Nick Thomas-Symonds: Labour leadership should look to Attlee for inspiration

To deal with the impact of a financial crisis, the Government was imposing a harsh economic policy, targeting what it perceived to be an overspend in welfare by stringent means-testing. Having achieved less than 40 per cent of the vote, the Labour Party needed to reconnect with the electorate.

The new Labour leader, who is due to be elected on September 25, will face similar challenges.

That Attlee could be a modern-day role model is on one level

surprising. That central feature of modern-day political discourse, the 24-hour media, would have been anathema to him. When Prime Minister, from 1945-51, the presentation of policy to the Press was not a concern. His Press Secretary Francis Williams had to persuade him to have Press Association tapes updating him with news from 10 Downing Street.

Yet, building on Labour's paltry 1935 total of 154 seats, Attlee won a landslide election victory in 1945 and proceeded to remain as party leader for 20 years, a longer period than any leader of a major political party in 20th century Britain.

University academics have rated him above Churchill as the 20th century's greatest Prime Minister. At home, the Government undertook widespread nationalisation, created the welfare state and the National Health Service, and abroad it decolonised swathes of the British Empire including India, cementing Britain's post-war relationship with the United States.

While the ambitions of the five candidates vying for the Labour leadership may be more modest, the Government's ability to fulfil manifesto promises quickly was exemplary.

Attlee viewed this as a triumph for teamwork, with a personnel policy based on nothing more than common sense. He saw his own role as finding agreement with the minimum fuss: "The essential quality of a PM is that he should be a good chairman able to get others to work... the decision that he must take is not that a certain course should be followed but that a decision must be come to."

Attlee allowed debate but always with a purpose: "Democracy means government by discussion but it is only effective if you can stop people talking." Once that decision was reached, he saw his role as speaking for the agreed line.

Attlee did not over-burden his colleagues with advice. As James Callaghan recorded in his biography on being appointed a Parliamentary Secretary, Attlee simply told him: "Remember you're playing for the

first eleven now not the second eleven. If you're going to negotiate with someone tomorrow, don't insult him today."

Perhaps that was a lesson that Messrs Cameron and Clegg should have borne in mind some months ago.

Attlee expected his colleagues to get on with the jobs with which they were tasked without interference. He was able to do this successfully because of the abilities of colleagues around him: his Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, Health Secretary Aneurin Bevan, his deputy in all but name Herbert Morrison and his Chancellors Hugh Dalton, Stafford Cripps and Hugh Gaitskell.

Of course, surrounding yourself with people of great talent ostensibly comes at a cost because of their potential threat to your own position, but as President Barack Obama has recently shown, drawing heavily on the strategy of governmental appointment used by President Abraham Lincoln nearly 150 years before, a strong "team of rivals" can achieve great things.

Attlee's experience showed that having a number of competing rivals buttresses the position of the leader. Had Attlee's colleagues, notably Ernest Bevin and Herbert Morrison, ever agreed on one potential alternative to Attlee, his leadership would not have lasted.

Of course, Attlee had to manage the rivalries carefully. When Bevin was told that Aneurin Bevan was his own worst enemy, he was said to have replied: "Not while I'm alive he ain't." But for most of the time that he was Prime Minister, Attlee kept his colleagues pulling in the same direction.

This is not to say that Attlee did not depart from his central idea of chairmanship. He was happy to take on a greater responsibility in certain chosen policy areas, including independence for India. He also demanded a high standard of performance from his colleagues.

In 1948, he circulated a memorandum to all his Ministers about the delivery of their speeches in the House of Commons imploring them not to simply read them out. He could be ruthless if a member of the team did not come up to standard.

One of his Parliamentary Private Secretaries, Arthur Moyle, remembered one Minister being told by Attlee that he ought to resign; when asked why he should, Attlee replied: "Nothing, lad, except that you don't measure up to the job."

He never wasted time. Moyle also remembered a colleague who visited Attlee and "let loose a veritable Niagara of words". Attlee listened patiently and simply replied: "How is your Aunt?"

While political life has changed dramatically in the 75 years since Attlee's election as Labour leader, the central purpose of politics, the improvement of the lives of people, is unchanged.

Attlee had more impact on people's lives than any other 20th century Prime Minister. The success of his leadership was not ultimately measured in the number of favourable short-term headlines but in constructive achievements.

His brisk, laconic chairmanship brought the best out of great men. With no disrespect intended to Labour's present leadership candidates, it is perhaps not management consultants to whom the new leader should turn for advice, but the political life of Clement Attlee.

n Attlee: A Life in Politics, by Nick Thomas-Symonds, is published by IB Tauris & Co, 25. To order a copy from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop, call free on 0800 0153232 or go online at www.yorkshirepost bookshop.co.uk. P&P is 2.75.

Nick Thomas-Symonds is the author of Attlee: A Life in Politics, published by IB Tauris & Co, price 25.