Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Attlee and Churchill by Leo McKinstry
Revealing account of two politicians who were allies in war and adversaries in peace
ORGANISED: Clement Attlee [Pic: Howard Coster]

THIS fascinating study of Clement Attlee and Winston Churchill focuses on how their lives became intertwined almost from the very beginning, leading to a great linkage during the second world war and separate, but still in many ways parallel, lives thereafter.

Author Leo McKinstry has certainly done his homework in discovering those parallels. In 1911, Churchill had one of his periodic rushes of blood to the head when, as Home Secretary, he personally supervised the “Siege of Sydney Street” in east London.

At the same time Attlee, working at a charitable organisation where his experiences saw him move from his early conservatism to socialism, wandered by as the Sydney Street drama reached its climax, a gunfight between two Latvian revolutionaries and the police and army.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
How Greek International Brigaders forged a lifelong anti-fascist legacy
Features / 4 December 2025
4 December 2025

Barred from returning home, a group of Greek Brigaders came to Britain and founded the League for Democracy in Greece – a movement that carried the flame of anti-fascist resistance from the 1930s through the cold war and beyond. ALI BASSAM ZAHID tells the story

PROTEST PIONEERS: The assault of the Chartists on the Westgate Hotel, where some of their comrades were held prisoner, Newport, 1839
Features / 24 October 2025
24 October 2025

It’s not just the Starmer regime: the workers of Britain have always faced legal affronts on their right to assemble and dissent, and the Labour Party especially has meddled with our freedoms from its earliest days, writes KEITH FLETT

ALEXANDER FOOTE
Features / 24 September 2025
24 September 2025

TONY FOX invites readers to come and hear the story of the remarkable Liverpudlian International Brigader Alexander Foote

Prime Minister Clement Attlee addresses the West Lewisham Labour Party meeting in Forest Hill, London, January 26, 1951
Features / 19 July 2025
19 July 2025

The summer of 1950 saw Labour abandon further nationalisation while escalating Korean War spending from £2.3m to £4.7m, as the government meekly accepted capitalism’s licence and became Washington’s yes-man, writes JOHN ELLISON