PHILIP SNOWDEN was a proud Yorkshireman, a founding father of the Labour Party, its first Chancellor of the Exchequer and eventually was seen as a traitor by the movement he did so much to build. Growing up in the poverty of a weaving village in the Pennines, Snowden was paralysed in his twenties but overcame his disability by teaching himself to walk again with the aid of two sticks. He came to socialism in the 1890s and helped build Labour from a fringe sect into a governing party. Snowden was Labour-s undisputed economic expert for decades and served as chancellor three times in the 1920s and 30s. He would be expelled from the party for joining Ramsay MacDonald-s controversial National Government in 1931 and has been condemned as a turncoat ever since. A gifted orator, Snowden was regarded as the archetypal Yorkshireman; strong-willed and straight-talking, caustic and biting in his criticism but warm in friendship. He earned the moniker -Iron Chancellor- after doggedly standing up t
