Opinion of Clement Attlee

[12th Doctor]

Very high, but not because of what he did as PM.

The truth about the Churchill-Attlee relationship is that Churchill simply never would have said any of those things that he supposedly said about Attlee, because in 1940, when the bombs were dropping, and the British Army seemed in a hopeless situation, and Parliament was urging a negotiated peace with Hitler, there were two men on the cabinet who were utterly opposed to the very thought of a negotiated peace... Churchill and Attlee.

It never ceases to amaze and appall me, how history had been so successfully rewritten by people on both the left and the right.

It is taken for gospel by many that Chamberlain, Halifax, those on the French side et al were some idealistic, liberal, do gooders who were duped by Hitler because they had foolish notions about the human spirit.  That is certainly how many have tried to portray the situation in the last few decades.

Chamberlain and his crew weren't wide eyes idealists.  They were hard core, realist politicians of the worst stripe.  You don't get very far in British politics, especially as a Conservative by having idealistic notions.

They misunderstood Hitler, not because they had some notion of his "deeper humanity".  They simply didn't understand that Hitler couldn't be bought off.  Halifax and Chamberlain didn't understand men who couldn't be bought off, because they lived in a world of wealth, and self-interested common sense.  They didn't understand that what drove Hitler was not what drove "good eggs" such as themselves.

They represented everything that is reprehensible about conservatism.

Churchill understood what drove Hitler.  The Labour Party understood what drove Hitler.  Because they actually had ideals, as Hitler did.  Churchill's ideals represented the exact opposite of Hitler's, however.  While Hitler spoke to everything that was terrible, and evil in human nature, Churchill spoke to everything that was good and pure.  The members of the Conservative Party simply didn't understand this, because they had no ideals, and thus no concept that anything was really evil, or really good.  They were quite odious.

There has been a recent attempt by those on the Left and the Right, to portray Churchill as some arch-conservative.  Churchill would have laughed at this notion.  After all, he had spent a significant portion of his career in the the Liberal Party, before it collapsed, and only went back to the Conservatives, because he rejected socialism.  Churchill always spoke highly of "Liberalism", to be sure, a bit different than what we would think of as Liberal, but still....  Churchill believed in human dignity.  Churchill believed in a free society, governed by laws, not petty men.  Churchill wanted to free the states of the empire someday, but he didn't think they were ready yet. 

India, he said, labored under the injustice of the caste system, and were the British not to free them of that, before their independence, that horrible system would continue to thrive, and religious violence would rip the country apart.  Was he not correct?

He said that the African provinces had not been well developed yet, and if they were made independent too soon, then they would suffer severe poverty, and would be racked by racial intolerance.  Was he not correct?

The Arabs, he said, were not significantly unified.  If you let them go, with these "states" that were mere arbitrary lines on a map, then control would fall to whatever tribe could seize the most British made arms.  Seems like he knew what he was talking about.

Hitler was perfectly willing to allow the British to keep the Empire in tact... another reality that is often forgotten today.  Hitler had no interest in invading Britain.  He was assured that the British would sue for peace, and leave him as master of the continent.  The Conservatives were more than willing to accept this agreement, and pressed Churchill to agree to it, most of all Lord Halifax.

Again, here, history has been rewritten to make Halifax seem like a well meaning saint.  Halifax said, after the fact, that he had refused the Prime Ministership, in favor of Churchill, because he knew he did no have it within himself to be a wartime leader.  Strange, because most people who knew Halifax would continue to claim, after the war, that the reason he stepped aside for Churchill is because he believed Churchill would have no choice but to make peace, and being shamed by that peace would be forced to stepdown, leaving Halifax the logical choice to succeed him.

The Conservatives only cared about the Empire as a piece of geography.  Churchill believed in the Empire for what it stood for; liberty, justice, progress.  The Conservatives sought to save the Empire by making a deal with Hitler.  Churchill understood that making a deal with Hitler would destroy Britain and all it stood for.

When, on June 4th, 1940, the Cabinet met, and most of the members agreed with Chamberlain and Halifax that a peace must be brokered.  It was Clement Attlee and the Labour members who stood fast and said "never".

Halifax spoke about his vision, the Conservative vision, of the situation. 

Churchill listened, and then called in the entire cabinet.  With Attlee, not the Conservatives standing at his side, he expressed his vision, a vision of what Britain meant to the world, and how a peace with Hitler would be an utter betrayal of that vision.  And then he closed by saying this:

"And I say, I will never make a peace with that man.  You must all understand this.  No matter what happens in France, we will fight on.  If the long history of our island nation is to end, then let it end when each one of us lies choking in his own blood on the ground."

And at first, no one knew how to react, and then the roar came "YES! YES! YES!".  And everything changed at that moment.

Churchill then went to the chamber, and gave the British people and the World, that famous directive, "We shall never surrender."

It was the will of Churchill, and men like Attlee, not the Conservatives, that changed history.  It was that "idealistic" vision that allowed liberty to fight back and survive.



Sorry if that sounds a bit over dramatic, but history doesn't get any better than that.