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Citizen Clem: A Biography of Attlee: Winner of the Orwell Prize

von John Bew

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1525178,496 (3.95)2
The gallons of ink spilled on Winston Churchill - and the huge appetite for books about him - have created something of an imbalance in our understanding of twentieth-century Britain. Not only does Clement Attlee's life deserve to have a rightful place alongside the Churchill legend. It is also more emblematic, and more representative, of Britain in his time. It is difficult to think of another individual through whom one can better tell the story of how Britain changed from the high imperialism of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee of 1897, through two world wars, the great depression, the nuclear age and the Cold War, and the transition from empire into commonwealth. The story of Attlee is also much more dramatic than he himself ever made out - and not without an element of heroism. Here was a man born in the governing class who devoted his life to the service of the poor; who was carried off the battlefield three times in the First World War; who stood shoulder to shoulder with Churchill at Britain's darkest moment, and then triumphed over him at the general election of 1945. His government of 1945-51 included Ernest Bevin, Herbert Morrison and Nye Bevan and was the most radical in history, giving us the NHS, National Insurance, NATO and the atomic bomb. In many ways we still live in a world of Attlee's creation. This book will pierce the reticence of Attlee and explore the intellectual foundations and core beliefs of one of the most important figures in twentieth-century British history, arguing that he remains underappreciated, rather than simply underestimated. It will reveal a public servant and patriotic socialist, who never lost sight of the national interest and whose view of humanity and belief in solidarity was grafted onto the Union Jack.… (mehr)
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I didn’t know much about Attlee; this book is a little long for an amateur but it gave a good sense of his rise as a politician in an age when it was possible to do that out of solid political conviction coupled with personal awkwardness. His clarity of vision and willingness to work with others, Bew argues, are significantly responsible for the enactment of Britain’s New Deal; he was also not committed to keeping the Empire in place, unlike Churchill. ( )
  rivkat | Jan 4, 2024 |
We have had some great politicians and Prime Ministers over the years and, how should I put this, some less than great ones too. Especially recently… Go back a few years though and you will find most political leaders of our country were also great statesmen too, working for the greater good of the country regardless of their particular hue of party. Several politicians spring to mind, but one that doesn't often is Clement Richard Attlee. Born in 1883 in Putney to Henry Attlee and Ellen nee Watson, he was the seventh of eight children. He was educated at Northaw School, then Haileybury College; and before getting a degree in modern history from University College, Oxford. From there he trained as a barrister and worked at his father's company and was called to the bar in 1906.

He served in The Great War, whilst his brother Tom was imprisoned for being a conscientious objector but was fortunate twice to escape heavy action that saw a lot of his regiment perish. The law was not where his passion lay though, having seen the poverty in the East End of London it inspired him to become politically active and he was first elected to the House of Commons in 1922 as the MP for Limehouse. Two years later he became a junior minister and a few years after that became a cabinet minister for the first time. Shortly after in 1931, the Labour Party were defeated in a general election, but Attlee held his seat. Four years later he was to become the leader of that party.

As tensions rose in Europe in the 1930s, he preferred pacifism and opposed rearmament, but was later to reverse his position. He became a strong critic of Chamberlain's attempts to appease Hitler and Mussolini and after war broke out joined the war coalition serving under Churchill as Deputy Prime Minister. In 1945 after the end of the war in Europe the, coalition fractured and a general election was called. Churchill expected to win, but he didn't, and Attlee had a landslide victory. His time as Prime Minister would prove to be the most progressive of all that held that position that century.

Bew has studied his subject in almost intimate detail and not just the written about the time that he spent as Prime Minister. The thorough research goes into the background that drove this fairly unassuming man to the political stance and outlook that he took consistently all his life. There are snippets and anecdotes that fill in the gaps from the official stories as well as lots of details from the life that he lived outside politics. It also goes some way to disproving the claim from those that opposed him that he had no intellectual or political footing, instead it shows a man of strong principles and rigour. For anyone with an interest in political history, this is a balanced and objective view of a man who should be considered the most radical PM of the 20th century. ( )
  PDCRead | Apr 6, 2020 |
"Few thought he was even a starter.
There were many in life who were smarter.
But he finished PM,
A CH, an OM,
An earl and a Knight of the Garter."

