My Life: Oswald Mosley

During his long life, the British Fascist leader Oswald Mosley knew just about everybody worth knowing. Politicians such as Winston Churchill, Franklin D Roosevelt, and Lloyd George. Leading society hostesses like Lady Cunard, Mrs Randolph Hearst, and Nancy Astor. He also knew Beaverbrook, Northcliffe, and Rothermere—the three most powerful press barons of their day. Authors such as Compton Mackenzie and Henry Williamson were among his friends. And, of course, Mosley had a unique personal insight into the characters of Hitler, Mussolini, Goering, and the Goebbels.

On reading this book, Michael Foot, Leader of the Labour Party during the 1980s, commented:

"He came near to diverting the whole course of British history... What Mosley so valiantly stood for could have saved his country from the Hungry Thirties and the Second World War."

R. H. S. Crossman in The New Statesman wrote:
"The outstanding politician of his generation, ... Mosley was spurned by Whitehall, Fleet Street and every party leader at Westminster, simply and solely because he was right."

A. J. P. Taylor in English History, 1914-1945 stated:
"Only Oswald Mosley ... rose to the height of the challenge. His proposals... offered a blueprint for most of the constructive advances in economic policy to the present day ... an astonishing achievement, evidence of a superlative talent."

Lord Boothby in a BBC broadcast remarked:
"Mosley is the only man I have ever known who could have been a very great Prime Minister ... His diagnosis was right ... an enormously gifted man."

Harold Macmillan in Winds of Change described him as:
"Great talents and great strength of character."