by Dan Baird

Never Again by Peter Hennessy – historian, political journalist and Tablet columnist – published by Penguin (2000), is an impressive study of Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour governments (1945-51).

Supported by millions of voters anxious to avoid a return to the conditions of the 1930s – (‘Never again!’) – Labour achieved its large 1945 majority. In government, it faced the economic cost of the War, huge social problems, Europe in ruins, the start of the Cold War and pressure for colonial independence.