Biography

Strongly supported appeasement from 1935 to 1938, when he reversed his position and became a vocal critic of the Munich Agreement. The Labour Party strongly opposed the rearmament program. Attlee said on 21 December 1933, "For our part, we are unalterably opposed to anything in the nature of rearmament". On 8 March 1934, Attlee said, after Stanley Baldwin defended the Air Estimates, "we on our side are out for total disarmament". On 30 July 1934, Labour moved a motion of censure against the government because of its planned expansion of the RAF. Attlee spoke for it, "We deny the need for increased air arms ... and we reject altogether the claim of parity". Stafford Cripps also said on that occasion that it was fallacy that Britain could achieve security through increasing air armaments. On 22 May 1935, the day after Hitler had made a Reichstag speech claiming that German rearmament offered no threat to peace, Attlee asserted that Hitler's speech gave "a chance to call a halt in the armaments race". Attlee also denounced the Defence White Paper of 1937: "I do not believe the Government are going to get any safety through these armaments".

His party received more votes than the Conservatives in the 1951 General Election, but lost seats due to the collapse of the Liberal vote.

Used 13,000 troops to end the London dock strike in 1949.

Pictured on one of a set of eight British commemorative postage stamps honoring Prime Ministers, issued 14 October 2014. Other prime ministers featured in the set were William Pitt the Younger, Charles Grey, Robert Peel, William Gladstone, Winston Churchill, Harold Wilson, and Margaret Thatcher. Price of the Churchill, Attlee, Wilson, and Thatcher stamps on day of issue was 97p each.

He believed Anthony Eden had been forced into taking a strong stand on the Suez Crisis by his backbenchers.