Clement Attlee's autobiographical limerick summarizes well the course of his remarkable political career. From his early years as a social worker in London's East End and his service in the First World War he entered the House of Commons, where he rose steadily until the fracturing of Labour Party with the formation of the National government in 1931 and the subsequent general election wiped out nearly all of the party's parliamentary leadership. Having weathered the crisis as one of the few remaining former cabinet ministers still in Parliament, Attlee became the party's leader in 1935, where he enjoyed a remarkable twenty-year tenure that saw him lead the party into coalition with the Conservatives during the Second World War, then to a massive electoral victory in 1945 that made possible the establishment of Britain's postwar welfare state.

John Bew is not the first historian to write about Attlee's life, but his biography is easily one of the best. It is in many ways an intellectual portrait of the man, charting the development of his socialist views and patriotic attitudes and showing how they shaped his career. The title itself hints at his overall argument, which is that Attlee's patriotism and sense of duty is key to understanding his popularity and political success. It shows just how remarkable of a figure he was, one who, for all his modest, unassuming nature, dominated so many of the political titans of his age. ( )
  MacDad | Mar 27, 2020 |
Surprisingly, and disappointingly, the first half of this book (before Attlee became the triumphant labour prime minister in 1945) is a lot more interesting than the second. Although there was lots engaging in the account after 1945. And I realised there was a difference between Bevan and Bevin.
The book contains a number of spelling and other errors, most notably a reference to the "Duchy of Lancashire", and an annoying repeated capitalisation of the Labour movement. Hugh Trevor-Roper, not a frequent reference is indexed under Roper. ( )
  mnicol | Apr 24, 2017 |
Citizen Clem – The Sheep that Roared

Clement Attlee over the years, not only since his death in 1967, but also throughout his life time has been underappreciated, even by his own biographers, who either damned him with faint praise, or attacked his record, or the person ‘a sheep in sheep’s clothing’. The Labour Party itself has always had an ambiguous relationship with Attlee, despite the great electoral and legislative successes he presided over. Frank Field MP rightly stated in 2009 that the political class in Britain ‘have a too limited an appreciation of Attlee’s values’.

John Bew shows why he is not only a highly regarded professor of history and an award winning writer with Citizen Clem. Unlike previous biographies Clem, Bew does not just focus on Attlee the politician but also Attlee the man and has not be held prisoner to view him via the prism of 1945. Bew shows that Attlee was one of the Labour Party’s formative pilgrims, who from a position of privilege, used that to fight for the people of the East End, whom he lived and served amongst from 1906.

Bew also shows that the attack that usually came from the left that used to say Attlee had no hidden depths, had no intellectual substance or serious political thought and that he was nothing but an empty vessel, were vacuous. Through excellent scholarship he consciously gets to the depths of Attlee the person which were the foundation of Attlee the politician, and shows the depths of Attlee others either ignore or never bothered to investigate.

Before Attlee even entered Parliament he came to recognise that there needed to be two principles that guided the Labour Party, patience and tolerance, something the Party has always had problems with. Rather Attlee found that Kier Hardie’s approach to achieving socialism was far more appealing than that of utopianism or intellectualism. Having worked with the Webbs, he came to understand that the Fabian approach to politics showed the inherent limitations of intellectualism. Attlee also found that a mistake socialist intellectuals made (and still make e.g. Brexit) was assuming that something they found distasteful would be equally so to others.

Bew shows that not only being a soldier in the First World War, as well as being a social worker in Stepney and the east end, deeply affected everything that Attlee did in later years. Bew shows that from his work in the east end the recognition that improving conditions for workers, such as wages and work hours, insurance and healthcare was the first battle the labour movement and the Party not only needed to fight and win, ran deep within Attlee.

Bew also reminds us that Attlee began his career as Ramsey McDonalds PPS and supported him in 1924, even in the General Strike in 1926, it was MacDonald’s betrayal of the Party in 1931 which was one of the bitterest blows for Attlee. But Attlee remained a loyal Party man, whereas people forget that Herbert Morrison was offered a job in the National Government as was that great left-winger who joined the Labour Party in 1930, Stafford Cripps, both prevaricated for a week, before finally turning MacDonald down.

