Latest news with #ClementAttlee
Times
06-07-2025
- Politics
- Times
Keir Starmer isn't the new Attlee — but who could be?
T his month Labour celebrates the election of a leader who transformed Britain. Unfortunately for Sir Keir Starmer, it's not him. Eighty years ago Clement Attlee and his allies swept aside Winston Churchill's Conservatives and instituted a policy programme that moved Britain decisively to the left, nationalising not just health services but road haulage, rail and air; gas, coal and steel; the Bank of England; and of course the land and housing supply. For the Labour Party, Attlee has become a patron saint in the same way Thatcher is for the Tories — proof that the movement, and its values, really can change the country. (Tellingly, their tenures also tend to be viewed on the other side as having wrenched Britain irrevocably on to the wrong course.)
Telegraph
05-07-2025
- Automotive
- Telegraph
Oscar Piastri interview: the world champion hopeful schooled in England
Haileybury school in Hertfordshire has produced some notable alumni over the years. Clement Attlee, the post-war Labour prime minister, attended the co-educational independent school. Poet and novelist Rudyard Kipling and playwright Sir Alan Ayckbourn are Old Haileyburians. Film-maker Christopher Nolan and actor Stephen Mangan were also on the school's books. In the world of Formula One, Haileybury can lay claim to one of the greatest: Sir Stirling Moss. The British icon, widely regarded as one of the finest motor racing drivers of all time, won more than 200 races in a variety of categories across a 14-year competition career. Famously, though, Moss never actually won the Formula One world title, finishing runner-up on four occasions. Oscar Piastri is hoping to make up for that omission on the school's CV this year. 'That's the plan,' says the Australian. 'It's going OK so far. I feel like I've taken a step forward this year. I feel ready.' Heading into this weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone, it is intriguingly poised. Piastri, with five wins under his belt in 11 races, leads the championship by 15 points from his McLaren team-mate Lando Norris. By rights Norris should really be favourite for the title. The Briton is the more experienced driver and has been at McLaren for longer than Piastri. But Piastri is the odds-on favourite with the bookies. That he is so unbothered by that fact is the reason he is so heavily fancied. Piastri just seems to be bullet-proof. Ice cold. Where Norris has blown hot and cold this season, making numerous mistakes in qualifying and shunting into the back of Piastri in Canada, the Australian has been rock solid, his race-craft impeccable. Norris may still have him for outright pace, but Piastri is getting quicker and has definitely been the more consistent driver. 'I feel comfortable in the position I'm in,' he says when asked what it's like leading the Formula One world championship for the first time, as a 24-year-old. 'The way I look at it, if you're leading a championship, you're probably doing something right. And I feel like we have been doing quite a few things right. My ultimate performance has probably improved a bit this year, but I feel like I'm able to access it much more consistently so far. That's probably been the biggest thing.' Piastri was always a quick learner. He recalls growing up in Melbourne, always wanting to be first at everything. 'Even in my schoolwork,' he says. 'I wanted to do it better than anyone, and also do it faster than anyone, which kind of makes no sense. I would do it as fast as I could, but it kind of came at the cost of some accuracy. I soon learnt it's better to be accurate because otherwise you spend 15 minutes sitting there doing nothing, and it's not very useful for you when you get your score back.' There is actually rather an awkward postscript to the Stirling Moss-Haileybury connection. Moss later confessed to being unhappy at the school; bullied for reasons of his presumed Jewish origins. Piastri, though, says the school was the making of him. Moving 10,000 miles from Melbourne to the UK as a 15-year-old forced him to grow up. He spent four years as a boarder in Kipling House – England rugby player Nick Isiekwe was in the same house, although a few years older – and says it was a period in which he 'really developed'. Growing up in Melbourne he had always been sports-mad. AFL, cricket, athletics, basketball. Motor racing allowed little time for any of those, but he still turned out for the school's 3rd XI. Piastri's teachers remember a diligent and conscientious student who juggled his extracurricular activities with his academic work with great maturity. 'Oscar never demonstrated anything other than exemplary humility and remarkable composure throughout his four years at Haileybury,' recalled one teacher, Andy Searson, adding that Piastri was 'capable of bowling a heavy ball with an intimidating run-up'. The picture that emerges is one of a very grounded young man. Piastri met his girlfriend, Lily, at school when they were just 17, before they had even taken their A-levels (maths, physics and computer science, in Piastri's case, if you were wondering). They are still together six years later. 