The invisible man

Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds’s study of Clement Attlee is a specimen of that now relatively rare but still far from endangered species, the ‘political’ biography.

Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds’s study of Clement Attlee is a specimen of that now relatively rare but still far from endangered species, the ‘political’ biography. It pays scant attention to anything except Attlee’s political career, and rigorously eschews any prying into whatever dark corners there may have been in his private life. Some may think that no politician’s career can fully be understood unless it is viewed in the context of what was going on in his domestic setting. Usually this is a point of view I would defend. In the case of Attlee, however, it must be admitted that there almost certainly were no dark corners to explore. So little that was even faintly surprising seems to have been going on in the Attlee home that the reader loses nothing by its neglect.