When Attlee became leader in 1935 Bew reminds us that at no time had he ever lobbied for the position, and even the Daily Mail struggled to paint the Labour Party as dangerous. What must be remembered that it was Attlee that led the attacks on appeasement and that it was Attlee who would later place Churchill in Downing Street. Even when war came not only did Attlee have to lead the Party he still had to fight his own MPs!

Citizen Clem reminds us that we still live in a world that is heavily influenced by the works of Attlee, and that the post-war consensus with both the United Nations and Nato came about through his work and determination after the war. But in Britain when we look what was created under Attlee’s guidance, the National Health Service, the Welfare State, National Insurance. We are reminded that no British Government since Attlee led, has been as active in terms of legislation passed, especially when it came to changing the relationship between the state on society.

One thing that is clear from this excellent biography is that Attlee was very adept in the arts of modern elections, probably more so than many of his critics, and that he was always held in high esteem by the public. One thing Attlee did fear, and this was in 1955, that the political leaders were less in touch with the man in the street than they were 50 years prior, despite the populism of mass media and broadcasting, somethings do not change clearly.

John Bew makes it clear that throughout his life Attlee never saw himself as a hero, never claimed credit, for what others did within his government. What comes through is that something that Attlee was proud of was the fulfilment of three main strands in politics; one to atone for the betrayal of those who sacrificed themselves in World War One. It was a mission fulfilled that the promises made to those in World War Two were kept in 1945; secondly, that his government had fulfilled its mission on social legislation; finally, mission fulfilled was to bring an end to Queen Victoria’s British Empire and turn it in to the Commonwealth.

The story of the Labour Party in the 20th Century, is not defined by what Tony Blair, Harold Wilson or Jim Callaghan did, but by pioneers such as Attlee. Much of what we British hold dear about our society a quiet, somewhat shy and unassuming man got on with the job and proved that a sheep can roar, and that roar has left its mark on British politics today.

The number of books on Churchill has created an imbalance in many people’s understanding of the twentieth century, its wars and its governments. It was in a debate with Attlee that Churchill declared that history would be kind to him, because he intended to write it. Attlee was an equal to Churchill, who has delivered a lasting change for the many, rather than the few.

John Bew has written one of the best political and historical biographies, that deals with all aspects of Clement Attlee’s life, good and bad. This is one of the most honest, and balanced accounts of Attlee’s life that I have read and uses a wide range of sources to give plenty of colour to a Prime Minister often over looked. As the Labour Party fights amongst itself once again, as Morrison referred to it as a suicide club, Attlee knew that the Labour Party needed to compromise and that the purism of Morris and Marx was incompatible with delivering a better Britain.

Simply a stunning and brilliant biography of Clement Attlee, a socialist who delivered for the people of Britain. ( )
1 abstimmen atticusfinch1048 | Sep 1, 2016 |
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The gallons of ink spilled on Winston Churchill - and the huge appetite for books about him - have created something of an imbalance in our understanding of twentieth-century Britain. Not only does Clement Attlee's life deserve to have a rightful place alongside the Churchill legend. It is also more emblematic, and more representative, of Britain in his time. It is difficult to think of another individual through whom one can better tell the story of how Britain changed from the high imperialism of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee of 1897, through two world wars, the great depression, the nuclear age and the Cold War, and the transition from empire into commonwealth. The story of Attlee is also much more dramatic than he himself ever made out - and not without an element of heroism. Here was a man born in the governing class who devoted his life to the service of the poor; who was carried off the battlefield three times in the First World War; who stood shoulder to shoulder with Churchill at Britain's darkest moment, and then triumphed over him at the general election of 1945. His government of 1945-51 included Ernest Bevin, Herbert Morrison and Nye Bevan and was the most radical in history, giving us the NHS, National Insurance, NATO and the atomic bomb. In many ways we still live in a world of Attlee's creation. This book will pierce the reticence of Attlee and explore the intellectual foundations and core beliefs of one of the most important figures in twentieth-century British history, arguing that he remains underappreciated, rather than simply underestimated. It will reveal a public servant and patriotic socialist, who never lost sight of the national interest and whose view of humanity and belief in solidarity was grafted onto the Union Jack.

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