'Having that stability is nice,' he says of their relationship. 'Lily has been there from the start, from single-seaters to Formula One. A constant in what is quite a manic world.' Piastri is so nice, so calm, so well-prepared – 'the kind of schoolboy who had his pencils sharpened in front of him on his desk' as Damon Hill remarked on the Chequered Flag podcast earlier this year – it is easy to forget what a killer he is in the car. He appears bemused by the openness and vulnerability Norris displays on a weekly basis, even while praising it. 'Lando is a very open person,' he says of his team-mate. 'Speaking honestly, sometimes to his own detriment. But at the same time, it is a good quality to have. We are different people, but I do respect the way he goes about it.' As for whether he is less minded to smash his team-mate given how scrupulously fair Norris is, how lacking in sharp elbows, he just laughs. 'Not really,' he says. 'My opinion is you can't give an inch to anyone, regardless of who it is – in racing or in sport. And that doesn't really change. Especially once the helmet goes on. I get on with Lando. But once the helmet goes on, for all 20 of us, there are no more friends.' In this area, one senses the hand of Mark Webber, Piastri's compatriot who has been guiding his career from the start. Webber always had to fight his corner at Red Bull, forever battling for equal treatment in a team built around Red Bull wunderkind Sebastian Vettel. Piastri does not have that issue at McLaren. Webber has made sure of it. 'I think in terms of fighting my corner, it's been very, very valuable for me,' Piastri says of Webber's influence. 'Not that he has had to fight particularly hard in this environment. But just the experiences he had in his own career, being in a championship-winning team, fighting for a championship, there is a lot of hindsight which is very valuable for me. 'Some lessons you can only learn for yourself. But I definitely feel as if I've escaped a lot of [negative] lessons because of Mark's experience. Helping me avoid potential pitfalls. He thinks of questions either to ask me, or my engineers, or the team, before they occur to me. I feel like in the first couple of years of my career that was incredibly valuable and fast-tracked me to where I am now.' One thing is certain, if Norris is to prevail this season, it is not going to be handed to him. Piastri may have grown up on the playing fields of one of England's top public schools, but he remains an Australian through and through. He is teak tough and like all Australian sportsmen, appears imbued with self-confidence. Before he goes, I ask him for his predictions for the upcoming British & Irish Lions Test series. 'I don't actually follow the rugby that closely,' he says. 'Where I grew up, AFL was king.' What about the Ashes this winter? 'Oh, that's a different matter,' he says, smiling. 'Hopefully, I'll get to a game. Australia are going through a bit of a tricky spell at the moment. But on home soil? I'd always back Australia.' On British soil this weekend, one suspects he will back himself just the same.
The Independent
04-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
After Labour's first year, Starmer could still learn from ‘one-term Attlee'
On the first anniversary of Keir Starmer's general election win, there will no doubt be much comment about what his government has achieved in its first year – and, more likely, where it has fallen short of expectations. The general feeling appears to be one of disappointment, with Starmer's net approval rating at a record low, after the first double-digit decline in public support since a general election since John Major's Conservative administration in the 1990s. Starmer's first year as prime minister has been characterised by a series of U-turns, following rebellion within his own ranks. But it is the following day, this Saturday, 5 July, that will mark a far more consequential anniversary: the general election of 1945, which – after a count lasting several weeks – made Clement Attlee the first Labour prime minister with a majority government. Eighty years on, it seems fitting to revisit that government – its style and achievements, as well as the qualities of Attlee – who was to lead the nation in succession to the great war leader, Winston Churchill. What, if anything, can Starmer and his team learn from that post-war administration? Although many people were surprised by Labour's success in July 1945, the writing had already been on the wall for Churchill's Tories. The monthly Gallup opinion poll which, while not scrutinised in the forensic way that polls are today, had consistently pointed to a strong Labour showing throughout the war years. And ideas of how to build a better post-war nation in areas such as health, welfare and education, dominated thinking and debate – not least among servicemen and women overseas. Attlee's Labour campaign offered a clear blueprint based on their manifesto, Let Us Face the Future, and the people voted for it. By contrast, in 2024, while nearly everyone expected Starmer's Labour Party to win last year, it was far less clear what Labour might be offering in government, except the rather