Evan Frank Mottram Durbin (1 March 1906 – 3 September 1948)[1] was a British economist and Labour Party politician, whose writings combined a belief in central economic planning with a conviction that the price mechanism of markets was indispensable.

[4] In 1931 he was the unsuccessful Labour Parliamentary candidate for East Grinstead, where Gaitskell spoke for him, addressing a meeting which included 'rowdy but good-natured Tory opposition',[5] and in 1935 he stood for Gillingham, Kent, where, in his selection speech, Durbin famously prioritised the preservation of political democracy over the pursuit of both socialism and peace.

Durbin was elected Labour MP for Edmonton in 1945, and was amongst those invited to Hugh Dalton's "Young Victors' Dinner", held at St Ermin's Hotel, off Victoria Street SW1.

As other guests included George Brown, Richard Crossman, John Freeman, Hugh Gaitskell, Harold Wilson and Woodrow Wyatt,[2]: 93  it is fairly clear that Durbin was regarded as a man of the future.

Gaitskell wrote that Durbin 'insisted in applying the process of reasoning unflinchingly and with complete intellectual integrity to all human problems' – including a consistent opposition to the dictatorship of Stalin, for 'he would not sentimentalise about tyranny, which seemed to him equally odious everywhere'.