1966 - 1968

Richard Crossman (1907-1974) began an academic career at Oxford, but turned to politics following a visit to Nazi Germany in 1930. Though involved nationally in Labour party politics, he did not enter Parliament until after his war service in the ministry of economic warfare; elected to the Commons in the Labour landslide of 1945, he failed to gain a position on the Labour frontbench until Harold Wilson's government of 1964. Wilson appointed him minister of housing and local government, and then, in 1966, Leader of the House, where he reformed the system of Select Committees. In 1968 Wilson moved him to the department of health and social security. Following Labour's defeat in 1970 Crossman worked on editing his diaries for publication, although he did not live to see them appear.