Clement Attlee
18 quotes
Biography
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee was a British statesman who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. Attlee was deputy prime minister during the wartime coalition government under Winston Churchill, and Leader of the Opposition on three occasions: from 1935 to 1940, briefly in 1945 and from 1951 to 1955.
"… the Peace Treaties must be scrapped … I stand for no more war and no more secret diplomacy."
"I agree with the prime minister that the condition of the world is serious, and that everyone who speaks on these subjects must speak with a full sense of responsibility, but that does not mean, in my view, that there should be a lack of plain speaking, but that we ought to see the facts for what they really are. I must say that I was profoundly disappointed with the speech of the prime minister, because it seemed to me that he had misconceived the whole issue that lives before us. He suggested that there was being fought in Spain, in the opinion of some people, a struggle between two sides, two rival systems. I do not think that is the issue that is facing us to-day. The world to-day is faced with a contest between two sides, and those two sides are whether the rule of law in international affairs shall prevail, or the rule of lawless force. That is the issue that faces us, and we must look at this Spanish struggle in its true perspective."
"Not Churchill. Sixty-five, old for a Churchill."
"You will be judged by what you succeed at gentlemen, not by what you attempt."
"You have no right whatever to speak on behalf of the Government. Foreign affairs are in the capable hands of Ernest Bevin. His task is quite sufficiently difficult without the irresponsible statements of the kind you are making . . . I can assure you there is widespread resentment in the Party at your activities and a period of silence on your part would be welcome."
"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."
"Can't publish. Don't rhyme, don't scan."
"I move previous face!"
"Toward the end of our discussion I asked Attlee what was the extent of Gandhi's influence upon the British decision to quit India. Hearing this question, Attlee's lips became twisted in a sarcastic smile as he slowly chewed out the word, m-i-n-i-m-a-l!"
"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."
"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."
"An empty taxi drew up outside 10 Downing Street and Clement Attlee got out of it."
"At the end of July the Big Three met for a final time at Potsdam, on the edge of Berlin, but this was a very different summit from Yalta. Roosevelt was dead and Churchill was voted out of office during the conference, being replaced by the new Labour leader, Clement Attlee, whose contribution was limited. Byrnes, now Truman’s secretary of state, fixed up a deal—despite British objections— by which the Soviets got their way on the western border of Poland (following the Oder and Western Neisse). But, in return, the Western powers refused to set a total figure for what the Soviets would receive in reparations from Germany. Instead each ally would take what it wanted in equipment, food and raw materials from its zone of occupation and the Soviets would also receive some transfers from the western zones. This deal on reparations did more than the decisions at Yalta to divide Soviet-controlled eastern Germany from the west."
"[<nowiki/>Margaret Thatcher] was not really running a team. Every time you have a Prime Minister who wants to take all the decisions, it mainly leads to bad results. Attlee didn't. That's why he was so damn good."
"Of Clement Attlee, however, I was an admirer. He was a serious man and a patriot. Quite contrary to the general tendency of politicians in the 1990s, he was all substance and no show. His was a genuinely radical and reforming government."
"Winston Churchill - fifty per cent genius fifty per cent bloody fool."
"The House of Lords is like a glass of champagne that has stood for 5 days."
"I think the British have the distinction above all other nations of being able to put new wine into old bottles without bursting them."