Editing Clement Attlee (section)

==Legacy==
[[File:Clement Attlee by George Harcourt, 1946.jpg|thumb|upright|Portrait by [[George Harcourt (painter)|George Harcourt]], 1946]]
The quotation about Attlee, "A modest man, but then he has so much to be modest about", is commonly ascribed to Churchill—though Churchill denied saying it, and respected Attlee's service in the [[War cabinet]].<ref>Arnstein, Walter L. ''Britain Yesterday and Today: 1830 to the Present'', Chapter 19, p. 363<!--publisher, ISSN/ISBN needed--></ref> Attlee's modesty and quiet manner hid a great deal that has only come to light with historical reappraisal. Attlee himself is said to have responded to critics with a [[limerick (poetry)|limerick]]: "There were few who thought him a starter, Many who thought themselves smarter. But he ended PM, CH and OM, an Earl and a Knight of the Garter".<ref>Kenneth Harris, ''Attlee'' (1982)</ref>

His leadership style of consensual government, acting as a chairman rather than a president, won him much praise from historians and politicians alike. [[Christopher Soames]], the [[List of ambassadors of the United Kingdom to France|British Ambassador to France]] during the Conservative government of [[Edward Heath]] and cabinet minister under [[Margaret Thatcher]], remarked that "Mrs Thatcher was not really running a team. Every time you have a Prime Minister who wants to make all the decisions, it mainly leads to bad results. Attlee didn't. That's why he was so damn good".<ref>Hennessy, Peter. ''The Prime Minister: The Office and its Holders since 1945'', Chapter 7, p. 150<!--publisher, ISSN/ISBN needed--></ref> The journalist and broadcaster [[Anthony Howard (journalist)|Anthony Howard]] called him "the greatest Prime Minister of the 20th century".<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogInrBNCaYM Anthony Howard – Clement Attlee: the greatest Prime Minister of 20th century (20/41)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200303054845/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogInrBNCaYM&gl=US&hl=en |date=3 March 2020 }}, video on YouTube.</ref>

Thatcher herself wrote in her 1995 memoirs, which charted her life from her beginnings in [[Grantham]] to her victory at the [[1979 United Kingdom general election|1979 general election]], that she admired Attlee, writing: "Of Clement Attlee, however, I was an admirer. He was a serious man and a patriot. Quite contrary to the general tendency of politicians in the 1990s, he was all substance and no show".<ref>{{cite web |title=Clement Attlee (excerpts from M, Thatcher in primary sources section towards bottom) |url=https://spartacus-educational.com/TUattlee.htm |publisher=Spartacus Educational |access-date=2 August 2017 |archive-date=25 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230725070820/https://spartacus-educational.com/TUattlee.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

Attlee's government presided over the successful transition from a [[wartime economy]] to peacetime, tackling problems of demobilisation, shortages of foreign currency, and adverse deficits in trade balances and [[government expenditure]]. Further domestic policies that he brought about included the creation of the [[National Health Service]] and the post-war [[welfare state]], which became key to the reconstruction of post-war Britain. Attlee and his ministers did much to transform the UK into a more prosperous and [[egalitarian]] society during their time in office with reductions in poverty and a rise in the general economic security of the population.<ref>Tanner, Duncan; [[Pat Thane]] & Nick Tiratsoo. ''Labour's First Century''.<!--publisher, page(s), ISSN/ISBN needed--></ref>

[[File:Clement Attlee statue - Limehouse library.jpg|thumb|[[Statue of Clement Attlee|Statue of Attlee]] in its former position outside [[Limehouse Library]]]]

In foreign affairs, he did much to assist with the post-war economic recovery of Europe. He proved a loyal ally of the US at the onset of the [[Cold War]]. Due to his style of leadership, it was not he, but [[Ernest Bevin]] who masterminded foreign policy. It was Attlee's government that decided Britain should have an independent nuclear weapons programme, and work on it began in 1947.<ref>{{cite book|editor=Regina Cowen Karp|title=Security with Nuclear Weapons?: Different Perspectives on National Security|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zsJZqRhObqYC&pg=PA145|year=1991|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=145ff|isbn=9780198278399}}</ref>

Bevin, Attlee's Foreign Secretary, famously stated that "We've got to have it [nuclear weapons] and it's got to have a bloody [[Union Jack]] on it". The first operational [[Operation Hurricane|British nuclear bomb]] detonated in October 1952, about one year after Attlee had left office. Independent British atomic research was prompted partly by the 1946 US [[Atomic Energy Act of 1946|McMahon Act]], which nullified wartime expectations of postwar US–UK collaboration in nuclear research, and prohibited Americans from communicating nuclear technology even to allied countries who had participated in the wartime development of the atomic bomb. British atomic bomb research was kept secret even from some members of Attlee's own cabinet, whose loyalty or discretion seemed uncertain.<ref>Peter Hennessy, ''Cabinets and the Bomb'', Oxford University Press, 2007.</ref>

Although a [[socialist]], Attlee still believed in the [[British Empire]] of his youth. He thought of it as an institution that was a power for good in the world. Nevertheless, he saw that a large part of it needed to be self-governing. Using the Dominions of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand as a model, he continued the transformation of the empire into the modern-day [[British Commonwealth]].<ref>{{cite journal | author = Lloyd Lorna | year = 1997 | title = Britain and the transformation from empire to Commonwealth: The significance of the immediate post-war years | journal = The Round Table | volume = 86 | issue = 343| pages = 333–360 | doi=10.1080/00358539708454371}}</ref>

