“If anyone asks me who was responsible for the British policy leading up to the war, I should, as a Labour man myself, make a confession and say: "All of us". We refused absolutely to face the facts. When the issue came of arming or rearming millions of people in this country… we refused to face the real issue at a critical moment. But what is the good of blaming anybody? We cannot make our action retrospective whatever we do. We have to start from now and try to do the best we can.”

— Ernest Bevin

Hansard, House of Commons, 5th series, vol. 373, col. 1362.
Speech in the House of Commons, 29 July 1941.

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Ernest Bevin 17

British labour leader, politician, and statesman 1881–1951

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Let us reach for the world that ought to be — that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls.

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Ernest Bevin 17

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