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Clement Attlee

Prime Minister 1945 - 51

Clement Attlee was Labour Party leader for twenty two years, a term almost unrivalled by any leader of any party. But no particular personal quality seemed to mark Attlee out as a great leader. He was not a great orator or original thinker. Instead he was quiet, business-like and cautious. Plutarch said that politics should be thought of as a way of life, and not as a military campaign or a sea voyage which has an end in view. During Attlee's career in politics there were plenty of people around him who were on a sea voyage or a military campaign. But Attlee got his military campaigning out of the way when he was a young man. He would often quote MP Tom Shaw who said: "When I was young I was always talking about my conscience. When I grew older I discovered it was just my blooming conceit." (Quoted The Prime Ministers Vol2 P315) Attlee had a genuine interest in helping less fortunate members of society, based on experiences of social work in the East End of London. But he was not a revolutionary. Issues were dealt with as they arose, and abstract debates about the nature of socialism were avoided. Leadership was a matter of carefully assessing the state of opinion in his party, and never moving beyond the average bounds of that opinion. Then when an opportunity arose to do something, it would be done quickly.

Attlee grew up in a prosperous middle class Surrey family, who were more interested in the Church of England than in politics. Education took place at Haileybury College and University College, Oxford, but a more formative influence was a boys' club in Stepney, east London, called Haileybury House. Attlee started going to Haileybury House in October 1905 one night a week. In 1907 he became club manager, and joined the Independent Labour Party. A move to the East End followed, where Attlee would live for fourteen years. As for millions of others, his life was disrupted in 1914 with the beginning of the First World War. Attlee joined the South Lancashire Regiment and served throughout the war, returning to London after Germany's defeat to become Mayor of Stepney. Marriage to Violet Miller, daughter of a family friend, brought a slight change, the comrade from Stepney settling down to suburban life in Essex, and then Middlesex. His wife didn't want to live in the East End. Attlee was a realist, and did not let his ideals get in the way of his wife's desire to live somewhere nice.

Entry to Parliament came in 1922 as MP for Limehouse, east London. Attlee got on with detailed administrative work. There were no inflammatory speeches about visions of socialist utopia. Work carried on, as parliamentary secretary to Ramsay Macdonald, at the War Office, and as post master general in 1931. 1931 was to be a year in which defeat for the Labour Party brought a great jump ahead in Attlee's career. The general election of that year saw a disastrous performance for Labour. Nearly all senior Labour MPs lost their seats, with Attlee just about managing to hang onto his seat in Limehouse. With so few experienced Labour MPs available, Attlee rose almost by default. George Lansbury was elected leader with Attlee as deputy, though with Lansbury often sick, Attlee was frequently acting leader. Labour's success in the 1935 election finally made the acting leader into an official one. Attlee in his new leadership role remained a moderate, who saw his job as spokesman for party opinion. He was a figure of unity, a kind of average around which his more extreme colleagues could gather. When the Second World War began this quiet steadiness was valuable in holding together the wartime coalition government. While Winston Churchill was off directing war strategy and making rousing speeches, Attlee was made deputy prime minister, and worked on the day to day business of holding government together. It is interesting that a military campaign politician like Churchill should have worked so closely with a way of life politician like Attlee. In many ways each type of politician needs the other, and are often found together. Churchill reached his great goal of the defeat of Germany in 1945. But of course life goes on beyond the greatest of victories or defeats. And the man to carry things steadily onwards, was Attlee. The 1945 general election was a landslide victory for Labour. Now as prime minister the same moderation and instinct for unity created a party in which others could get on with setting up the National Health Service, organising national insurance, passing the Representation of the People's Act which established the principle of "one man one vote", reducing the delaying powers of the House of Lords, and nationalising the coal, gas, and railway industries. Meanwhile foreign secretary Ernest Bevin oversaw the independence of India and Pakistan, coordinated the British operation in the Berlin airlift, and directed Britain's part in founding Nato and establishing the Marshall Plan for reconstruction in Europe.

But by 1950 even the great unifier Attlee was having trouble holding moderates and socialists together. In failing health Attlee called a general election in October 1951, won narrowly by the Conservative Party under Churchill. Attlee continued as leader of the opposition, recovered his health, and retired with his popularity intact in December 1955. Retirement was spent in the House of Lords, and making occasional nostalgic lectures. He died on 8th October 1967.

Clement Attlee is a fascinating study in the reality of power. He is living proof of Tolstoy's wise words in War and Peace that leaders represent wider forces in society, and are more like surfers riding a wave of history than creators of waves. Attlee quietly and unashamedly found the average of his party and of his times, and represented them. Modern historians sometimes look down on the history of political and royal figures, and go off and study "people's history." No doubt this is valuable, but the people we see as great leaders separate from ordinary folk, are usually quintessentially ordinary themselves, and reflect a mid point of their times. Richard Rose has written of Attlee: "If fortune or events had taken a different turn at any number of points in his political career, Attlee's name would be little more familiar to us than the names of his Stepney comrades, or of his comrades in the pathetic battles in opposition in the early 1930s." (The Prime Ministers Vol2 P326) History has been made up of countless millions of people, each with a life that could be written about like Attlee's. Maybe a big fat biography could be written about me... But for the sake of convenience certain people are picked out as "history," representing their people and times. Attlee was one of those people.