The King told Morrison: ‘You are nationalizing too fast’
1958The NewsletterGeorge Cunvin Read the scan at ETOL (PDF) →Title, extent and credit checked against the scan (21 October 2026, after a reader report. Pages 2–3, by George Cunvin as printed (the Tom Kemp credit came from Kemp's economics article on p. 3); a review of Wheeler-Bennett's King George VI. Its last section, 'Within the marble halls?', had been filed under 'We salute them', and G. Gale's report and the end of Kemp's article had been run into it on p. 3). The text is machine-read and not corrected: for anything you quote, read the scan.
-.. NATIONALIZING TOO FAST”
TuosE Labour Party people who try to soothe their erstwhile republican consciences by constantly repeating that ‘the monarchy is not an issue’, could do worse than read ‘King George “VI..His Life and Reign’ by John Wheeler-Bennett (Macmillan 60s.). -The late King had the habit of keeping a diary and passages reproduced from it show the part the monarchy plays in keeping Britain safe for capitalism.
When the Conservatives are in power, there is very little meddling from the throne in affairs of government. There is no need for it.
The reigning monarch, by upbringing, background and the very position he holds, thinks along the same lines as the members of the Tory government.
Thus we find that Neville Chamberlain frequently never bothered to inform the King of important decisions. . George VI had to learn from the Beaverbrook and Harmsworth Press about Eden’s resignation in 1938.
Similarly, Chamberlain never sought the King’s permission, as he was constitutionally obliged to do, when he left for the notorious Munich conference with Hitler, Mussolini and Daladier.
But when Labour came into power in 1945, it was a different matter. The King received the election results with trepidation.
Like a true product of the public school system, he thought the electorate had behaved meanly in rejecting Winston Churchill—just as in’ 1940, when the House of Commons turned against Chamberlain, he felt:
‘It is most unfair on Chamberlain to be treated like this after all his good work. The Conservative rebels like Duff Cooper ought to be ashamed of themselves for deserting him at this moment.’
Within the marble halls?
- No sooner’ was Labour in power than the King thought it necessary to tell Attlee that ‘he must give the people here some confidence that the government was not going to stifle all private enterprise’. Later, he records a conversation with Herbert Morrison:
‘We discussed the whole of the Labour programme. I thought he was going too fast with the new nationalizing legislation.’
Was it within the marble halls of Buckingham Palace that Morrison first discovered the need to slow down on nationalization and to ‘consolidate’?
It is well known that successive monarchs have invested their wealth heavily in industry. The occupant of the throne, therefore, has a definite vested interest in the continuation of ‘private enterprise’.
We learn from this biography, too, that it was thanks -to George VI that we had Ernest Bevin as Labour’s Foreign Minister after 1945, instead of Hugh Dalton.
From a socialist point of view, Dalton would probably have been little improvement on Bevin. But it would scarcely have been possible for him to be worse.
The point for the Labour Party is that the monarchy can make its influence felt on behalf of the existing order of things and does not hesitate to do so.