Nineteen years later, he would be elected to Parliament for nearby Bedwellty and go on to become one of the major figures in the second half of Labour’s 125-year history, a foil for Margaret Thatcher and the party’s longest-serving leader never to enter Number 10.
‘I mean, I could give you a list of people who, if they hadn’t died, abandoned the ship or gone daft, could have saved me the trouble of becoming Labour Party leader, which would have given me a much, much better life than I otherwise had, especially in my forties.’.
Oddly, one politician who is not usually considered as saturated in his party’s extensive history and traditions as other top Labour figures is the man who was named after its founder: Keir Starmer.
Aneurin Bevan Politician With Wife Jennie Lee At The Labour Party Conference Blackpool.]
Speaking to Metro ahead of the party’s 125th anniversary today, he said: ‘He was the best of the human race, really, because as a politician he was both a plumber who got practical things done, and a poet who could raise people’s hearts and colour their imagination.’.
