Democratic Socialists

"A modest man with much to be modest about."

"The political life of Clem Attlee...is characterised by a marvellous series of paradoxes. One of the greatest is that, though he couldn't be doing with the mumbo jumbo of Christian dogma, there has rarely been a prime minister for whom the Christian ethic so dominated his life. During his stewardship, this "unbeliever" became one of the most effective proponents of Christian ethics in this country's history. None of his political friends or acquaintances could have been in any doubt that Attlee's life was moulded by what Christianity taught. These values were not limited to the evangelical tradition of daily prayers and Bible readings that characterised Attlee's early home years. Attlee absorbed the values of duty, loyalty and responsibility and built his own personal and political life upon them."

"I think his way of conducting business was perfectly admirable. He was really a very ordinary, but very efficient and very intelligent man and he carried these qualities to their highest possible degree. This is the way I look at him. I'm always puzzled when people talk about him as though he was mysterious, and his rise was strange. Alan Herbert wrote a poem — not a very good poem — called "Man of Mystery"; Harold Macmillan said "in many ways a mysterious character", and Michael Foot said "as time went on, he got more and more incomprehensible". To me, simply coming in as an ordinary official, it seemed that he had every capability for the job of Prime Minister. He was immensely assiduous. He always read all the papers. He had no obvious ambitions. He had not the slightest touch of vanity or conceit about himself. He started at the beginning of his day's work and went on till he got to the end and finished it, and he'd say, "Is there anything more?" and I'd say "No," and he'd say, "Goodnight." And that, I think, is a very good way of conducting business."

"An empty taxi drew up outside 10 Downing Street and Clement Attlee got out of it."

"The pro-Western policies of Clement Attlee’s Labour government (1945–51) were supported by the vast majority of the Labour Party and trade union movement. Communist and Soviet sympathisers within both were isolated, and the Communist Party was kept at a distance. This helped prevent the development of a strong radical Left, and was linked to the alliance between labour and capital that was to be important in the post-war mixed economy in Britain; although the emphasis on state control and regulation was damaging to entrepreneurial ethos. The Attlee government also decided by January 1947 to develop a British nuclear bomb. This policy was regarded as necessary for Britain’s independent security and independence. Throughout, the British government sought to play more than a secondary role to the USA. As a result, at considerable cost, Britain became the third nuclear power: the bomb was ready by 1952."

"Charity is a cold grey loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim."

"Labour's programme of free public services financed out of taxation depended crucially upon a prolongation of the wartime spirit of social solidarity... What got us through the war, the Prime Minister [Attlee] insisted, was "unselfishness and an appeal to the higher instincts of mankind". These higher instincts could not, unfortunately, survive the pressures of consumerism and individualism created by the affluent society of the 1950s... Nevertheless, successive Conservative and Labour governments continued to...leave the central citadel of the Attlee regime untouched... The decaying monuments to that regime can now be seen around us in a collapsing NHS, a rotting Underground system and, in the words of one government spokesman, "bog-standard comprehensives". The state of our public services is a consequence not of failing to build on the Attlee legacy, but of a refusal to repudiate it... The Attlee Government led Britain firmly and resolutely, and from the best of motives, in the wrong direction. It continues to exert its influence even from beyond the grave, and the twin illusions which it engendered—that we can enjoy "free" public services while remaining isolated from the Continent—are still costing us dear."

"My direct question to Attlee was that since Gandhi's Quit India movement had tapered off quite some time ago and in 1947 no such new compelling situation had arisen that would necessitate a hasty British departure, why did they had to leave?" "In his reply Attlee cited several reasons, the principal among them being the erosion of loyalty to the British crown among the Indian army and Navy personnel as a result of the military activities of Netaji."

"He was a far abler man than Winston Churchill's description of him as "a sheep in sheep's clothing" would imply, but persistently depressing. He spoke, as John Jay Chapman said of President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard, with "all the passion of a woodchuck chewing a carrot." His thought impressed me as a long withdrawing, melancholy sigh."

"His socialism was certainly more Toynbee Hall than Marx. Yet he presided over what is now agreed was the most revolutionary of all Labour's governments and he did it without benefit of the usual tricks of the political trade... The key to the enigma of his personality lies, I believe, in the fact that he was a decent man who wanted to build a decent society."

