of John Maynard Keynes from a Marxist perspective before himself becoming a Keynesian. He often wrote for the monthly bulletin Left News. Strachey helped launch the Popular Front in December 1936. Second World War By 1938 Strachey was persuaded by Keynesianism and the New Deal of American president Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1940 he published "A Programme for Progress". Strachey became increasingly unhappy with the Communist movement following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the Soviet Invasion of Finland. In a letter to the New Statesman Strachey claimed the Communists "are prepared, for the sake of the ... Soviet Union, to give way to Hitler to any extent, and they are utterly irresponsible as to the consequences to the British people of such unlimited giving way. So long as that remains the case I ... can have nothing to do with them." He broke with the CPGB in April 1940. Early in the war Strachey served as a volunteer air raid warden. Towards the end of 1940 he joined the Royal Air Force in which he served as a squadron leader with a temporary commission. He served first as an adjutant with No. 87 Squadron RAF, a Hawker Hurricane fighter squadron, then as the PR officer with a bomber group. He was posted to the Air Ministry as a public relations officer in the Directorate of Bombing Operations and made a reputation as an air commentator for the BBC, making official broadcasts about the men of RAF Bomber Command. Attlee Government and after Returning to the Labour Party, he was chosen to be the Labour candidate for Dundee early in 1943. He was re-elected to Parliament in 1945 initially representing Dundee. He was immediately appointed Under-Secretary of State for Air and is widely credited as having been responsible for ignoring Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris and, by implication, Bomber Command from the Victory Honours List. This may have been retaliation for Harris' request to have Strachey removed from his wartime post within the Directorate of Bombing Operations due to Strachey's changeable political persuasions, a request that was not successful as Strachey remained in the post until the end of the war. He was appointed Minister of Food in May 1946 and became a Privy Counsellor that same year. His appointment owed much to his reputation as a confidently facile speaker and for being ultra-efficient. However, his time in office was beset