Editing Hugh Gaitskell (section)

== Legacy ==
=== Gaitskellites and after ===
Gaitskell was adored by followers like [[Roy Jenkins]], who thought him a beacon of hope, decency and integrity, especially as Wilson's government came more and more to seem one of shabby compromises. Left-wingers like [[Barbara Castle]] loathed him for his intransigence. Many, including [[Tony Benn]] – a Labour centrist at the time – simply thought him a divisive figure and initially welcomed Wilson as a fresh start who could unite the party. In the event Wilson's closest allies as Prime Minister – Crossman and Castle – were former Bevanites.<ref name="Campbell 2010, p241-2">Campbell 2010, p241-2</ref>

However, many of the Gaitskellites held leading positions in [[Harold Wilson]]'s Cabinet of 1964–70. Many of them – e.g. [[Roy Jenkins]] and [[Bill Rodgers, Baron Rodgers of Quarry Bank|Bill Rodgers]] but not [[Anthony Crosland]] or [[Douglas Jay]] – became supporters of British membership of the EEC, an issue on which Labour was split in the 1970s and which helped to precipitate the SDP split of 1981.<ref name="Matthew 2004, p.293" />

John Campbell writes that "the echoes of the Gaitskell-Bevan rivalry continued to divide the party right up to the 1980s".<ref>Campbell 2010, p196</ref> [[Neil Kinnock]] (Labour Leader 1983–92) grew up in [[South Wales]] and was brought up as an admirer of Bevan, but although he disliked the comparison his battle with the hard-left [[Militant tendency]] in the mid-1980s had echoes of Gaitskellism; [[John Smith (Labour Party leader)|John Smith]] (Labour Leader 1992–4) had been a Gaitskellite as a young man in the early 1960s; [[Tony Blair]]'s first act as leader in 1994 was finally to abolish Clause IV – for this and other acts he was supported by the elderly [[Roy Jenkins]], who had become a Liberal Democrat by then. Like Gaitskell before him, Blair was often seen by many of his enemies in the Labour Party as a public-school educated, middle-class interloper.<ref name="Campbell 2010, p241-2" />

[[Tony Benn]] contrasted Gaitskell's stand on the [[Suez Crisis]] to that of the former British Prime Minister [[Tony Blair]] on [[Iraq War|the war in Iraq]]. [[Margaret Thatcher]] compared Blair with Gaitskell in a different manner, warning her party when Blair came to power that he was the most formidable Labour leader since Hugh Gaitskell.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/thatcher-praises-formidable-blair-1621354.html|title=Thatcher praises 'formidable' Blair|website=[[Independent.co.uk]]|date=22 October 2011}}</ref>

=== Assessments ===
Gaitskell's socialism was, in Campbell's view, that of a public servant wanting to see the world more rationally governed.<ref name="Campbell 2010, p198" /> Gaitskell very likely might have become Prime Minister had he lived; however, he left no lasting monument other than "the fading memory of promise unfulfilled". Gaitskell, although no Marxist, was a sincere socialist but nonetheless was in some respects the first "moderniser" who saw how Labour would have to adapt to survive.<ref>Campbell 2010, p242-3</ref>

His longtime close friend [[Roy Jenkins]] concluded a decade afterwards, in an article which he later quoted in his memoirs:
:All his struggles illustrated some blemishes as well as exceptional strength. He would not have been a perfect prime minister. He was stubborn, rash, and could in a paradoxical way become too emotionally committed to an over-rational position which, once he had thought it rigorously through, he believed must be the final answer. He was only a moderately good judge of people. But when these faults are put in the scales and weighed against his qualities they shrivel away. He had purpose and direction, courage and humanity. He was a man for raising the sights of politics. He clashed on great issues. He avoided the petty bitterness of personal jealousy. You could raise a banner which men were proud to follow, but he never perverted his leadership ability; it was infused by sense and humour, and by a desire to change the world, not for his own satisfaction, but so that people might more enjoy living in it.... He was that very rare phenomenon, a great politician who was also an unusually agreeable man.<ref>Roy Jenkins, ''A Life at the Center '' (1991) pp 141-42</ref>