"I think he was what once someone called the last of the upper-middle-class social workers. Nowadays you don't find that, because on the whole people don't want it. Anybody turning up from the public schools and trying to run a boys' club is resented, for various reasons; the professionals have taken over. To my eyes, this was what gave him his strength. Others may question that, but compared with Hugh Gaitskell, whom I of course admired enormously, he had been through it all, he had these years in what you could only call the front line of poverty."

"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."

"Attlee: I'm one of those people who are incapable of religious feeling. Harris: Do you mean you have no feeling about Christianity, or that you have no feeling about God, Christ, and life after death? Attlee: Believe in the ethics of Christianity. Can't believe in the mumbo jumbo. Harris: Would you say you are an agnostic? Attlee: I don't know. Harris: Is there an after-life, do you think? Attlee: Possibly."

"A Tory minister can sleep in ten different women's beds in a week. A Labour minister gets it in the neck if he looks at his neighbour's wife over the garden fence."

"But as a matter of fact the idea of an integrated Europe is historically looking backward, and not forward. The noble Viscount was looking at the Holy Roman Empire. We never belonged to the Holy Roman Empire, and we never belonged to the reactionary organisation after 1815. We have always looked outward, out to the New World; and to-day we look out to the New World, and to Asia and Africa. I think that integration with Europe is a step backward. By all means let us get the greatest possible agreement between the various continents, but I am afraid that if we join the Common Market we shall be joining not an outward-looking organisation, but an inward-looking organisation. I think that Germany, for instance, which has probably the most powerful influence in the organisation, will not escape from looking at what she thought she was going to gain, and what she has lost. I do not think we have a new look there. I think that by marrying into Europe we are marrying a whole family of ancient prejudices and ancient troubles, and I would much rather see an Atlantic organisation. I would much rather work for the world organisation."

"It's a very limited alliance, purely European, and it really, I think, breaks the unity of the Commonwealth. In my mind, the Commonwealth is immensely important, because it is multi-racial: Asiatic, African, Australian, and American. I think it's a retrograde step to go back to a purely European union."

"Can't publish. Don't rhyme, don't scan."

"We are told that we have to accept the Treaty of Rome. I have read the Treaty of Rome pretty carefully, and it expresses an outlook entirely different from our own. It may be that I am insular, but I value our Parliamentary outlook, an outlook which has extended throughout the Commonwealth. That is not the same position that holds on the Continent of Europe. No one of these principal countries in the Common Market has been very successful in running Parliamentary institutions: Germany, hardly any experience; Italy, very little; France, a swing between a dictatorship and more or less anarchic Parliament, and not very successfully. As I read the Treaty of Rome, the whole position means that we shall enter a federation which is composed in an entirely different way. I do not say it is the wrong way. But it is not our way. In this set-up it is the official who really puts up all the proposals; the whole of the planning is done by officials. It seems to me that the Ministers come in at a later stage—and if there is anything like a Federal Parliament, at a later stage still. I do not think that that is the way this country has developed, or wishes to develop. I am all for working in with our Continental friends. I was one of those who worked to build up NATO; I have worked for European integration. But that is a very different thing from bringing us into a close association which, I may say, is not one for defence, or even just for foreign policy. The fact is that if the designs behind the Common Market are carried out, we are bound to be affected in every phase of our national life. There would be no national planning, except under the guidance of Continental planning—we shall not be able to deal with our own problems; we shall not be able to build up the country in the way we want to do, so far as I can see. I think we shall be subject to overall control and planning by others. That is my objection."

"My noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth rather suggested that it was a really good Socialist policy to join up with these countries. I do not think that comes into it very much. They are not Socialist countries, and the object, so far as I can see, is to set up an organisation with a tariff against the rest of the world within which there shall be the freest possible competition between, capitalist interests. That might be a kind of common ideal. I daresay that is why it is supported by the Liberal Party. It is not a very good picture for the future...I believe in a planned economy. So far as I can see, we are to a large extent losing our power to plan as we want and submitting not to a Council of Ministers but a collection of international civil servants, able and honest, no doubt, but not necessarily having the best future of this country at heart...I think we are parting, to some extent at all events, with our powers to plan our own country in the way we desire. I quite agree that that plan should fit in, as far as it can, with a world plan. That is a very different thing from submitting our plans to be planned by a body of international civil servants, no doubt excellent men. I may be merely insular, but I have no prejudice in a Britain planned for the British by the British. Therefore, as at present advised, I am quite unconvinced either that it is necessary or that it is even desirable that we should go into the Common Market."