nebulous concept of 'change'. Even before the election, Starmer had been criticised for abandoning many of the planks of the platform on which he won the party leadership. His government has, so far at least, struggled to articulate a clear vision and sense of direction. At times, Starmer, unlike Attlee, has even appeared to be blaming the system for the government's shortcomings, and using the allegation (also made by Tony Blair) that the supposed levers of power do not seem to be connected to anything. This is a poor substitute for looking to his ministers to roll up their sleeves, address the issues and deliver. The second factor in the success of the 1945 government was the quality of the team assembled and led by Attlee. The government front bench included many experienced political heavyweights with substantial ministerial experience gained during the wartime coalition – people like Ernest Bevin, the former trade union leader and wartime minister of Labour, who led the Foreign Office, and Herbert Morrison, who had been home secretary during the war. Attlee himself had been deputy prime minister to Churchill, with a wide-ranging brief. By contrast, Starmer, like Blair in 1997, arrived in No 10 with no ministerial experience whatsoever. And, of his cabinet, only three members – Hilary Benn, Yvette Cooper and Ed Miliband – have ever been full cabinet ministers before. But the most striking factor of the Attlee government was its output. From day one, the government was relentlessly focused on the demobilisation of over 3 million returning servicemen and women, and their reintegration into post war life in Britain. The economy became far more centralised, with the nationalisation of the Bank of England only seven months after the election, and later of the 'commanding heights of the economy'. There were also big changes through expanding the social role of government, by implementing the recommendations of the 1942 Beveridge Report and, most notably, through the creation of the National Health Service by the health secretary, Aneurin Bevan, three years after the election. Add to that the Festival of Britain – Morrison's brainchild – which brought a sense of energy and enthusiasm to the country after the dark days of the war. The government even finally achieved universal suffrage, with the abolition of the university vote, which had given some people at certain universities two votes rather than one. All in all, it was quite a record of domestic policy which, so far at least, does not look like being matched by the current government. Internationally, Attlee's administration helped shape the post-war world, too. From the Potsdam conference to the new economic framework based on the Bretton Woods agreement, to the oversight of the transition to independence for India in 1947 his government was at the forefront. And, in 1949, Nato was founded with Bevin heading UK negotiations. This, coupled with Attlee's determination to procure a UK nuclear capability, designed the nation's post-war defence framework, which is now under such strains. Starmer so far seems much more comfortable operating on the international front, where his legalistic approach and attention to detail have worked in his favour. But it is on the domestic front where he needs to up his game. None of the achievements of the 1945 government would have been possible without Attlee's leadership: quiet, undemonstrative, yet ruthlessly efficient and intolerant of poor performance. The phrase about not suffering fools gladly could have been made for him. He was determined to raise living standards and respond to the aspirations of everyone. He was committed to abolishing the poverty that he had witnessed in east London some 30 years previously. He strove to build a new world order so that, never again, would young men have to fight – as he had done in the First World War – or to defeat Nazism as the nation had just done in the Second World War. Attlee was the leader who made this happen. Why, then, with such a body of achievement delivered in only six years, was Attlee defeated in 1951? On one level, his government simply 'ran out of steam'. There was no new programme of work designed for the 1950s. Most of his ministers were exhausted – some were ill or dying. Ellen Wilkinson, his education minister, and Bevin, both died in office. Nevertheless, in the 1951 election, Labour achieved the highest percentage vote of any party in post-war history, with 48.8 per cent. However, the Conservatives, with a smaller 48.0 per cent of the vote, won more seats in the House of Commons and Churchill returned as prime minister. By way of contrast, last year Keir Starmer's Labour Party won only 33.7 per cent of the vote. Had someone asked Attlee in 1946 what had been his successes and failures of his first year – a question that Starmer has faced – the election-winner of 1945 might have struggled to choose from his many achievements during his first 12 months in office. He would certainly have been very unlikely to have said that his greatest failure had been 'not telling our story as well as we should'.
The National
04-07-2025
- Business
- The National
Labour created the welfare state. Are they now dismantling it?
