The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, Volume 2: Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons, 1966-68

In Volume Two of the Crossman Diaries, which runs from August 24th, 1966, to April 22nd, 1968, Rochard Crossman is Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons. Deprived of a large, powerful and demanding departmental job, he hurls himself into the details of managing the Government's business and, together with the Chief Whip, into keeping recalcitrant and frustrated back-benchers occupied and satisfied. Labour now has a large majority – 100 at the 1966 election with much of the new Parliamentary intake tending to be 'professional politicians'. He tries to persuade the Prime Minister to form an 'inner Cabinet' to direct the Government;s overall strategy, he examines at close quarters the role of the Cabinet Secretary as the Prime Minister's grand vizier and éminence grise and attempts to change the time-consuming pomposities of the Privy Council and Ministerial audiences with the Queen. From his rooms in the Privy Council Office, close to Downing Street and to the Cabinet Office itself, he has a central view of the working of the Cabinet system. From this vantage point and from that of the central Cabinet Committees of which he is a member, Crossman delves into the work of other Departments and other Ministers, concerning himself with everything from defence to economic and social policy. As controversies unfold over the sale of arms to South Africa, over devaluation in 1967, over the Labour Government's decision to enter the Common Market and Crossman's own attempts to liberalize Party discipline and to reform the procedures and practices of Parliament, the formidable energies of Richard Crossman not only as politician but as a brilliant and skillful diarist boldly emerge, confirming the Financial Times view that Crossman's is 'the most important book on British government to have appeared since the war'.