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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Aneurin Bevan
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(1897–1960) The most colourful and controversial Labour politician in the years after World War II, remembered in particular for his period as minister of health (1945–51), when he introduced the *National Health Service. The son of a miner, and himself down the mines from the age of 13, he became an active trade unionist and entered parliament in 1929 as MP for Ebbw Vale. During the 1950s he headed a large left-wing 'Bevanite' minority within the party, at odds with the leadership in particular on nuclear policy – though in 1957 he helped defeat a conference proposal for *unilateral disarmament, saying that it would send a British foreign secretary 'naked into the conference chamber'.
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