SOURCE: "Smashing Things," in The Spectator, February 12, 1960, p. 223.

In the following review of The Glittering Coffin, Crosland examines Potter's critique of the Labour Party and the politics of social class in 1950s England.

Mr. Potter is a twenty-three-year-old exchairman of the Oxford University Labour Club, who was also a prominent figure in the old Universities and Left Review. His book [The Glittering Coffin] is part autobiography, part polemic—against present-day British society, and against the Labour Party for allegedly not wishing to change it. It is disarmingly candid, and indeed courageous, since he wishes to go into Labour politics and fears that his outspokenness may be held against him. It is also muddled, inconsistent, and almost wholly negative; Mr. Gaitskell, if he read it, would certainly not obtain a clear idea of what, in detail, he was supposed to do. Nevertheless, it expresses an attitude of mind which...