Editing Clement Attlee (section)

=== Early career ===
In 1906, Attlee became a volunteer at Haileybury House, a charitable club for working-class boys in [[Stepney]] in the [[East End of London]] run by his old school, and from 1907 to 1909 he served as the club's manager. Until then, his political views had been more conservative. However, after his shock at the poverty and deprivation he saw while working with the [[slum]] children, he came to the view that private charity would never be sufficient to alleviate poverty and that only direct action and [[income redistribution]] by the state would have any serious effect. This sparked a process that caused him to convert to [[socialism]]. He joined the [[Independent Labour Party]] (ILP) in 1908 and became active in local politics. In 1909, he stood unsuccessfully at his first election, as an ILP candidate for Stepney Borough Council.{{sfn|Beckett|1998|pp=18–35}}

He also worked briefly as a secretary for [[Beatrice Webb]] in 1909, before becoming a secretary for [[Toynbee Hall]]. He worked for Webb's campaign of popularisation of the [[Minority report (Poor Law)|Minority Report]] as he was very active in [[Fabian Society]] circles, in which he would go round visiting many political societies—Liberal, Conservative and socialist—to explain and popularise the ideas, as well as recruiting lecturers deemed suitable to work on the campaign. In 1911, he was employed by the [[Government of the United Kingdom|Government]] as an "official explainer"—touring the country to explain [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]] [[David Lloyd George]]'s [[National Insurance Act]]. He spent the summer of that year touring [[Essex]] and [[Somerset]] on a bicycle, explaining the Act at public meetings. A year later, he became a lecturer at the [[London School of Economics]], teaching [[social science]] and [[public administration]].{{Sfn|Beckett|1998|pp=34–43}}