Editing Clement Attlee (section)

==Early political career==

===Local politics===
Attlee returned to [[local politics]] in the immediate post-war period, becoming mayor of the [[Metropolitan Borough of Stepney]], one of London's most deprived inner-city boroughs, in 1919. During his time as mayor, the council undertook action to tackle [[slum]] [[landlord]]s who charged high rents but refused to spend money on keeping their property in habitable condition. The council served and enforced legal orders on homeowners to repair their property. It also appointed health visitors and sanitary inspectors, reducing the infant mortality rate, and took action to find work for returning unemployed ex-servicemen.{{sfn|Beckett|1998|pp=62–63}}

In 1920, while mayor, he wrote his first book, ''The Social Worker'', which set out many of the principles that informed his political philosophy and that were to underpin the actions of his government in later years. The book attacked the idea that looking after the poor could be left to voluntary action. He wrote that:<blockquote>In a civilised community, although it may be composed of self-reliant individuals, there will be some persons who will be unable at some period of their lives to look after themselves, and the question of what is to happen to them may be solved in three ways – they may be neglected, they may be cared for by the organised community as of right, or they may be left to the goodwill of individuals in the community.{{sfn|Attlee|1920|page=30}} [...] Charity is only possible without loss of dignity between equals. A right established by law, such as that to an old age pension, is less galling than an allowance made by a rich man to a poor one, dependent on his view of the recipient's character, and terminable at his caprice.{{sfn|Attlee|1920|page=75}}</blockquote> In 1921, [[George Lansbury]], the Labour mayor of the neighbouring borough of [[Metropolitan Borough of Poplar|Poplar]], and future Labour Party leader, launched the [[Poplar Rates Rebellion]]; a campaign of disobedience seeking to equalise the poor relief burden across all the London boroughs. Attlee, who was a personal friend of Lansbury, strongly supported this. However, [[Herbert Morrison]], the Labour mayor of nearby [[Metropolitan Borough of Hackney|Hackney]], and one of the main figures in the [[London Labour Party]], strongly denounced Lansbury and the rebellion. During this period, Attlee developed a lifelong dislike of Morrison.{{sfn|Beckett|1998|p=122}}{{sfn|Howell|2006}}<ref>{{cite web|last=Rennie|first=John|title=Lansbury v Morrison, the battle over Poplarism|url=http://eastlondonhistory.com/2012/11/22/lansbury-v-morrison-the-battle-over-poplarism/|website=eastlondonhistory.com|access-date=28 July 2017|archive-date=28 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728161247/http://eastlondonhistory.com/2012/11/22/lansbury-v-morrison-the-battle-over-poplarism/|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Member of Parliament===
At the [[1922 United Kingdom general election|1922 general election]], Attlee became the [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] (MP) for the [[constituency]] of [[Limehouse (UK Parliament constituency)|Limehouse]] in [[Stepney]]. At the time, he admired [[Ramsay MacDonald]] and helped him get elected as Labour Party leader at the [[1922 Labour Party leadership election (UK)|1922 leadership election]]. He served as MacDonald's [[Parliamentary Private Secretary]] for the brief 1922 parliament. His first taste of ministerial office came in 1924, when he served as Under-Secretary of State for War in the short-lived [[first Labour government]], led by MacDonald.{{sfn|Beckett|1998|pp=74–77}}

Attlee opposed the [[1926 General Strike]], believing that strike action should not be used as a political weapon. However, when it happened, he did not attempt to undermine it. At the time of the strike, he was chairman of the Stepney Borough Electricity Committee. He negotiated a deal with the Electrical Trade Union so that they would continue to supply power to hospitals, but would end supplies to factories. One firm, Scammell and Nephew Ltd, took a civil action against Attlee and the other Labour members of the committee (although not against the Conservative members who had also supported this). The court found against Attlee and his fellow councillors and they were ordered to pay £300 damages. The decision was later reversed on appeal, but the financial problems caused by the episode almost forced Attlee out of politics.{{sfn|Beckett|1998|pp=80–82}}

