Clement Attlee

Clement Attlee (January 3rd 1883 with Putney - October 8th 1967 with Westminster) is a British politician and Major of the British Armée.

Mayor of old the London District of Stepney in 1919, it becomes appointed with the House of Commons in 1922. In 1934, he is under-secretary of State to the war in the first worker government of MacDonald then chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the second Socialist government of 1929-31. Assistant leader of the workers party in 1931 at the time when Ramsay MacDonald constitutes a government of national union that it does not approve, he becomes leader of the Workers party in 1935 to replace pacifist George Landsbury.

He refuses to take part in the government of Neville Chamberlain. It is invited by Churchill to take part in the cabinet of war and accepts in May 1940 the function of vice-president of the government with various titles: Lord of the private seal (1940-42), Deputy Prime Minister (1942-45), Secretary of State to the Dominions (1942-43), and Lord president of the Council (1943-45). Churchill being often absent, Attlee directed de facto the government. A difficult task because he was famous shy person. Elections are organized in 1945, and whereas Churchill and the conservatives leave favorite, the Ploughing party gains the elections, Attlee will be Prime Minister of July 26th 1945 at October 26th 1951. It ceases directing the workers party in 1955 then is high with peerage and passes to the House of Lords.

Its name is associated with the Conférence of Potsdam (July 1945), with the creation of the social security, the nationalizations of principal industries and services, with the Marshall plan, the decolonization of the Indian Empire (1947), with adhesion with NATO (1949). Hostile to European construction, it is put up however with the foundation of the the Council of Europe in 1949 but refuses to take part in ECSC. In the Middle East, the British mandate in Palestine makes place with the creation of the State of Israel. It chairs the government for one long period of economic austerity. Its parliamentary majority is strongly reduced in 1950 and it loses the elections of 1951.

Its personality was less brilliant than that of its ministers Ernest Bevin, Herbert Morrison or Stafford Cripps but it directed the government with great firmness.

External bonds

Biography on the site of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Simple: Clement Attlee

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