Clement Attlee was the leader of the Labour Party for 20 years from 1935.

After serving as Deputy Prime Minister through the Second World War, he brought Labour into power on a landslide, and changed Britain forever by establishing the Welfare State and, with it, the National Health Service.

With amazing guests: John Bew, Richard Toye, Paul Dimoldenberg, Christopher Massey, Andrew Seaton, Stephen Wall, Charlotte Lydia Riley and Edmund Fawcet - this episode explores Attlee's background, leadership, and legacy.

LINKS

John Bew, Professor of History and Foreign Policy at the Department of War Studies, at King's College London and author of Citizen Clem (2017)

- https://www.waterstones.com/book/citizen-clem/john-bew/9781780879925 

Richard Toye, Professor of History at University of Exeter, and author of Age of Hope: Labour, 1945 and the Birth of Moden Britain (2023)

- https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/age-of-hope-9781472992291/ 

Paul Dimoldenberg, Lord Mayor of Westminster, and author of Building the New Jerusalem: How Attlee's Government Built 1 Million New Homes (2020), Cheer Churchill. Vote Labour (2020)

- https://www.abebooks.co.uk/Building-New-Jerusalem-Attlees-Government-Built/32027619759/bd

- https://www.worldofbooks.com/fr-fr/products/cheer-churchill-vote-labour-the-story-of-the-1945-general-election-livre-dimoldenberg-paul-9798648841499

Christopher Massey, Principal Lecturer in Learning and Teaching in the History Department at Teesside University

Andrew Seaton, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in History,  UCL and author of Our NHS: A History of Britain’s Best-Loved Institution (2023).

- https://yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300276527/our-nhs/

Stephen Wall, Former Ambassador, Political Expert and Historian, and author of Reluctant European: Britain and the European Union from 1945 to Brexit (2020).

- https://global.oup.com/academic/product/reluctant-european-9780198840671?cc=gb&lang=en& 

Charlotte Lydia Riley, Associate Professor at University of Southampton, and author of Imperial Island (2024).

- https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/442125/imperial-island-by-riley-charlotte-lydia/9781529923803 

Edmund Fawcett, author and journalist, and author of Conservatism: the Fight for a Tradition (2020).

- https://www.waterstones.com/book/conservatism/edmund-fawcett/9780691233994

Episode ID: 1000715461632

GUID: leadinglabour.podbean.com/1ec016e5-9e0e-3d92-a5e0-9d0510dfeff4

Release Date: 08/07/2025, 04:30:00