Clement Attlee

Who was Clement Attlee?

Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955.

Attlee was the first person ever to hold the office of Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, serving under Winston Churchill in the wartime coalition government, before going on to lead the Labour Party to a landslide election victory in 1945 and a narrow victory in 1950. He became the first Labour Prime Minister ever to serve a full five year term, as well as the first to command a Labour majority in Parliament, and remains to date the longest ever serving Leader of the Labour party.

First elected to Parliament in 1922 as the MP for Limehouse, he rose quickly to become a minister in the minority government led by Ramsay MacDonald in 1924. In 1931, after the Labour Party had suffered a disastrous election defeat, he was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. Four years later, he became the Leader of the Labour Party after the resignation of George Lansbury.