Because he never became prime minister, and because of the great capacity many considered that he had for the post, Hugh Gaitskell is remembered largely with respect from people both within and outside of the Labour Party. Gaitskell is regarded by some as "the best Prime Minister we never had".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/public-affairs/press-releases/index.phtml?menu=pressreleasesarchive&code=CAB-175/04&create_date=06-dec-2004|title=Press releases|work=nottingham.ac.uk|access-date=13 April 2016}}</ref>

Brivati acknowledged that he had "an almost reckless honesty and courage"<ref name="Matthew 2004, p.293" /> which could turn into stubbornness.<ref name="Matthew 2004, p.288" /> "His leadership was a heroic failure" and "The defining moment of the post-war history of the Labour Party".<ref name="Matthew 2004, p.293" /> Although by 1963 Gaitskell appeared to be on the verge of leading Labour back into power, it still took what Brivati describes as "the greatest performance by a leader of the opposition [last] century" for [[Harold Wilson]] to lead Labour back by a narrow majority.<ref name="Matthew 2004, p.292" />

Brivati writes that for Gaitskell "socialism was not an end state ... but the reform of institutions and practices for the more effective realisation of preferred values". Evan Durbin's ''Politics of Democratic Socialism'' (1940) was a seminal text.<ref name="Matthew 2004, p.291" /> Gaitskell was not, in Brivati's view, a "progressive" in any modern sense. He favoured equality and thought the free market wasteful. He wanted to incorporate Liberal opinion within the Labour vote. However, the modernising leaders of subsequent generations, [[Neil Kinnock]] and [[Tony Blair]], were to a certain extent continuing Gaitskell's tradition.<ref name="Matthew 2004, p.293" />

=== Memorials ===
[[File:Holbeck Moor Road, Holbeck - geograph.org.uk - 529637.jpg|thumb|right|The Gaitskell flats in [[Holbeck]], [[Leeds]] were named after Gaitskell. They were demolished in 2010.]]
His name appears in popular culture from time to time. For example Hugh Gaitskell House is the building [[Nicholas Lyndhurst]]'s character, Garry Sparrow, is looking for in ''[[Goodnight Sweetheart (TV series)|Goodnight Sweetheart]]'' when he first stumbles into [[Second World War]] London. A tower block of that name can be found opposite [[Stoke Newington railway station]] in North London.

Hugh Gaitskell Primary School is situated in [[Beeston, Leeds|Beeston]], part of his former Leeds South constituency.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hughgaitskell.leeds.sch.uk|title=Hugh Gaitskell Primary School|work=hughgaitskell.leeds.sch.uk|access-date=13 April 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?client=public&X=428500&Y=430500&width=700&height=400&gride=428671&gridn=430688&srec=0&coordsys=gb&db=pc&addr1=&addr2=&addr3=&pc=LS118AB&advanced=&local=&localinfosel=&kw=&inmap=&table=&ovtype=&keepicon=true&zm=0&scale=10000&out.x=3&out.y=11|title=Maps}}</ref> The area is now in the [[Leeds Central (UK Parliament constituency)|Leeds Central]] constituency, represented by [[Hilary Benn]].

In 1978, some 15 years after his death, a new housing development by [[Sandwell]] council in the [[Tividale]] area of the [[West Midlands (county)|West Midlands]] was named Gaitskell Terrace.

A portrait bust of Hugh Gaitskell was made by British sculptor [[Leslie Cubitt Bevis]] in 1964 and purchased by the [[National Portrait Gallery, London|National Portrait Gallery]] in 1967.

Gaitskell was buried in Hampstead, and a memorial plaque to his name is prominently placed in the cloisters of [[New College, Oxford]].