In 1927, he was appointed a member of the multi-party [[Simon Commission]], a [[royal commission]] set up to examine the possibility of granting [[self-rule]] to [[British Raj|India]]. Due to the time he needed to devote to the commission, and contrary to a promise MacDonald made to Attlee to induce him to serve on the commission, he was not initially offered a ministerial post in the [[second Labour government]], which entered office after the [[1929 United Kingdom general election|1929 general election]].{{sfn|Beckett|1998|pp=83–91}} Attlee's service on the Commission equipped him with a thorough exposure to India and many of its political leaders. By 1933 he argued that British rule was alien to India and was unable to make the social and economic reforms necessary for India's progress. He became the British leader most sympathetic to Indian independence (as a dominion), preparing him for his role in deciding on independence in 1947.{{sfn|Howard|Bridge|1988}}<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Howard |first1=Brasted |last2=Bridge |first2=Carl |year=1988 |title=The British Labour Party and Indian Nationalism, 1907–1947 |journal=South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=69–99 |doi=10.1080/00856408808723113}}</ref>

In May 1930, Labour MP [[Oswald Mosley]] left the party after its rejection of his proposals for solving the unemployment problem, and Attlee was given Mosley's post of [[Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster]]. In March 1931, he became [[Postmaster General of the United Kingdom|Postmaster General]], a post he held for five months until August, when the [[History of the British Labour Party#Great Depression and the split under MacDonald|Labour government fell]], after failing to agree on how to tackle the financial crisis of the [[Great Depression in the United Kingdom|Great Depression]].{{sfn|Beckett|1998|pp=96–99}} That month MacDonald and a few of his allies formed a [[National Government (United Kingdom)|National Government]] with the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservatives]] and [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberals]], leading them to be expelled from Labour. MacDonald offered Attlee a job in the National Government, but he turned down the offer and opted to stay loyal to the main Labour party.{{sfn|Beckett|1998|pp=101–102}}

After [[Ramsay MacDonald]] formed the National Government, Labour was deeply divided. Attlee had long been close to MacDonald and now felt betrayed—as did most Labour politicians. During the course of the second Labour government, Attlee had become increasingly disillusioned with MacDonald, whom he came to regard as vain and incompetent, and of whom he later wrote scathingly in his autobiography. He would write:<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ramsay MacDonald |url=http://spartacus-educational.com/PRmacdonald.htm |access-date=26 July 2017 |website=Spartacus Educational |archive-date=12 June 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170612235412/http://spartacus-educational.com/PRmacdonald.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

<blockquote>In the old days I had looked up to MacDonald as a great leader. He had a fine presence and great oratorical power. The unpopular line which he took during the [[First World War]] seemed to mark him as a man of character. Despite his mishandling of the [[Zinoviev letter|Red Letter]] episode, I had not appreciated his defects until he took office a second time. I then realised his reluctance to take positive action and noted with dismay his increasing vanity and snobbery, while his habit of telling me, a junior Minister, the poor opinion he had of all his Cabinet colleagues made an unpleasant impression. I had not, however, expected that he would perpetrate the greatest betrayal in the political history of this country&nbsp;... The shock to the Party was very great, especially to the loyal workers of the rank-and-file who had made great sacrifices for these men.</blockquote>

===Deputy Labour Leader===
The [[1931 United Kingdom general election|general election held in October 1931]] proved disastrous for the Labour Party, which lost over 200 seats, returning only 52 MPs to Parliament. The vast majority of the party's senior figures, including the Leader [[Arthur Henderson]], lost their seats. Attlee, however, narrowly retained his Limehouse seat, with his majority being slashed from 7,288 to just 551. He was one of only three Labour MPs who had experience of government to retain their seats, along with [[George Lansbury]] and [[Stafford Cripps]]. Accordingly, Lansbury was elected Leader unopposed, with Attlee as his deputy.{{sfn|Beckett|1998|pp=104–105}}

