[2][3] George Aitken was also a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain; however, he resigned following the CPGB's support for the Hitler-Stalin Pact.
[1] He was educated at the King Alfred School, Hampstead, Lincoln College, Oxford, and the LSE.
[1] At Oxford he befriended the future politicians Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers.
[4] Aitken entered journalism in 1953 as the industrial correspondent of the Tribune newspaper, after a spell as a HM inspector of factories and a trade union official.
[1] He also wrote occasional unpaid columns for Tribune, under the title "Rattling the Bars", and continued to write until the age of 87.