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The Guardian
21 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Critics say Starmer is no Attlee – and they're right. Labour must look to the future, not the past
We raised a glass last Saturday evening, the four of us, to toast the 80th anniversary of the 1945 Labour government. None was old enough to remember the event itself, but three of us were born while Clem Attlee was prime minister. In a funny way, I still take a kind of childish pride from that inheritance, as if a piece of that distant era somehow transferred itself by osmosis into my DNA. A photograph of Attlee in old age, taken and given to me by the late Sally Soames, is a treasured possession too. Our little group was certainly not alone this summer in marking Attlee's anniversary. There have been TV documentaries and, most substantially, David Runciman's fascinating Postwar series on BBC Radio 4. All of these start – and Runciman's series also ends – with the same enduringly astounding fact about Britain in 1945. Weeks after Winston Churchill had led the country to victory in the war in Europe, the voters rejected him by a landslide in favour of Attlee's Labour. Yet Labour's triumph was led by the least triumphalist or bombastic of men. Eighty years ago, on 26 July 1945, the Daily Mail, bullying and wrong as always, warned Labour to accept its expected defeat 'like men, and not like spoilt children'. That evening, driven there by his wife in the family car, Attlee went to Buckingham Palace to become prime minister. Peter Hennessy records that Attlee's audience with the equally self-effacing George VI began with a long silence. Eventually, Attlee broke it by announcing: 'I've won the election.' To which the king replied: 'I know. I heard it on the six o'clock news.' Eighty years on, Labour's win, with its Commons majority of 146, remains a dumbfounding event. Although it does not cancel out Churchill's wartime greatness, it places his reputation in a wider context. Labour's victory ushered in a postwar reordering of Britain and of its role in the world, embodied by Indian independence in 1947, the creation of the National Health Service a year later, and by the creation of Nato in 1949. And all this was overseen by a leader who was, in almost every aspect of his character, Churchill's antithesis. So far, so fairly familiar. Yet if Conservative Britain's foundation myth was born in 1940, when the country stood alone under Churchill, modern Labour still sees its own finest hour in the 'never again' mood that carried Attlee into office in 1945. Attlee knew what he wanted from his government – a comprehensive postwar welfare state in the wake of the Beveridge report – and he appointed some seriously stroppy big beasts as ministers to achieve it. He made a team out of his rivals. His stock has only grown with the years. Just as Conservative leaders invoke Churchill and then Margaret Thatcher, Labour leaders of every stripe must still claim their inspiration from Attlee. No other Labour politician except Aneurin Bevan comes even close. All are measured against Attlee, not least Keir Starmer, another self-effacing Labour leader who seems good in a crisis and in whom admirers perceive hidden depths that are rarely shared with the public. Even so, the comparison between the Attlee and Starmer eras is misleading and unhistorical. Steam-age Britain of 1945 and digital Britain of 2025 are different worlds. Unlike Starmer's voters in 2024, Attlee's were just emerging from a life-and-death war to which all else was subordinated. Defence spending was nearly 18% of GNP. Even at the end of 1946, almost 1.5 million people remained in uniform, policing an empire that held back an economy stretched to breaking point, and now dependent on US aid. But that is not the Britain we inhabit today. There are, of course, echoes of Attlee's agenda in Starmer's. But they reflect radically changed times. Palestine is the latest of these. In 1945, Britain was the administrative power in Palestine, with 100,000 UK troops policing an increasingly violent conflict between Arabs and Jews, the latter increasingly post-Holocaust refugees. The issues divided the Middle East itself, as well as the Labour party and the alliance between Britain and the US, which favoured a scale of Jewish emigration that Attlee opposed. Attlee was not an imperialist, and he often favoured self-determination. But his hand was forced, especially after the winter of 1947, by the brute fact that Britain could not afford its empire, not only in Palestine but in India and elsewhere. Attlee dumped the Palestine issue on the United Nations and pulled Britain out of India as fast as he could. Many died as a result. The US, on which Britain was economically and militarily dependent, became the chief western power in the Middle East. Eighty years on, Starmer's difficult hand of cards on Palestine is still the one that Attlee dealt him. It is hard not to warm to Attlee's terseness, which at times could be devastating. 'Not up to the job,' he replied when a junior minister asked why he was being reshuffled. 'Thank you for your letter, contents of which have been noted,' he replied to the Labour grandee who urged a change of leader before 1945. Modern politicians, Starmer included, feel they must be at the media's beck and call, while simultaneously avoiding saying anything of substance. Attlee felt no such need. 