Most of the remaining Labour MPs after 1931 were elderly trade-union officials who could not contribute much to debates; Lansbury was in his 70s, and Stafford Cripps – another main figure of the Labour [[front-bench]] who had entered Parliament in January 1931 – lacked parliamentary experience. As one of the most capable and experienced of the remaining Labour MPs, Attlee therefore shouldered a lot of the burden of providing an opposition to the [[National Government (1931–1935)|National Government in the years 1931 to 1935]]; during this time he had to extend his knowledge of subjects which he had not studied in any depth before (such as finance and foreign affairs) in order to provide an effective opposition to the government.{{sfn|Beckett|1998|pp= 108–109}}

Attlee effectively served as Labour's acting-leader for nine months from December 1933, after Lansbury fractured his thigh in an accident; this raised Attlee's public profile considerably. It was during this period, however, that personal financial problems almost forced Attlee to quit politics altogether. His wife had become ill, and at that time there was no separate salary for the [[Leader of the Opposition (UK)|Leader of the Opposition]]. On the verge of resigning from Parliament, he was persuaded to stay by Stafford Cripps, a wealthy socialist, who agreed to make a donation to party funds to pay him an additional salary until Lansbury could take over again.{{sfn|Beckett|1998|pp=112–113}}

During 1932–33 Attlee flirted with, and then drew back from radicalism – influenced by Stafford Cripps, who was then on the radical wing of the party. He was briefly a member of the [[Socialist League (UK, 1932)|Socialist League]], which had been formed by former [[Independent Labour Party]] (ILP) members who opposed the ILP's disaffiliation from the main Labour Party in 1932. At one point he agreed with the proposition put forward by Cripps that gradual reform was inadequate and that a socialist government would have to pass an emergency powers act, allowing it to rule by decree to overcome any opposition by vested interests until it was safe to restore democracy. He admired [[Oliver Cromwell]]'s strong-armed rule and use of major generals to control England. After looking more closely at [[Hitler]], [[Mussolini]], [[Stalin]], and even his former colleague Oswald Mosley (leader of the new [[British Union of Fascists|blackshirt fascist movement]] in Britain), Attlee retreated from radicalism, distanced himself from the League, and argued instead that the Labour Party must adhere to constitutional methods and stand forthright for democracy and against [[totalitarianism]] either of the left or of the right. He always supported the [[Monarchy of the United Kingdom|crown]], and as Prime Minister was close to King [[George VI|George&nbsp;VI]].<ref>{{cite magazine |last= Attlee |first= Clement |date= 18 February 1952 |title= Tribute from Labor's Attlee to George and the monarchy |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=dFQEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA30 |magazine= [[Life (magazine)|Life]] |volume= 32 |number= 7 |quote= It was my privilege for six years to serve King George as First Minister of the Crown and for five years during the war as Deputy Prime Minister. The longer I served him the greater was my respect and admiration for him. I can never forget his kindness and consideration to me. He had a great sense of duty, high courage, good judgment and warm human sympathy. He was in the fullest sense of the term a good man. |access-date= 9 November 2020 |archive-date= 24 February 2024 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20240224170040/https://books.google.com/books?id=dFQEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA30#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status= live }}</ref>{{sfn|Bew|2017|pages= 23, 173–188, 208}}

