Douglas Jay and others attempted in vain to persuade Gaitskell to compromise, but he refused, arguing that two members of the Cabinet should not be allowed to dictate to eighteen, although he agreed not to specify just yet the date at which the charges would come into effect.

However, he ignored the concerns of the trade unions, which he judged to be conservative and fixated on wages. Bevan resigned from the Shadow Cabinet in April 1954 over Labour's support for the setting-up of SEATO. Harold Wilson ( President of the Board of Trade) and George Strauss ( Minister of Supply) warned Gaitskell that the burden of rearmament was too much for the shortage of raw materials and manufacturing capacity, but Gaitskell ignored them as they were friends of Bevan.He died suddenly in 1963, when he appeared to be on the verge of leading Labour back into power and becoming the next Prime Minister. over previous three years, ended officially on 1 January 1951, although in practice it ended six weeks earlier. In 1860, William Ewart Gladstone carried his speech in a red brief case and today the Chancellor still carries one to his annual speech. He became a prominent speaker for the party, and wrote a popular Christian socialist pamphlet with Keir Hardie in 1903, entitled The Christ that is to Be. In the summer of 1959 Bevan supported Gaitskell on the NEC against Frank Cousins over unilateralism, which Bevan had opposed at the 1957 Conference, and nuclear tests (24 June 1959).

Although some Conservative MPs spoke against the measure it was not opposed by Churchill, then Leader of the Opposition, who had had an ambivalent view of the Bank since his own time as chancellor in the 1920s. Gaitskell was elected Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Leeds South in the Labour landslide victory of 1945.

His Inland Revenue job was kept open for him for two years following the accident; however, owing to his condition, he decided to resign from the civil service. In two letters to Eden sent on 3 and 10 August Gaitskell condemned Nasser, but warned that he would not support any action that violated the United Nations charter. It is unclear whether Gaitskell was ever sympathetic to Oswald Mosley, then seen as a future leader of the Labour Party.

That year, Snowden said there was never a greater mistake than to say that Cobdenism was dead: "Cobdenism was never more alive throughout the world than it was to-day . The Conservatives failed to get an overall majority and Labour, tacitly supported by the Liberals, formed a minority government.

The job had initially been earmarked for Harold Wilson, with Gaitskell pencilled in to succeed Wilson as Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Works. He attempted to resign in the summer but was dissuaded by Gaitskell and Plowden because of the outbreak of the Korean War. He recommended devaluation by 4 September, but rejected the idea that currencies become fully convertible – in the way that John Maynard Keynes had advocated at the Bretton Woods Conference – as this might prevent governments protecting full employment. This had a strong emphasis on planning, although not as much as his mentor Dalton would have liked, with no plans for the nationalisation of banks or the steel industry.