"When we come to the political point, I confess I feel gravely disturbed. We are allying ourselves with six nations of Europe; it may be more, but six at present. Four of those we rescued only twenty years or so ago from domination by the other two. Now we go cap in hand to the people whom we thought we beat in war. I am all for having agreements with everybody. I am all for getting on in the world with countries very differently organised to ourselves, capitalist countries, even Communist countries; but I am rather doubtful about these present proposals...It does not seem to me to be a very good tie-up for us; and if we are to go in irrevocably and tie ourselves up with other States, I think it is an extremely doubtful proposition for Britain. I think the political dangers are very great. Once you are in there, it is quite different from being in an organisation like NATO, which is a defence organisation directed against specific perils. It is a general link-up with Europe."

"The Question of sovereignty is often raised. I am one of those who believe that in a modern world one has to give up a great deal of sovereignty. I am prepared to give up sovereignty to the world, but not to a selected number of European countries. That is not giving up something for world security; it is giving something up to sectional interests."

"I can remember no case where differences arose between Conservatives, Labour and Liberals along party lines. Certainly not in the War Cabinet. Certainly not in the big things... When one came to work out solutions they were often socialist ones, because one had to have organisation, and planning, and disregard private interests. But there was no opposition from Conservative Ministers. They accepted the practical solution whatever it was."

"When I look at this as a proposal [i.e. British entry into the Common Market], it is really an extraordinary change. We used to put the Commonwealth first. It is quite obvious now that the Commonwealth comes second. We are going to be closer friends with the Germans, the Italians and the French than we are with the Australians or the Canadians. People are talking about what will happen thirty years hence: but, you know, twenty years ago I should never have imagined that we would be putting, as close friends, the Germans in front of the Canadians, the Australians, the New Zealanders, the Indians or anyone else. That does make for an entire revolution. It is also an entire revolution in the historic position of this country. I am not putting it forward that necessarily old things are right: I should be showing my age too clearly if I did that. It may be they are right; but make no mistake: this is an enormous change."

"...our geographical position put us in the centre of markets. That was one of the great strengths of our position. We did not have to look merely into Europe; we could look outside. We had our relationships with the Colonies overseas, later the Dominions; with the United States; with all continents, just because we were not tied up with the Continent of Europe. Now we are to be tied. It might be right, it may be wrong; but do not make any mistake: it is entirely different from anything we have had before. We are to become part of a larger whole, an appendage to Europe. It may be right now, but, historically, that has not been our position. We may have been at the centre of markets, but we have not been in one market and out of the others. We have had to fight against hostile tariffs; we have had to keep our end up. We have never put ourselves into a position in which we were inside a ring-fence with a number of Continental Powers. Make no mistake: it is an entire change."

"Unfortunately, in this country the propaganda for entering the Common Market has been largely based on defeatism. We are told that unless we do it we are going to have a terrible time. That is no way to go into a negotiation. You ought to go into a negotiation on the basis that they have need of you, not just you of them."

"I move previous face!"

"We never took a vote in the Cabinet that I can remember and the most important of all the Prime Minister's functions is to give a firm lead in Cabinet so that decisions can be taken quickly. The Prime Minister musn't always listen to those who talk most."

"In Cabinet the important thing is to stop people from talking. Some people are loquacious, some are eloquent. I always used to point out that rhetoric is wasted on a Cabinet of hard-boiled politicians."

"King George VI was always remarkably well informed, and I made a point of reading the latest telegrams before my weekly audience with him. A conscientious, constitutional monarch is a strong element of stability and continuity in our Constitution."

"In choosing people for specific jobs previous experience should not be a guide. I never put a man in the job which he thought he knew. Often the 'experts' make the worst possible Ministers in their own fields. In this country we prefer rule by amateurs."

"There is no such thing as the Shadow Cabinet. It is purely a Press term. The Prime Minister is by no means bound to include the members of the Shadow Cabinet in his Cabinet, or even in the Government. I myself left several out."

"You will not find much about what the Prime Minister does in the text-books. What he does is partly made up of convention and custom, but the nature of the office depends a great deal on the person who holds it... Make it [the Cabinet] as small as possible. Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking. Some of my early Cabinets were very small, but I arrived at the conclusion that 16 is the right number."

"I joined the socialist movement because I did not like the kind of society we had and wanted something better."

"[A] movement like Mau Mau, out to murder Africans, Indians, and British, has got to be put down whether there is Conservative, Labour, or any other Government in charge."