===Leader of the Opposition===
[[George Lansbury]], a committed [[pacifist]], resigned as the Leader of the Labour Party at the 1935 Party Conference on 8 October, after delegates voted in favour of sanctions against Italy for [[Second Italo-Ethiopian War|its aggression]] against [[Abyssinia]]. Lansbury had strongly opposed the policy, and felt unable to continue leading the party. Taking advantage of the disarray in the Labour Party, the Prime Minister [[Stanley Baldwin]] announced on 19 October that a general election would be held on 14 November. With no time for a leadership contest, the party agreed that Attlee should serve as interim leader, on the understanding that a leadership election would be held after the general election.{{sfn|Beckett|1998|pp=116–117}} Attlee therefore led Labour through the [[1935 United Kingdom general election|1935 election]], which saw the party stage a partial comeback from its disastrous 1931 performance, winning 38 per cent of the vote, the highest share Labour had won up to that point, and gaining over one hundred seats.{{sfn|Thomas-Symonds|2012|pp=68–70}}

Attlee stood in the subsequent [[1935 Labour Party leadership election|leadership election]], held soon afterward, where he was opposed by [[Herbert Morrison]], who had just re-entered parliament in the recent election, and [[Arthur Greenwood]]: Morrison was seen as the favourite, but was distrusted by many sections of the party, especially the left wing. Arthur Greenwood meanwhile was a popular figure in the party; however, his leadership bid was severely hampered by his [[alcohol problem]]. Attlee was able to come across as a competent and unifying figure, particularly having already led the party through a general election. He went on to come first in both the first and second ballots, formally being elected Leader of the Labour Party on 3 December 1935.{{sfn|Beckett|1998|pp=121–130}}

Throughout the 1920s and most of the 1930s, the Labour Party's official policy had been to oppose rearmament, instead supporting internationalism and [[collective security]] under the [[League of Nations]].{{sfn|Vickers|2013|p=92}} At the 1934 Labour Party Conference, Attlee declared that, "We have absolutely abandoned any idea of nationalist loyalty. We are deliberately putting a world order before our loyalty to our own country. We say we want to see put on the statute book something which will make our people citizens of the world before they are citizens of this country".{{sfn|Talus|1945|p=17}} During a debate on defence in Commons a year later, Attlee said "We are told (in the White Paper) that there is danger against which we have to guard ourselves. We do not think you can do it by national defence. We think you can only do it by moving forward to a new world. A world of law, the abolition of national armaments with a world force and a world economic system. I shall be told that that is quite impossible".<ref>{{Hansard|1935/mar/11/defence|access-date=20 March 2013}}</ref> Shortly after those comments, [[Adolf Hitler]] proclaimed that German rearmament offered no threat to world peace. Attlee responded the next day noting that Hitler's speech, although containing unfavourable references to the [[Soviet Union]], created "A chance to call a halt in the armaments race&nbsp;... We do not think that our answer to Herr Hitler should be just rearmament. We are in an age of rearmaments, but we on this side cannot accept that position".<ref>{{Hansard|1935/may/22/defence-policy|access-date=20 March 2013}}</ref>

Attlee played little part in the events that would lead up to the [[abdication of Edward&nbsp;VIII]], for despite Baldwin's threat to step down if [[Edward VIII|Edward]] attempted to remain on the throne after marrying [[Wallis Simpson]], Labour was widely accepted not to be a viable alternative government, owing to the National Government's overwhelming majority in the Commons. Attlee, along with Liberal leader [[Archibald Sinclair]], was eventually consulted with by Baldwin on 24 November 1936, and Attlee agreed with both Baldwin and Sinclair that Edward could not remain on the throne, firmly eliminating any prospect of any alternative government forming were Baldwin to resign.{{sfn|Williams|2003}}

In April 1936, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, [[Neville Chamberlain]], introduced a Budget which increased the amount spent on the armed forces. Attlee made a radio broadcast in opposition to it, saying:
{{blockquote|[The budget] was the natural expression of the character of the present Government. There was hardly any increase allowed for the services which went to build up the life of the people, education and health. Everything was devoted to piling up the instruments of death. The Chancellor expressed great regret that he should have to spend so much on armaments, but said that it was absolutely necessary and was due only to the actions of other nations. One would think to listen to him that the Government had no responsibility for the state of world affairs. [...] The Government has now resolved to enter upon an arms race, and the people will have to pay for their mistake in believing that it could be trusted to carry out a policy of peace. [...] This is a War Budget. We can look in the future for no advance in Social Legislation. All available resources are to be devoted to armaments.<ref>{{Cite news |date=23 April 1936 |title=Mr. Attlee on a war budget |pages=16 |work=[[The Times]]}}</ref>}}

