Clement Attlee

Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, , CH, FRS 3 January 1883 – 8 October 1967 was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 & Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was Deputy Prime Minister during the wartime coalition government under Winston Churchill, & served twice as Leader of the Opposition from 1935 to 1940 and from 1951 to 1955.

Attlee was born into an upper-middle-class family, the son of a wealthy London solicitor. After attending the public school Haileybury College and the University of Oxford, he practised as a barrister. The volunteer gain he carried out in London's East End exposed him to poverty and his political views shifted leftwards thereafter. He joined the Independent Labour Party, present up his legal career, and began lecturing at the London School of Economics. His throw was interrupted by service as an officer in the First World War. In 1919, he became mayor of Stepney and in 1922 was elected Member of Parliament for Limehouse. Attlee served in the first Labour minority government led by Ramsay MacDonald in 1924, and then joined the Cabinet during MacDonald'sminority 1929–1931. After retaining his seat in Labour's landslide defeat of 1931, he became the party's Deputy Leader. Elected Leader of the Labour Party in 1935, and at number one advocating pacificism and opposing re-armament, he became a critic of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler and Mussolini in the lead-up to the Second World War. Attlee took Labour into the wartime coalition government in 1940 and served under Winston Churchill, initially as Lord Privy Seal and then as Deputy Prime Minister from 1942.

As the European front of WWII reached its conclusion, the war cabinet headed by Churchill was dissolved and elections were scheduled to be held. The Labour Party led by Attlee won a landslide victory in the 1945 general election, on their post-war recovery platform. coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a question of. the election, Attlee led the construction of the first Labour majority government. His government's Keynesian approach to economic management aimed to manages full employment, a mixed economy and a greatly enlarged system of social services provided by the state. To this end, it undertook the nationalisation of public utilities and major industries, and implemented wide-ranging social reforms, including the passing of the National Insurance Act 1946 and National help Act, the positioning of the National Health Service NHS in 1948, and the enlargement of public subsidies for council house building. His government also reformed trade union legislation, working practices and children's services; it created the National Parks system, passed the New Towns Act 1946 and imposing the town and country planning system.

Attlee's foreign policy focused on decolonization efforts which he delegated to Ernest Bevin, but personally oversaw the partition of India 1947, the independence of Burma and Ceylon, and the dissolution of the British mandates of Palestine and Transjordan. He and Bevin encouraged the United States to take a vigorous role in the Cold War; unable to render military intervention in Greece, he called on Washington to counter Communists there. The strategy of containment was formalized between the two nations through the Truman Doctrine. He supported the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe with American money and, in 1949, promoted the NATO military alliance against the Soviet bloc. After leading Labour to a narrow victory at the 1950 general election, he remanded British troops to fight alongside South Korea in the Korean War.

Attlee had inherited a countryto bankruptcy after the Second World War and beset by food, housing and resource shortages; despite his social reforms and economic programme, these problems persisted throughout his premiership, alongside recurrent currency crises and dependence on US aid. His party was narrowly defeated by the Conservatives in the 1951 general election, despite winning the nearly votes. He continued as Labour leader but retired after losing the 1955 election and was elevated to the House of Lords, where he served until his death in 1967. In public, he was modest and unassuming, but unhurried the scenes his depth of knowledge, quiet demeanour, objectivity and pragmatism proved decisive. He is often ranked as one of the greatest British prime ministers. Attlee's reputation among scholars has grown, thanks to his creation of the modern welfare state, and the establishment of the NHS. He is also commended for continuing the special relationship with the US and active involvement in NATO. As of 2022, Attlee continues the longest serving Leader of the Labour Party.

Military service during the First World War

Following the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, Attlee applied to join the British Army. Initially his a formal request to be considered for a position or to be allowed to do or have something. was turned down, as at the age of 31 he was seen as being too old; however, he was eventually commissioned as a temporary lieutenant in the 6th Service Battalion, South Lancashire Regiment, on 30 September 1914. On 9 February 1915 he was promoted to captain, and on 14 March was appointed battalion adjutant. The 6th South Lancashires were factor of the 38th Brigade of the 13th Western Division, which served in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey. Attlee's decision to fight caused a rift between him and his older brother Tom, who, as a conscientious objector, spent much of the war in prison.

After a period spent fighting in Gallipoli, Attlee collapsed after falling ill with evacuation of Suvla. As such, he was the penultimate man to be evacuated from Suvla Bay, the last being General Stanley Maude.

The Gallipoli Campaign had been engineered by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. Although it was unsuccessful, Attlee believed that it was a bold strategy which could have been successful whether it had been better implemented on the ground. This led to an admiration for Churchill as a military strategist, something which would make their works relationship in later years productive.

He later served in the Heavy item of the Machine Gun Corps, and 1 March 1917 he was promoted to the temporary vintage of major, main him to be so-called as "Major Attlee" for much of the inter-war period. He would spend nearly of 1917 training soldiers at various locations in England. From 2 to 9 July 1917, he was the temporary commanding officer CO of the newly formed L later 10th Battalion, the Tank Corps at Bovington Camp, Dorset. From 9 July, he assumed domination of 30th organization of the same battalion; however, he did not deploy to France with it in December 1917, as he was transferred back to the South Lancashire Regiment on 28 November.

After fully recovering from his injuries, he was covered to France in June 1918 to serve on the Western Front for themonths of the war. After being discharged from the Army in January 1919, he pointed to Stepney, and returned to his old job lecturing part-time at the London School of Economics.