Professor Roy Foster at the SOA Annual Awards ceremony, introducing the Winner of the 2017 Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography, John Bew for Citizen Clem: A Biography of Attlee (riverrun/Quercus).

When news of the Winner was formally announced earlier this year in April, Roy Foster, Chair of the judges 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.’