In June 1936, the Conservative MP [[Duff Cooper]] called for an Anglo-French alliance against possible German aggression and called for all parties to support one. Attlee condemned this: "We say that any suggestion of an alliance of this kind—an alliance in which one country is bound to another, right or wrong, by some overwhelming necessity—is contrary to the spirit of the League of Nations, is contrary to the Covenant, is contrary to Locarno is contrary to the obligations which this country has undertaken, and is contrary to the professed policy of this Government".<ref>{{Hansard|1936/jun/29/mr-duff-cooprrs-speech|access-date=9 January 2016}}</ref> At the Labour Party conference at Edinburgh in October Attlee reiterated that "There can be no question of our supporting the Government in its rearmament policy".{{sfn|Talus|1945|p=37}}

However, with the rising threat from [[Nazi Germany]], and the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations, this policy eventually lost credibility. By 1937, Labour had jettisoned its pacifist position and came to support rearmament and oppose Neville Chamberlain's policy of [[European foreign policy of the Chamberlain ministry|appeasement]].{{sfn|Beckett|1998|pp=131–134}} However Attlee and the Labour Party strongly opposed conscription when it was passed in April 1939.<ref>Kenneth Harris, ''Attlee'' (1982) pp.&nbsp;161–162.</ref>

At the end of 1937, Attlee and a party of three Labour MPs visited Spain and visited the [[British Battalion]] of the [[International Brigades]] fighting in the [[Spanish Civil War]]. One of the companies was named the "Major Attlee Company" in his honour.{{sfn|Beckett|1998|pp=134–135}} Attlee was supportive of the Republican government in Spain, and at the 1937 Labour conference moved the wider Labour Party towards opposing what he considered the "farce" of the [[Non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War|Non-Intervention Committee]] organised by the British and French governments. In the House of Commons, Attlee stated, "I cannot understand the delusion that if Franco wins with Italian and German aid, he will immediately become independent. I think it is a ridiculous proposition."<ref>{{Hansard|1939/jan/31/foreign-affairs#column_72|access-date=3 April 2021}}</ref> Dalton, the Labour Party's spokesman on foreign policy, also thought that Franco would ally with Germany and Italy. However, Franco's subsequent behaviour proved it was not such a ridiculous proposition.<ref>{{cite book|last=Holroyd-Doveton|first=John|title=Maxim Litvinov: A Biography|publisher=Woodland Publications|year=2013|pages=395}}</ref> As Dalton later acknowledged, Franco skilfully maintained Spanish neutrality, whereas Hitler would likely have occupied Spain if Franco had lost the Civil War.<ref>{{cite book|last=Dalton|first=Hugh|title=The Fateful Years; Memoirs 1931–1945|publisher=Frederick Muller|year=1957|location=London|pages=97}}</ref>

