“John Bew has been awarded the 2017 Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography for his book Citizen Clem: A Biography of Attlee (riverrun/Quercus).

Bew won the £5,000 prize for his book, which profiles the British politican Clement Attlee.

Roy Foster, chair of judges, praised Bew the book as “psychologically astute and full of unexpected political insights”.

Foster said: “John Bew’s life of Attlee restores to attention an underestimated figure, masterfully conveying his intellectual formation as well as the social background which he represented, often with surprising forcefulness. Psychologically astute and full of unexpected political insights, Bew’s biography profiles both the world of middle-class socialism in the twentieth century, and its late-Victorian roots. The judges were unanimous in applauding it.”

Joining Foster on the judging panel were historians Richard Davenport-Hines and Munro Price, and authors Antonia Fraser and Flora Fraser.”