Attlee brought experience of life at all levels to job of PM

From: David Horncastle, Birkdale Close, Bessacarr, Doncaster.

With regard to the credentials of Clement Attlee as a candidate for the most notable Prime Minister of the 20th century, I think it is worth noting that, although he came from a middle class background, he was privately educated, graduated from Oxford University and was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1906. He subsequently worked for the next three years as manager of Haileybury House, a charitable club for boys in the East End of London run by his old school. It was this first hand experience of working with what were referred to as “slum” children which converted him to socialism.

Following this, Attlee spent a year touring the countryside on a bicycle acting as one of the Government’s official explainers of Lloyd George’s National Insurance Act. His subsequent war service with the South Lancashire Regiment in Gallipoli (where he was hospitalised with dysentery) and Mesopotamia (where he was badly wounded) and concluding in France on the Western Front, speaks for itself.

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During World War II Attlee gave unstinting support to Winston Churchill’s coalition government, before winning a majority for Labour in the 1945 election. Clearly, Attlee had experience of life in a way that makes modern politicians look singularly ill-equipped.

From: Richard Billups, East Avenue, Rawmarsh.

WITH regard to William Snowden’s letter (The Yorkshire Post, October 28) in praise of Margaret Thatcher, I wonder if he used the same candle to write and mark his papers that his dad used in his miner’s hat to see the coal face with.

Also, I wonder if Mr Snowden realises that his dad, along with millions of other working class people, provided the wealth to build millions of social houses.

It is the same housing Thatcher gave away because she thought people would vote for her. This is the same Thatcher who also told councils they could not build houses to replace the ones sold. This brain-dead scheme is with us today – it is called a housing shortage.

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Mr Snowden, if you want Mrs Thatcher to be worshipped as you worship her, the best thing to do is go to the Tory Party Conference, because they are the people who did us a favour and got rid of her.

As “for the enemy within” she got that wrong. It wasn’t the trade unions, it was the bankers. It is now seven years since the money-grabbers brought this country to its knees.