the future,
0:27:24 > 0:27:26then, when we say it and mean it,
0:27:26 > 0:27:30we shall lead our people to where they deserve to be led.
0:27:30 > 0:27:32APPLAUSE
0:27:32 > 0:27:34Within a year of that speech,
0:27:34 > 0:27:38Bevan was diagnosed with stomach cancer.
0:27:38 > 0:27:42He died on the 6th of July 1960, aged 62.
0:27:48 > 0:27:52Over 50 years after his death, Aneurin Bevan is still remembered
0:27:52 > 0:27:56as one of the outstanding political figures of the last century.
0:27:56 > 0:28:00For many, he is one of the greatest Welshmen of all time.
0:28:00 > 0:28:04I think Bevan, more than any other figure in 20th-century Wales,
0:28:04 > 0:28:08managed to encapsulate a society
0:28:08 > 0:28:12whose material circumstances were so impoverished,
0:28:12 > 0:28:17and whose human light was so wonderfully imaginative and dazzling.
0:28:17 > 0:28:19What he left Britain with
0:28:19 > 0:28:24is probably Labour's greatest and proudest ever accomplishment,
0:28:24 > 0:28:25which is the NHS.
0:28:25 > 0:28:27And that, you know, is Bevan's legacy.
0:28:27 > 0:28:31That this guy, who came from a very, very humble background,
0:28:31 > 0:28:33was able to build something
0:28:33 > 0:28:36that has meant so much to so many millions of people,
0:28:36 > 0:28:39you can't ask for more than that.
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