Clement Attlee and Cabinet Reform, 1930–1945

Abstract

Clement Attlee was significantly involved in the changing cabinet patterns of this century. Although much has been written about Attlee's activities while prime minister, his deep interest and personal involvement in cabinet reform during the preceding fifteen years have been neglected and misunderstood. This omission is remarkable considering the present interest in the respective roles of the prime minister and cabinet in the governance of Britain. This paper will explore Attlee's views and activities pertaining to the cabinet from I930 to I945, for such study will aid in the understanding of cabinet development, of Attlee's administrations, of Attlee's concept of socialism, and of Attlee himself. Much recent writing about major twentieth-century politicians and governments has focused on the prime minister-cabinet relationship. Significant analytical works include those of MrJohn P. Mackintosh, Dr G. W.Jones, Sir Norman Chester, Lord Gordon-Walker, and R. H. S. Crossman. A wealth of material to fuel this debate is becoming available through the voluminous published memoirs and diaries of major politicians, and the issue has been deliberately addressed by Crossman in his Diaries and Sir Harold Wilson in The governance of Britain.' Although the controversy involves many nuances, the debate centres on the most valid description of British government: prime ministerial government, cabinet government, or government for which the prime minister set the tone (unfortunately, no succinct or acceptable label yet exists for the third category). While this essay will not enter directly into that controversy or use it to analyse Attlee's premiership, it will explain Attlee's consistent and urgent advocacy of an effective cabinet system properly managed by appropriate prime ministerial leadership. Attlee's view would apparently be a merging of the second and third categories, and it will be presented from that perspective in this essay. The pattern of British cabinet practices is not static. The cabinet is a gradually