"I think that public opinion today likes a certain amount of pageantry. It is a great mistake to make government too dull. That, I think, was the fault of the German Republic after the First World War. They were very drab and dull; the trouble was that they let the devil get all the best tunes. Therefore, we on this side of the Committee believe that it is right to have a certain amount of pageantry, because it pleases people, and it also counteracts a tendency to other forms of excitement."

"Malaya had a special contribution to make to world peace. One of the difficult problems of the world was to secure peace, freedom, and democratic government in countries inhabited by more than one community. It could not be done by one community seeking to dominate the others, but only by fair dealing and mutual tolerance. He sometimes thought that those who adopted extreme nationalist ideas did so because they had no constructive ideas and because an appeal to race prejudice saved them from an intolerable burden of thought. In his view the variations in the make-up of a community increased its value, and he wished good luck to all the peoples of Malaya in building up a great multi-racial community."

"Not up to the job."

"To ensure peace we needed stronger armed forces as a deterrent to aggression."

"You see our new towns, our smiling countryside. I am proud of our achievements. There is an enormous amount more to do. Remember that we are a great crusading body, armed with a fervent spirit for the reign of righteousness on earth. Let us go forward into this fight in the spirit of William Blake: "I will not cease from mental strife/Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand/Till we have built Jerusalem/In England's green and pleasant land"."

"...the vital thing for the world to-day was to move away from the conception of the individual national State to something like a confederation of States in which some sovereign power was ceded to a wider Power. I do not think it need be much. At present what we have to give up is the right to make war."

"Socialism was the only means of freeing the world from war and poverty. Socialism stood as a third alternative to a barbaric Communism and capitalism in a state of decay. Communism was a falsification of the principles of Socialism."

"[T]he Conservative Party had been getting rid of the property owned by democracy and handing it over to groups of private profiteers."

"He understood that in the countries beyond the iron curtain the artist must watch his step very carefully. It was not enough to be a good painter, any more than it was enough to be a good scientist or writer. The practitioner in the arts and sciences must first and foremost be a good Marxist-Leninist. Were we in the same position when we viewed this year's Summer Exhibition we should look primarily at the pictures to see whether or not they were in harmony with the tenets of dialectical materialism. It was rather a terrible prospect... We might rejoice that in this country such views were held by only an insignificant fraction. In his own party the influence of William Morris far exceeded that of Karl Marx."

"...the Welfare State can only endure if it is built on a sound economic foundation. If you are in a job and have to-day through national insurance a greater sense of security than ever before, remember its continuance depends on what you do. Don't leave it to the other man. I have told you that the position is critical. We have a great opportunity to set things right. Let us seize it."

"We on this side are not prepared to accept the principle that the most vital economic forces of this country should be handed over to an authority that is utterly undemocratic and is responsible to nobody."

"We are having to make some heavy reductions in expenditure... They amount to about £250m. This is a very large sum... There has been some excessive and unnecessary resort to doctors for prescriptions. This must be checked. A charge, not exceeding one shilling, for each prescription will now be imposed. Arrangements will be made to relieve old age pensioners of this charge."

"As you all know, ever since the end of the war Britain has been working against time. We must find a way to stand on our own feet, and that very soon. Since the end of the war, too, our reserves have been small. This means that any alteration in world trade conditions, any failure to produce and sell enough goods must land us in serious trouble... I would like every one of you, whether employer or employed, to start right away to consider how in your particular job you can increase and cheapen production, how you can check absenteeism and get the kind of public opinion in factory, mine, railway, or other workplace which will bring the person who is slacking up to the mark."

"Aggression has started again in the Far East. The attack by the armed forces of North Korea on South Korea has been denounced as an act of aggression by the United Nations. No excuses, no propaganda by Communists, no introduction of other factors can get over this fact. Here is a case of aggression. If the aggressor gets away with it, aggressors all over the world will be encouraged. The same results that led to the Second World War will follow; and another world war may result."

"In the coming months the need is for the people of this country to do two things. First, to increase the national production; and, secondly, to exercise restraint in demands for increased incomes and self-control in expenditure... I am confident that in peace just as we did in war, Britain will conquer them by determination, hard work, and by the cooperation of all."

"At the one end of the scale are the Communist countries: at the other end the United States of America stands for individual liberty in the political sphere and for the maintenance of human rights. But its economy is based on capitalism, with all the problems which it presents, and with the characteristic extreme inequality of wealth in its citizens... Great Britain, like the other countries of western Europe, is placed geographically and from the point of view of economic and political theory between these two great continental States... Our task is to work out a system of a new and challenging kind, which combines individual freedom with a planned economy, democracy with social justice."