It is impossible to read Citizen Clem, John Bew’s superb new biography of Labour’s most beloved leader, without drawing contrasts to the present plight of Clement Attlee’s party. The prologue offers a fascinating exploration of Attlee’s place in present political discourse, from Ken Loach’s Spirit of ’45 – which, Bew notes, somehow manages to tell the story of the 1945 government without reference to Attlee’s foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, or the $3bn of American Marshall Aid which financed the building of the welfare state – to Jon Cruddas’ 2011 Attlee memorial lecture. At times, the book – or perhaps Attlee’s politics speaks for itself – reads as an extended rebuttal to more abstract, less practical manifestations of British socialism.

Bew sets out to rebut two misconceptions about his subject: that Attlee was a mere passenger to events, and that he lacked intellectual substance. One of the great strengths of the book is that he takes extremely seriously the task of understanding the ideas of a figure who was not necessarily seen as an intellectual heavyweight. This is achieved especially effectively through reconstructing his intellectual hinterland. Early chapters open opened with a discussion of prominent books which influenced Attlee’s political development: William Morris’ News From Nowhere, Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, and more. As such, Bew’s book also serves as a fine introduction to the rich intellectual traditions that have informed the party since its inception. As the Manchester Guardian observed, Attlee embodied the fact that, ‘when other nations were listening to Marx, we were paying more heed to Ruskin and Morris.’

However, Bew is clear that Attlee’s convictions were never solely the stuff of books. Rather, they were born of first-hand experience – of working amid the extreme poverty of Limehouse in the first decades of the 20^th century, and of wartime service. As Bew writes, ‘by embedding himself in the East End, there was no danger of Attlee succumbing to Fabian aloofness.’ With this sense of purpose and appreciation of the immense stakes, in war and peace, Attlee’s was a deeply practical sort of idealism, and he was critical of politics that was abstract or utopian, whether in the form of Fabianism or ethical socialism.

If there are lessons to be learned from Attlee’s government, we are told, it is in terms of ethos, rather than the legislative programme – some of it resoundingly successful, and some not – that was rooted in a specific moment in history. The ethos that emerges is distinctly ‘Blue’ in character. There were two ‘foundation stones’ to Attlee’s politics: a powerful sense of citizenship, based upon the interchange of rights and duties, and a patriotism, emphasising common moral endeavour. This added up to an ‘unobtrusive political patriotism – built on a sense of rights and duties, a malleable code rather than a legal writ, with its emphasis on the “common wealth” above individual fulfilment.’

It is this sense that politics was about patriotic duty and mutual responsibility that makes Attlee a heroic figure in Bew’s narrative. For Attlee, patriotism and socialism were inextricable. To separate the national interest and the interest of the working class was inconceivable, and so Attlee threw all his weight behind Winston Churchill’s premiership during the war. As he told Bevin in 1945, ‘in serving the country, you have also served our movement.’ Attlee’s steadfastness is contrasted to that champion of the left, Aneurin Bevan, berating Attlee from the sidelines for not seizing the opportunities presented by the crisis to undermine his Conservative rivals and hasten the arrival of socialism. By July 1945, Attlee was vindicated, and Bevan a beneficiary at the Department of Health.

What emerges powerfully is the almost unimaginable challenges that Attlee faced as Labour leader and as prime minister, whether confronting Nazism, Stalinism, or the burden of war debt and a convertibility crisis. Throughout, he had to contend not only with the machinations of colleagues who were convinced they could do a superior job, but also leftwingers impatient for the hastened arrival of socialism, even in the midst of wartime coalition or faced with economic crisis. But as Attlee remarked years after his premiership ended, ‘the critics could shout. We had to run things.’

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Nick Garland is a member of Progress. He tweets @npjgarland