The backdrop? The end of the Second World War. UK voters wanted an end to wartime austerity and certainly didn't want a return to the pre-war economic depression. In other words, they wanted change. Clement Attlee's Labour government, in essence, delivered it – inspired by a report by economist William Beveridge, which detailed a system of social insurance covering every citizen, regardless of income. It promised nothing less than a cradle-to-grave welfare state. This included, notably, the establishment of the NHS and a significant expansion of social security and education. READ MORE: Shetlanders raise £10k for Gaza charities through pop-up art exhibition The Beveridge Report was widely accepted at the time, including by the Tories. But it would be unfair to not give credit to the party for ushering in what are widely considered some of the most radical reforms in UK history. Fast forward almost 80 years to 2024 and we found UK voters also clamouring for change. This time, after 14 years of Tory austerity lay waste to public services. Labour, led by Keir Starmer, ran – quite literally, of course – on a platform for 'change'. The party's manifesto was marketed as 'quietly radical', as was Starmer, according to more than one Labour source of mine. But since the July 2024 General Election, the party founded by Keir Hardie has instead scrapped the Winter Fuel Payment for pensioners before then partially U-turning. It has so far remained steadfast on the move to refuse compensation for WASPI women. And then there's the Labour Government's welfare reforms benefit cuts. (Image: PA) The Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill was first announced in March, including measures to limit eligibility for Pip, the main disability benefit in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and freeze the health-related element of universal credit. The legislation passed its first hurdle on Tuesday, albeit not without a huge backbench rebellion which saw the changes to Pip stripped out pending a review. To note, Pip does not exist in Scotland as it has been replaced by the devolved Adult Disability Payment (ADP), administered by Social Security Scotland. So while changes around Pip will not impact on benefit claimants in Scotland directly, changes made south of the Border will hit Scotland financially due to the Barnett formula. The National spoke with Chris Renwick, a professor at the University of York who specialises in the history of the social sciences and the welfare state, and asked whether it would be accurate to say Labour – with moves such as the welfare cuts – are, in essence, dismantling the welfare state. 'I think it's complicated because I think that when you talk about dismantling stuff, I don't think that Labour is ideologically committed to the idea that the state shouldn't be doing those things,' he said. 'They're not like the Thatcher government in the 1980s. And if you were to talk to Labour MPs about it, I'm sure they would tell you that they didn't get into politics to do this kind of thing. I don't think that they're interested in deliberately dismantling things. 'I just don't think that they have a coherent governing philosophy that says what it is that they should be doing and all they all they've got as a response is to try and trim at the edges of things.' Renwich added, speaking before Tuesday's vote on the welfare bill: 'Now you might, you might argue that the effect, should they actually go through with it, would be the same. 'But I don't think they're actually actively looking to kind of stop the state from doing things. 'It's just that they don't, they don't seem to have any kind of coherent idea about what the state should be doing.' READ MORE: How Scotland's black cabs are fighting back against megacorp Uber He went on: 'I think what's very obviously the problem with Labour at the moment is that they do not have a theory or philosophy. There seems to be no explanation of what it is that they're trying to do. 'Take the example of the cuts to disability [payments]. I mean, what is it they're trying to do? That seems to be a good example of the difference between a cut and a reform. "Because you can't look at some of those underlying figures that are associated with sickness-related benefits and not think, well actually there kind of seems to be a problem here when you look at the comparison between claimant figures in the UK and broadly comparable nations. But the response being just to say, well, the answer is that we just need to cut the amount of money available, it's not really a serious response to it for a variety of reasons.' Renwick added: 'One of which is that they're only doing it to save money. They're not doing it as a kind of a reform because they don't seem to have any explanation of what they should be doing instead. 'And you don't need to spend too long looking at what it is that they're trying to do and what the possible consequences are just to realise how hugely problematic it is.' Regardless, it's a series of stark decisions that will impact some of the UK's most vulnerable. (Image: Carolynne Hunter/PA) For Marylynne Hunter and her daughter Freya (above) – who has severe complex health problems and disabilities, is non-verbal and blind and requires full-time oxygen and at-home nursing care – it's a rollback of the welfare state which flies fully in the face of what the former Labour Party stood for. The prominent disability campaigner, who resigned from the Labour Party over the plans last March, said the Universal Credit freeze will 'absolutely affect my daughter' as well as other children. 'A young adult like Freya, who can't access life outside, she can't go to college, she can't go anywhere,' Hunter said. 'That money is essential for her.' Hunter told The National that she feels as though Labour are betraying their core values. 'I agree with the original values of the Labour Party, where if you weren't able to work, due to illness or whatever, then you were supported in a dignified way. 'Those are the core fundamentals of the Labour Party, to support people and distribute wealth between people who are wealthy to support people who are not quite as wealthy and are vulnerable. 'Throughout the years, obviously there's been a lot of other governments – including Conservative governments that have stripped things away, but you wouldn't ever have expected it [from Labour]. 'And that's why I left.'