'Is there anything else you'd like to say about the coming election?' inquired an interviewer at the start of the 1951 campaign. 'No,' was Attlee's reply. Wonderful. Who would dare do that today? No one. This is a different world. A prime minister with Attlee's no-nonsense briskness is as inconceivable as one with Churchill's alcohol consumption. Attlee was a great Labour leader, yet he concealed Britain's secret postwar nuclear programme from his cabinet, and the landslide of 1945 was followed by the collapse of 1950 and defeat the following year. Few now argue that the humbling of 1951 would have been averted by more socialist policies. It was simply an impossibly difficult time, in which Attlee grasped, as his biographer John Bew puts it, that 'from the moment that Labour accepted the responsibility for governance, it could not afford to think in terms of utopias'. Don't romanticise Attlee. He does not need that. In any case, it is a mistake to judge today's politicians by speculations about how those from earlier generations might have behaved if they were operating in today's different conditions. That's a mug's game. It is as unhistorical in its way as attempts to wag your finger too relentlessly at the past for its inevitable failings. The case for Attlee in his own time is clear. That for Starmer, in his different time, remains in the balance. They are onboard recognisably similar boats, but they are not and cannot ever be borne by the selfsame river. Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
IOL News
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- IOL News
A hub of entertainment on the beach
The old picture this week features the Durban Pavilion at the bottom of Old Fort Road, Dr KE Masinga Road today. The fanciful structure burnt down in the late 1930s and was never rebuilt. It was built as Durban's beaches were being developed and the nascent Golden Mile was taking shape. The earliest hotels were built in 1906. It became a hub of entertainment on Durban's beachfront and used for a number of dances and balls, concerts and shows. It was also the scene of a grand fancy dress ball in March 1934 when His Royal Highness Prince George (later George VI) visited the city, as advertised in a commemorative booklet printed for the occasion. It was likely built in the early 20th century, around the same time as the Pavilion Hotel, which still stands across the road. It also became the centre associated with the Sunken Gardens, a recreation area designed by William Murray-Jones in 1931. Behind the Pavilion is Grosvenor Court, which was built in 1936 and designed by architect Arthur Stanley Furner. The tower block was added onto the back of the block in the 1960s. Today the Elangeni and Maharani Hotel stands proud on North Beach behind Grosvenor Court. After it burnt down, the Moth Women's Association used the old tea room from the Pavilion to accommodate servicemen who were stationed in Durban during World War II. A pamphlet for servicemen advertises a Stand Easy Club at the Pavilion Tea Room on the corner of Old Fort Road and Marine Parade, presumably the same building. It is not sure when those out buildings were demolished, but today the site of the original Pavilion is a car park and open parkland.
Ottawa Citizen
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Ottawa Citizen
Milnes: King's impact on Ottawa inescapable, even 75 years after his death
Article content Through the next half-century, King set out to improve his adopted city. 'We may not come to have the largest, the wealthiest or the most cosmopolitan capital in the world, but I believe that with Ottawa's natural and picturesque setting, given stately proportions, and a little careful planning, we can have the most beautiful capital in the world,' he told the Commons in the 1920s. Article content He added that his aim was 'the development and beautification of Ottawa as the capital of this great Dominion, something that will give some expression of all that is highest in the idealism of the nation and something which those from beyond our gates and those who may follow in future years will come to recognize as an expression in some degree of the soul of Canada today.' Article content Article content He was particularly proud of his work creating Confederation Square and its centrepiece, the National War Memorial, the latter unveiled by King George VI in 1939. 'The moment I saw the monument at the head of Elgin St. — on an elevation, which could be seen from the new Knox Church, and facing down the grand avenue, I at once saw that I had my Champs Élysées, Arc de Triomphe and Place de la Concorde all at a single stroke. As I pointed out to (architect Jacques) Gréber, it made a magnificent approach to the Parliament buildings.' Article content Article content King established the Federal District Commission, the precursor to today's National Capital Commission, and his work beautifying Ottawa continued to the very end of his life. Article content It is fitting then, that King passed into history at Kingsmere. The late prime minister's refuge, with its beauty and mystery preserved forever, is maintained by the NCC, and enjoyed by thousands of visitors annually. It stands in perpetuity as one of the great monuments to both King and the capital region that he cared so deeply about.
News18
18-07-2025
- Politics
- News18
GK: What Was The 1947 British Law That Declared India's Independence?
