Scott Cresswell begins a new series looking at the relationship between Labour leaders and the monarchy Destiny is a strange force. Sometimes, politicians and leaders rise through the ranks to power as if they were created both ambitious and hungry for it. For others, power is an accidental gift. Both King George Vi and Clement … Continue reading Labour and the Monarch: Clement Attlee and King George VI
Clement Attlee
Masters No More Masters Clement Attlee and the ‘Revolt of the Suburbs’
Holding together working- and middle-class voters has been Labour’s historic Achilles’ heel. Can Keir Starmer do what Clement Attlee couldn’t in 1950? In April 1946, the Attorney General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, told Conservative MPs in a Commons debate, “We are the masters” and will be “for a long time to come”. Labour had just become … Continue reading Masters No More Masters Clement Attlee and the ‘Revolt of the Suburbs’
VE Day at 75: ‘This is Your Victory’
8th May 1945. Victory in Europe Day. Britain rejoices after ‘the people have fought and endured five years, eight months and four days of the bloodiest war in history’ How 'the people' and Mr Churchill, Attlee and Bevin celebrated their VE Day Crowds – of about 10,000 - began to assemble in Trafalgar Square on … Continue reading VE Day at 75: ‘This is Your Victory’
Now Britain is a Socialist Country: How Labour shocked the world and won the 1945 election
There were only 79 days between the end of the Second World War and Attlee’s arrival in 10 Downing Street. Labour shocked the world by ousting Churchill, and had a mandate to radically alter every aspect of the British working life. For the first time in the party’s history, they had a majority to do … Continue reading Now Britain is a Socialist Country: How Labour shocked the world and won the 1945 election
“Why should the people wait any longer?” – How Labour built the NHS
The essence of a satisfactory health service is that the rich and the poor are treated alike, that poverty is not a disability, and wealth is not an advantage Society becomes more wholesome, more serene, and spiritually healthier, if it knows that its citizens have at the back of their consciousness the knowledge that not … Continue reading “Why should the people wait any longer?” – How Labour built the NHS
Tides of History 