The Guardian
02-07-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
In 1948 a Labour government founded the NHS. My job now is to make it fit for the future
There are moments in our national story when our choices define who we are. In 1948, Clement Attlee's government made a choice founded on fairness: that everyone in our country deserves to receive the care they need, not the care they can afford. That the National Health Service was created amid the rubble and ruin of the aftermath of war makes that choice all the more remarkable. It enshrined in law and in the service itself our collective conviction that healthcare is not a privilege to be bought and sold, but a right to be cherished and protected. Now it falls to our generation to make the same choice. There have always been those who have whispered that the NHS is a burden, too expensive, inferior to the market. Today, those voices grow louder, determined to use the crisis in the NHS as an opportunity to dismantle it. This government rejects the pessimistic view that universal healthcare could be afforded in the 20th century but not in the 21st. So does the public. But unless the NHS changes, the argument that it is unsustainable will grow more compelling. It really is change or bust. We choose change. Today, the prime minister will launch our 10-year plan for health, to radically reimagine healthcare. More care will be available on your doorstep and from your own home, with thousands more GPs. Services and resources will be moved out of hospitals and into the community. New neighbourhood health centres[?] will house doctors, nurses, physios, therapists, tests, scans and urgent care under one roof, built around patients' convenience. AI technology will liberate frontline staff from the drudgery of admin, giving them time to care. Saving just 90 seconds of data entry and note-taking per appointment would be the equivalent of hiring an extra 2,000 GPs. For patients, tech will make booking appointments and managing your care as easy as doing your shopping online. By treating and caring for patients closer to home, we will reach patients earlier, to catch illness before it worsens, and prevent it in the first place. Our plan brings together a coalition of the willing on public health, working with supermarkets to make the healthy choice the easy choice and pharmaceutical companies to secure obesity jabs for NHS patients. The plan is backed by an extra £29bn investment to fund the reforms, better services and new technology. I am sometimes told that NHS staff are resistant to change. In my experience, they're crying out for it. They have suffered the moral injury of turning up to work, slogging their guts out, only to leave at the end of the day feeling exhausted and demoralised by the conditions that patients are being treated in because of circumstances beyond their control. I spoke to a nurse in a community clinic who told me she spends more time filling out forms than seeing patients. That's not why she joined the NHS. We need to free up our staff to do what they do best – care. They're the ones driving innovation on the frontline, and their fingerprints are all over this plan. To succeed, we need to defeat the cynicism that says that 'nothing ever changes'. We know the change in our plan is possible because it is already happening. We have toured the country and scouted the world for the best examples of innovation and reform. If Australia can effectively serve communities living in the remote outback, we can meet the needs of people living in rural and coastal England. If community health teams can go door to door to prevent ill health in Brazil, we can do the same in Bradford. We know we can build the 'neighbourhood health service', because teams in Cornwall, Camden and Northumberland are already showing us how. Since July, we've already begun to turn the tide. We promised to deliver 2m extra elective appointments in our first year – we've delivered 4m and counting. Through our plan for change, we've taken almost a quarter of a million cases off the waiting list. The science is on our side. The revolution in genomics, AI, machine learning and big data offers a golden opportunity to deliver better care for all patients and better value for taxpayers. We will take it, marrying the ingenuity of our country's leading scientists with the care and compassion of the health service. Above all else, we will give power to the patient. In an age of next-day deliveries, an NHS that forces you to wait on the phone at 8am to book an appointment feels ridiculously outdated. Patients don't just want a service from the NHS, we want a say. We don't want the same as everyone else; we want care that meets our individual needs. Equality does not mean uniformity, it means that every person receives the right care for them. This plan will give people real choices, faster responses and a say in how their care is delivered and where. It will fulfil Nye Bevan's commitment in 1948 that the NHS would put a 'megaphone in the mouth' of every patient, and make sure that the advantages enjoyed by the privileged few were available to all. We know the British people are counting on us to make sure that the NHS not only survives, but thrives. We are determined not to let them down. That's the plan – now it falls to us and the 1.5 million people working in the NHS to deliver it. It won't be easy, but nothing could be more worthwhile. If we succeed, we will be able to say with pride, echoed through the remaining decades of this century, that we were the generation that built an NHS fit for the future and a fairer Britain, where everyone lives well for longer. Wes Streeting is secretary of state for health and social care