In 1938, Attlee opposed the [[Munich Agreement]], in which Chamberlain negotiated with Hitler to give Germany the German-speaking parts of [[Czechoslovakia]], the [[Sudetenland]]: <blockquote>We all feel relief that war has not come this time... we cannot, however, feel that peace has been established, but that we have nothing but an armistice in a state of war. We have been unable to go in for care-free rejoicing. We have felt that we are in the midst of a tragedy... [and] humiliation. This has not been a victory for reason and humanity. It has been a victory for brute force. At every stage of the proceedings there have been time limits laid down... [the] terms laid down as ultimata. We have seen to-day a gallant, civilised and democratic people betrayed and handed over to a ruthless despotism... The events of these last few days constitute one of the greatest diplomatic defeats that this country and France have ever sustained. There can be no doubt that it is a tremendous victory for Herr Hitler. Without firing a shot, by the mere display of military force, he has achieved a dominating position in Europe which Germany failed to win after four years of war. He has overturned the balance of power in Europe... [and] destroyed the last fortress of democracy in Eastern Europe which stood in the way of his ambition. He has opened his way to the food, the oil and the resources which he requires in order to consolidate his military power, and he has successfully defeated and reduced to impotence the forces that might have stood against the rule of violence.<ref>{{Hansard|1938/oct/03/prime-ministers-statement#column_51|title=Prime Minister's Statement|access-date=14 April 2021}}</ref> [...] The cause [of the crisis which we have undergone] was not the existence of minorities in Czechoslovakia; it was not that the position of the Sudeten Germans had become intolerable. It was not the wonderful principle of self-determination. It was because Herr Hitler had decided that the time was ripe for another step forward in his design to dominate Europe... The minorities question is no new one. [...] [And] short of a drastic and entire reshuffling of these populations there is no possible solution to the problem of minorities in Europe except toleration.<ref>{{Hansard|1938/oct/03/prime-ministers-statement#column_54|title=Prime Minister's Statement|access-date=14 April 2021}}</ref></blockquote>

However, the new Czechoslovakian state did not provide equal rights to the Slovaks and Sudeten Germans,<ref>{{cite book |last=Holroyd-Doveton |first=John |title=Maxim Litvinov: A Biography |publisher=Woodland Publications |year=2013 |pages=320}}</ref> with the historian [[Arnold J. Toynbee]] already having noted that "for the Germans, Magyars and Poles, who account between them for more than one quarter of the whole population, the present regime in Czechoslovakia is not essentially different from the regimes in the surrounding countries".<ref>{{cite news |last=Toynbee |first=Arnold J. |author-link=Arnold J. Toynbee |title=Czechoslovakia's German problem |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_economist_1937-07-24_128_4900/page/183/mode/1up |newspaper=The Economist |publisher=The Economist Intelligence Unit N.A., Incorporated |volume=128 |pages=183 |date=24 July 1937 |access-date=14 April 2021}}</ref> [[Anthony Eden]] in the Munich debate acknowledged that there had been "discrimination, even severe discrimination" against the Sudeten Germans.<ref>{{Hansard|1938/oct/03/prime-ministers-statement#column_81|title=Prime Minister's Statement|access-date=14 April 2021}}</ref>

In 1937, Attlee wrote a book entitled ''The Labour Party in Perspective'' that sold fairly well in which he set out some of his views. He argued that there was no point in Labour compromising on its socialist principles in the belief that this would achieve electoral success. He wrote: "I find that the proposition often reduces itself to this – that if the Labour Party would drop its socialism and adopt a Liberal platform, many Liberals would be pleased to support it. I have heard it said more than once that if Labour would only drop its policy of [[nationalisation]] everyone would be pleased, and it would soon obtain a majority. I am convinced it would be fatal for the Labour Party." He also wrote that there was no point in "watering down Labour's socialist creed in order to attract new adherents who cannot accept the full socialist faith. On the contrary, I believe that it is only a clear and bold policy that will attract this support".{{sfn|Beckett|1998|pp=140–141}}

In the late 1930s, Attlee sponsored a Jewish mother and her two children, enabling them to leave Germany in 1939 and move to the UK. On arriving in Britain, Attlee invited one of the children into his home in [[Stanmore]], north-west London, where he stayed for several months.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/20/clement-attlee-child-refugee-paul-willer-fled-nazis-1939|title=Clement Attlee took in Jewish child refugee who fled Nazis|last=Syal|first=Rajeev|date=20 November 2018|work=The Guardian|access-date=20 November 2018|archive-date=20 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181120153145/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/20/clement-attlee-child-refugee-paul-willer-fled-nazis-1939|url-status=live}}</ref>