Like almost every mid-20th-century politician of note, Stafford Cripps had the dubious honour of an epigram from Churchill: There, but for the grace of God, goes God. The wit of the remark is in its accurate summation of Cripps' astonishing talents, and the personal failings that were to deprive him of the highest office. Beginning his professional life as a lawyer, he went on to become Ambassador to Russia in 1940. In 1942 he was sent as special envoy to India and the report he wrote was to prove a watershed on that country's road to independence. In Labour's post-war administration, Cripps was president of the Board of Trade, and from 1947-50, Chancellor of the Exchequer. This authoritative biography was written with complete access to private and public papers.