On 18 July 1947, the British Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act, setting the stage for India's freedom. On this day, 18 July 1947, history turned a decisive page. With the passage of the Indian Independence Act in the British Parliament, the legal foundation was laid for the end of colonial rule in India. The legislation, approved by then-British monarch King George VI, marked a watershed moment in the subcontinent's political history. With this Act, the stage was set for the creation of two sovereign nations — India and Pakistan — which officially came into being less than a month later, on 15 August 1947. A Landmark Decision In Parliament The Indian Independence Act was a direct outcome of the Mountbatten Plan, proposed on 3 June 1947. It was introduced in the British Parliament on 4 July and received royal assent just 14 days later, highlighting the urgency and significance the British government accorded to Indian self-rule. The Act proposed the partition of British India into two dominions — India and Pakistan — and granted them the power to frame their own constitutions. It also nullified the authority of the British Parliament over Indian laws, ending imperial legislative control. Importantly, the Act gave Indian princely states the freedom to choose whether they wished to accede to India, Pakistan, or remain independent. The legislation fixed 15 August 1947 as the date for full independence, ushering in a new era. Lord Mountbatten was appointed the first Governor-General of independent India, and Jawaharlal Nehru took charge as the country's first Prime Minister. The end of the Second World War had significantly weakened Britain, both economically and militarily. At the same time, India's independence movement, led by towering figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, and Sardar Patel, had reached its peak. The growing unrest and united demand for freedom became impossible for the British to ignore. A lack of consensus between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League over the future governance structure led to the proposal for partition. On 14 June 1947, the Congress Working Committee approved the Mountbatten Plan, effectively clearing the path for the historic law. Other Major Events On 18 July In History While 18 July 1947 remains central to India's journey to freedom, the date has witnessed several other notable global milestones: 1857: Establishment of the University of Bombay (now the University of Mumbai), one of India's oldest higher education institutions. 1918: Birth of Nelson Mandela, South Africa's anti-apartheid hero and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. 1955: For the first time in history, electricity generated from nuclear energy was sold commercially — a major leap in scientific and technological progress. As the nation reflects on 18 July, it remembers not just the passing of a law but the culmination of decades of struggle, sacrifice, and unyielding hope. The Indian Independence Act remains a powerful reminder of a hard-won freedom achieved through unity, resilience, and the dreams of millions. First Published: Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Daily Mirror
08-07-2025
- General
- Daily Mirror
'Keep an eye out' for rare penny coin worth £70
An expert explained exactly how to spot this coin, which is worth far more than its face value. Brits have been advised to 'keep an eye out' for a penny coin from a specific date. In good condition, this rare piece could be worth up to £70 to collectors. Speaking on social media platform TikTok, an expert known online as the Coin Collecting Wizard alerted his followers to a highly sought-after coin that could be sitting at home. While this coin is no longer in circulation as it pre-dates decimalisation, it could be stashed away in an attic or old coin jar. He created the video in response to someone asking if their 1967 penny coin was valuable. To this the expert said: 'There are many UK pre-decimal pennies that do hold value depending on the date, but unfortunately the 1967 penny isn't one of them. 'Let's look at one that is rare.' He continued: 'The 1950 is a rare penny to look for. 'A very low minted penny. In 1950 they only made 240,000 coins. That means for £1,000 you could have bought all the 1950 pennies they ever made.' He shared more about the unusual history of the coin. 'Until very recently, numismatists have always thought that all the 1950 pennies were shipped to Bermuda for use after World War II,' he said. 'Now we know that this information is wrong. They were also sent to the Bahamas in the West Indies. 'Now these coins were actually used in circulation because after the war there was a great shortage of small change.' He added that these could be worth up to £70. He said: 'So to find a 1950 UK pre-decimal penny today, you are looking at between 30 and 70 pounds depending on condition. So keep an eye out for '1950'.' Experts at Coincraft explained more. 'The 1950 penny was issued during the reign of King George VI, this bronze penny showcases a design by Thomas Humphrey Paget,' they said. 'The obverse features a left-facing portrait of the king with the inscription. On the reverse, the iconic image of Britannia, seated and holding a trident and shield, symbolising Britain's naval power and strength. 'The 1950 penny was shipped to the Caribbean, along with other denominations of British coins. During the mid-20th century, British currency was widely used in many Caribbean territories, reflecting the colonial ties between Britain and the region. Coins such as the 1950 penny would have circulated in places like Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados, where they were used in everyday transactions.' At the time of reporting, examples of the coin could be found listed on eBay for £34 and above.