His greatest achievement, surpassing many of these, was perhaps the establishment of a [[Post-war consensus|political and economic consensus]] about the governance of Britain that all three major parties subscribed to for three decades, fixing the arena of political discourse until the late-1970s.<ref>Peter Clarke, "Attlee: The Making of the Postwar Consensus" in Peter Clarke, ''A Question of Leadership: Gladstone to Thatcher'' (Harmondsworth, 1992), pp. 193–21</ref> In 2004, [[Historical rankings of prime ministers of the United Kingdom|he was voted]] the most successful British Prime Minister of the 20th century by a poll of 139 academics organised by [[Ipsos MORI]].<ref name="ipsos">{{cite web |url=http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=661 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110912105223/http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=661 |url-status=dead |archive-date=12 September 2011 |title=Rating British Prime Ministers |publisher=Ipsos MORI |date=29 November 2004 |access-date=2 October 2011 }}</ref>

[[File:Clement Richard Attlee 1883-1967 Prime Minister lived here (crop).jpg|thumb|left|upright|Blue plaque erected in 1984 by Greater London Council at 17 Monkhams Avenue]]
A [[blue plaque]] unveiled in 1979 commemorates Attlee at 17 Monkhams Avenue, in Woodford Green in the [[London Borough of Redbridge]].<ref name='EngHet'>{{cite web|url=http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/discover/blue-plaques/search/attlee-richard-clement-1883-1976|title=ATTLEE, RICHARD CLEMENT (1883–1976)|publisher=English Heritage|access-date=5 August 2012|archive-date=8 August 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120808025445/http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/discover/blue-plaques/search/attlee-richard-clement-1883-1976|url-status=live}}</ref>

Attlee was elected a [[List of fellows of the Royal Society elected in 1947|Fellow of the Royal Society in 1947]].<ref name=frs>{{Cite journal|last1=Bridges|first1=Lord
|author-link = Edward Bridges, 1st Baron Bridges|doi=10.1098/rsbm.1968.0002|title=Clement Richard Attlee First Earl Attlee. 1883–1967|journal=[[Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society]]|volume=14|pages=15–36|year=1968|jstor=769437|doi-access=free}}</ref> Attlee was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of Queen Mary College on 15 December 1948.<ref>''The Times'', 16 December 1948, p.&nbsp;3.</ref>

In the 1960s a new suburb near [[Curepipe]] in [[British Mauritius]] was given the name ''Cité Atlee''{{sic}} in his honour.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Luckoo |first1=Priya |title=Cité Atlee souffle ses 50 bougies |date=13 May 2016 |url=https://lexpress.mu/article/281611/cite-atlee-souffle-50-bougies |publisher=L'Express |access-date=13 May 2016 |archive-date=14 May 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160514120215/http://www.lexpress.mu/article/281611/cite-atlee-souffle-50-bougies |url-status=live }}</ref>{{failed verification|date=December 2022}}

=== Statues ===
[[File:Attlee QMUL 1.jpg|thumb|The [[Statue of Clement Attlee]] in its new position at [[Queen Mary University of London]]]]
On 30 November 1988, a bronze [[statue of Clement Attlee]] was unveiled by [[Harold Wilson]] (the next [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|Prime Minister]] after Attlee) outside [[Limehouse Library]] in Attlee's former constituency.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.btinternet.com/~eastlondonpostcard/POM2004/Jan04.htm|title=December03|publisher=Btinternet.com|date=30 November 1988|access-date=2 October 2011|archive-date=16 September 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110916085401/http://www.btinternet.com/~eastlondonpostcard/POM2004/Jan04.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> By then Wilson was the last surviving member of Attlee's cabinet,<ref name="ELA"/> and the unveiling of the statue would be one of the last public appearances by Wilson, who was by that point in the early stages of [[Alzheimer's disease]]; he died at the age of 79 in May 1995.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.number10.gov.uk/history-and-tour/harold-wilson-2|title=Harold Wilson|publisher=Number 10|access-date=2 October 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111011161640/http://www.number10.gov.uk/history-and-tour/harold-wilson-2/|archive-date=11 October 2011}}</ref>

Limehouse Library was closed in 2003, after which the statue was vandalised. The council surrounded it with protective hoarding for four years, before eventually removing it for repair and recasting in 2009.<ref name="ELA">{{cite web |title=Vandalised Attlee statue being moved to safety |url=http://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/news/vandalised-attlee-statue-being-moved-to-safety-1-670119 |publisher=East London Advertiser |access-date=3 August 2017 |date=12 November 2009 |archive-date=3 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170803130103/http://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/news/vandalised-attlee-statue-being-moved-to-safety-1-670119 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The restored statue was unveiled by [[Peter Mandelson]] in April 2011, in its new position less than a mile away at the [[Queen Mary University of London]]'s [[Mile End]] campus.<ref name=Clem-statue-to-QMUL>{{cite web |title=Lord Mandelson joins Lord Hennessy to unveil Clement Attlee statue |url=http://www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/items/hss/46923.html |publisher=[[Queen Mary University of London]] |access-date=8 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110818091440/http://www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/items/hss/46923.html |archive-date=18 August 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

There is also a statue of Clement Attlee in the Houses of Parliament<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.parliament.uk/worksofart/artwork/ivor-roberts-jones/clement-richard-1st-earl-attlee-viscount-prestwood-1883-1967-prime-minister-1945-51/s69 |title=Artwork – Clement Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee |website=UK Parliament |access-date=4 January 2019 |archive-date=4 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190104175604/https://www.parliament.uk/worksofart/artwork/ivor-roberts-jones/clement-richard-1st-earl-attlee-viscount-prestwood-1883-1967-prime-minister-1945-51/s69 |url-status=live }}</ref> that was erected, instead of a bust, by parliamentary vote in 1979. The sculptor was [[Ivor Roberts-Jones]].

=== Cultural depictions ===
{{further|Cultural depictions of British prime ministers#Clement Attlee}}