The Rebel Who Lost His Cause

The Tragedy of John Beckett, MP

by Francis Beckett

London House, 1999, [First Edition], ISBN 1902809041, b/w photographic plates, hardcover, dustjacket, 

Near Fine Condition, minor edge and shelf wear

'John Beckett became Labour's youngest MP in 1925.  He seemed destined for the sort of high office that would be reached by friends and contemporaries like Clement Attlee and Hugh Dalton.  But instead he organised the rebel Independent Labour Party into what became known as the 'parliamentary suicide club' and created violent and spectacular scenes.
In May 1940 he was arrested as a danger to the war effort and spent nearly four years in prison.
Francis Beckett's candid, thorough account of his father's life makes a major contribution to our understanding of this complex period of British political history.  The generation that had seen terrible losses in the 1914-18 war had then to come to terms with poverty and deprivation at home, and, within twenty years, the prelude to another war.'