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Arthur Greenwood (8 February 1880 – 9 June 1954) was a British politician. A prominent member of the Labour Party from the 1920s until the late 1940s, Greenwood rose to prominence within the party as secretary of its research department from 1920 and served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health in the short-lived Labour government of 1924. In 1940, he was instrumental in resolving that Britain would continue fighting Nazi Germany in World War II.
In 1929, Greenwood was appointed Minister of Health, remaining in the post until the collapse of the Labour government in August 1931; he was sworn into the Privy Council at the time of his appointment. During his period at the Ministry of Health, Greenwood raised widows' pensions and through the Housing Act 1930 enacted large-scale slum clearance.
Greenwood became Deputy Leader of the Labour Party under Clement Attlee. During the 1935 General Election campaign, Greenwood attacked Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain for spending money on rearmament, saying that the rearmament policy was "the merest scaremongering; disgraceful in a statesman of Mr Chamberlain's responsible position, to suggest that more millions of money needed to be spent on armaments."
On 2 September 1939, acting for Attlee who was in hospital for prostate surgery, he was called to respond to Neville Chamberlain's ambivalent speech on whether Britain would aid Poland. As he was about to speak, he was interrupted by an angry Conservative backbencher and former First Lord of the Admiralty, Leo Amery, who electrified the chamber when he exclaimed loud and clear: "Speak for England, Arthur!"
A flustered Greenwood proceeded to denounce Chamberlain's remarks, to the applause of both sides of the House, in a short speech for which he is best remembered.
When the wartime coalition government was formed, Winston Churchill appointed him to the War Cabinet as Minister without Portfolio in 1940. He was generally seen as ineffectual, but in May 1940 he emerged as Churchill's strongest and most vocal supporter in the lengthy War Cabinet debates on whether to accept or reject a peace offer from Germany. Without the vote in favour of fighting on by Greenwood and Clement Attlee, Churchill would not have had the slim majority he needed to do so.
After that, his influence declined, and he resigned in 1943. The same year, he was elected as Treasurer of the Labour Party, beating Herbert Morrison in a close contest.
From February 1942 until the end of World War II, Greenwood also performed the function of Leader of the Opposition, though he did not receive the salary.
During the Attlee government, he served successively as Lord Privy Seal and Paymaster General.
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